Chapter Four
Edward
My entire marriage has been a lie.
Of the cacophony of thoughts in my mind, it was that one which was the loudest and most resounding.
Quite possibly the worst part though was that I truly had not even noticed. Had it never been exposed, I never would have guessed.
Sitting here brooding about it isn't going to make it any better. You'll just be shitty with her and the whole relationship will break down.
I knew immediately the voice in the back of my mind was right. All that would happen if I remained hostile with Bella is that she'd recoil and we'd eventually separate.
I also knew, however, that I couldn't just get over it. Every time I relaxed for half a second my mind would conjure up images of she and Rosalie doing various things to each other, and then the six years that followed where Bella didn't say a single thing.
What was likely best for everyone in this situation was some time apart from each other. There would be less of a chance for us to say unretractable things to each other, and time to consider what we all truly wanted.
The problematic thing with that option was that there was also a possibility that during that time apart things could get worse. And that was not something I wanted to risk happening.
We could go somewhere together… Escape everything here for a little while.
Immediately I squashed that thought though as I realized it would result in Jasper being here with Alice and Renesmee, and no one capable of monitoring them as closely as I could.
Though they did hide their previous incident from you for months.
I wasn't really worried about Rosalie and Emmett. They were both as combustible as each other, and really only seemed to have conflict between the two of them since Emmett didn't seem concerned with Jacob's involvement in the situation.
Previously, what Jacob would do in my absence was my biggest concern. However in light of today's confessions and events I really couldn't think of anything he might do that he hadn't already.
Upon that realize I concluded in my mind that there really was no reason I couldn't leave so long as Bella came with me.
I did need to go to Chicago and inherit my family estate from myself. It had been over sixty years since I'd first inherited the estate at the end of what would have been my natural lifespan about fifty years after my transformation. I'd presented myself as a distant relative to… myself… and inherited the family house, contents, and various accounts.
Given advancements in medical technology and the associated lengthening of lifespans I had left it a bit longer before going through the process again since there had been a long list of higher priorities once Bella had come into my life.
David Masen, an alleged grandson of my father's brother, had inherited the house in 1968 at twenty-five years old. He would now be seventy-one, and whilst I could plausibly leave it a few more years it seemed like a good enough task to occupy my time with and get Bella and I away from Forks for a few days.
I'd yet to show her my old family home, or share much about my life as a human with her. Most of that was tied up in Chicago, and the trip would be an excellent prompt to divulge those details.
With that decision now made I left the bedroom that I'd been standing in alone and walked down the hallway to where I could hear Bella in the living room. As I turned the corner I saw her head over the top of the couch and walked around to the end so we could talk properly.
She looked up from the pages as I moved into view and raised her brows enquiringly.
"Would you like to come away with me to Chicago for a few days? Maybe a week." I asked without any ceremony to preface the question.
Her expression turned surprised. "Oh."
"I have some things that could use doing and now seems like a good time for some distance and time for us alone." I explained a little of my reasoning.
"Don't you think maybe we should be here?" She asked tentatively. "Just… considering everything that's happened."
I shook my head, sure of my answer given my pre-thought to the potential risks. "Our presence won't fix anything that's happened, nor will it stop anything we would want to prevent from happening because I think almost everything we would have liked to intervene with has already occurred behind our backs."
Bella's eyes lowered from my face as she slipped off into thought for a few moments.
"Ok," She murmured, eyes moving back to mine. "You're right, I can't think of anything else that could happen that hasn't already."
Relieved she didn't turn me down and reject the chance of time alone together, I nodded once and smiled the tiniest bit. "We'll leave tomorrow?"
She smiled a little to reflect mine and nodded. "Sounds good."
Nessie
"We should go back," Jasper murmured against the top of my head, but the fingertips that were stroking long lines up and down my spine did not stop their circuit.
I grumbled to show my disapproval of that idea and simultaneously tightened my arms and nuzzled into his chest where we lay on the leaf litter with me on top of him.
"It's going to get dark soon anyway. And the longer we leave it the more things will settle, and then stirring it up again will be even worse." He continued talking after his short pause for my grumbling, now explaining his reasons why we should.
"Wouldn't it be better to let them cool down a bit first?" I asked in a bid to delay any kind of movement.
"No. Quite the opposite. If everything simmers down now and then we come in and are the only new thing causing unrest then all eyes will be on us. Where at the moment most of them have other things that are more important than us, so while they'd technically notice… they'd care less given there's so much more going on."
Of course, he was right. We needed to slip in while everyone was already distracted. But that didn't mean I wanted to leave our kinda gross little forest floor bubble.
"What about Alice?" I asked.
He tensed noticeably. "I can't avoid her forever. At some stage we'll have to talk."
For a brief moment I wished he was less morally guided and responsible. That he would disregard courtesy and be reckless with me. If that were the case we could just run away, but I knew he wouldn't go for that.
"Fine," I sighed dramatically and pushed myself up to my feet with him moving to stand as well once I was off his chest.
We both brushed off the damp leaves and dirt that was now on our clothes and in our hair, and then began walking back the way I'd come in. It dawned on me how bizarre this moment actually was, and my mind quietly reeled as I processed that what had happened this afternoon was indeed reality.
What seemed to be most of our family's secrets were now out in the open—including what had happened between Jasper and I—which I'd never thought would happen. And now, in what I'd thought would be an unlikely twist, my feelings for Jasper were being requited.
For now at least… Until Alice asks to repair their relationship and he sees her as a far better option and leaves me both feeling and looking stupid.
The silence lasted maybe two minutes while we crunched along the path, and then in a moment of lost control the biggest fear that had been rapidly swirling in my mind burst out my mouth.
"What if she wants to work it out?" I half shouted.
Jasper exhaled heavily and came to a sudden stop. "Ah. So that's what's winding you up."
My arms wrapped around my body automatically as I felt suddenly very vulnerable and anxious. If he turned around after the amount of hope I'd felt in the last half an hour and said he was going to stay with Alice I'd lose my mind.
"She's not going to want to work things out," he said softly.
"But what if she does?" I whispered, feeling almost shaky at the thought that this day could end with him staying with her and then likely disappearing entirely from my world.
"She won't, but…" He stepped right in front of me and placed his hands on my arms. "I don't want to try and fix anything. So we won't be. You really don't need to worry."
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. I'd rather live a thousand years with him just out of reach like we had been since we slept together, than to have this brief time and then it be followed on with the loss of him entirely.
But… he was saying that wasn't what he wanted to happen. Even if I had my own doubts, there was no chance of anything between us working if I couldn't trust him.
"Ok." I could barely hear my voice myself, but Jasper seemed to pick up the word and bent forward to place a quick kiss on my forehead.
"I never noticed how anxious and worried you were before now," he said casually.
A single laugh sounded in my throat. "I'm normally not. It's just… you."
When I peeked up his lips were in a tight line and I could hear a soft hum. "I'm not sure that's a good sign."
I shrugged. "I guess we'll see."
Jasper regarded me in silence for what seemed like an eternity before smiling just the tiniest amount and making a pointed look down the hill.
"C'mon. Let's go." He said, and pried my left hand off my body to hold it in his much larger right hand as he lead me down the path.
Alice
The rhythm of Jacob's heart was utterly hypnotizing under my ear as the minutes ticked by with us in otherwise quiet darkness.
Two floors above us I could hear Carlisle and Esme packing for the impulse trip they'd just decided to go on to Isle Esme for the next week.
A trip I was half tempted to ask to join them for.
If only it was the kind of holiday where that would be appropriate… not one where they'd be discussing Carlisle's infidelity.
"I think I'm going to head home." Jake spoke in a hoarse voice. "I really need some sleep."
"You can sleep here if you want." I offered without pausing to think it through. While part of the offer was just general kindness and wanting to continue having the passive benefit of Jacob's blocking ability of my visions, another part was motivated by the fact I really didn't want to be alone in the house with Rosalie once Carlisle and Esme left.
And I particularly did not want to be alone if Jasper came back before anyone else.
"I'm not sure that's—"
"It's a perfectly good idea," I interjected when it became clear he was likely to say no, and lifted my head out from under his arm before rising to my feet. "You can sleep in my room. You can shower too."
Jacob's eyes were wider than usual in surprise. "Uh… ok."
"Good." I grabbed two towels from the stack to my right and waited while Jacob stood up from the floor. Several of his joints cracked as he moved, though most wouldn't have been detectable to human ears.
"You're really bossy." He commented as we were walking across the living room towards the first set of stairs.
I laughed once under my breath. "It's taken you seven years to notice?"
"No. I'm sure I've mentioned it before."
"A time or two." I agreed. Normally I would have found it easy to smile and joke with him, but not so much in that particular moment.
When we reached the third floor I gestured to my bedroom door, despite knowing he wouldn't need the direction. The closer we got the less I could maintain my denial about the dread I could feel brewing in the pit of my stomach from knowing we were about to be in the room I shared with Jasper.
While the room itself wasn't a source of bad feeling or pain, what it represented was ripping me apart from the inside out.
As expected, nothing was different when Jake and I reached the doorway and stepped inside. Nothing had moved. The walls weren't bleeding. There was no foul stench—besides the Eau du Shapeshifter. But it was still… sour.
"Did you want to shower first?" I asked purely to have something to break the silence with.
"Sure." Jake nodded and took the towels from my hands before disappearing into the ensuite.
And then, I was alone. Just me, my thoughts, and the room I shared with my husband who cheated on me with my niece.
As a means of distracting myself I walked around the room turning on the lamps, closing the door, and tidying up small things that were out of place. That only took about three minutes though, and Jacob was still showering.
What else? I asked myself as I scanned the room.
On every wall there was at least one photo which contained Jasper's face. This had been by design, but it was now overwhelming and claustrophobic.
I set about taking down each photo with him in it and stacked them up inside one of his draws of tshirts.
Two of them were of us. One on our wedding day, and the other in Paris about 30 years ago.
My heart ached looking at my own face in those photos and knowing what that past version of me would one day be feeling.
The shower turned off while I was still contemplating what I would have said to myself on the days those photos were taken if I had the chance.
"Maybe it would be better if I went home," Jake said as soon as he opened the bathroom door.
"How so?" I asked, trying not to glance down at the fact he was only wearing a towel around his hips.
"I don't know. I just feel like I'm causing more issues by being here."
"To who? The only other ones here are Rosalie, Carlisle and Esme." I paused, not wanting to obligate him with my other reason for suggesting the sleep over, but I also knew if I didn't give better motivation than just a lack of reason not to that he'd probably go home. "And you help me quite a lot by blocking my visions. Everything is incredibly uncertain at the moment, and even when you're here sometimes things slip through. It would be bordering on torture if you left in all honesty."
For a long moment he seemed to contemplate the decision, then sighed and walked to the bed. "Ok. I guess you're kind of my only friend right now, so I should probably be nice to you, huh?"
"I'm sure I'm not your only friend. What about Nessie?"
His face went tight then into somewhat of a grimace. "It's not quite the same thing."
"What about Rose? She must like you." I knew already this was not likely to be true, but something about him sleeping with her inspired a certain level of juvenile taunting in me.
I was not, however, expecting his face to drop substantially and his eyes to go suddenly very dark and distant.
Jake took a big breath and let it out quickly. "You'd think so, but no."
The air in the room suddenly felt very thick and awkward as I saw the massive shift in emotion he had displayed in mere seconds between thinking about Nessie, and then thinking about Rosalie.
Suddenly I felt quite desperate to change the subject. "I'll get you some clean clothes."
He was carrying the pants he'd been wearing in his left hand, and had apparently left his shirt somewhere else in the house.
"Thanks." He snapped out of the near-trance he seemed to have slipped into.
I crossed the hall and grabbed a pair of Emmett's sweat pants from their room quickly. It sounded like Rosalie was in the closet for some reason, but I didn't linger long enough to check because as soon as I got twelve feet away from Jacob my mind started conjuring up a dozen visions simultaneously…
Urgh.
"Here." I extended the pants to Jake as soon as I opened my door and took his out of his left hand as he took the clean ones from me. "Where is your shirt?"
"Thanks. Nessie's room I think. I'm pretty sure I left it on the floor."
"You get dressed. I'll wash them for you." I left the room without another word and quickly grabbed the shirt from the floor beside Renesmee's bed before flitting down to the laundry to put them in the machine.
Flash after flash of my family's faces blasted through my mind as I tried to work out which buttons I need to press on display.
Carlisle and Esme dancing on the beach. Emmett burning Rosalie's car. Edward in Chicago. Bella in the forest. Rosalie somewhere totally black. Carlisle. Fire. Chicago. Fire. Rosalie's car in the forest. Rosalie in the fire. Esme. Beach. Forest on the beach. Rosalie. Carlisle. Bella. Darkness…
The water started flooding into the machine and in the same instant I darted back upstairs and into my bedroom where Jake lay half curled up on the bed.
My head was deafeningly silent now with the close proximity to the shapeshifter that worked as a blind spot for my visions.
I took a breath out of reflex only and blew it out slowly.
"Comfy?" I asked, trying to sound pleasant and normal.
"Ah huh," he hummed, nearly asleep already. "More hugs?"
The corners of my mouth actually pulled up into a smile then. "More hugs." I agreed and got onto the bed with him where he was lying on top of the quilt.
Jacob hooked his left arm over me immediately after I was down and pulled me tightly into his body then curled his head in against mine.
"So tiny," he mumbled into my hair and gave a quick squeeze before relaxing and seeming to almost instantly drift off to sleep.
I settled into the pleasantly hot nook he'd pulled me into where most of my body was surrounded by Jake's substantially larger one. Something told me he'd be asleep for quite a while.
When a few minutes passed I started to filter back through the flashes I'd had come through when in the laundry.
Carlisle and Esme on the beach was likely and normal. Emmett burning Rose's car probably wouldn't happen, he would just want to. Edward wouldn't have to go to Chicago for another 30 years or more to claim his estate, but a visit to get away might not totally be out of the question. Bella in the forest was normal. Rosalie in total darkness was a bit strange.
The absence of Jasper was the strangest thing as he was typically the one I saw the most of as we were so close.
Maybe he just doesn't have any conflicts or decisions, I pondered to myself. It was very unlikely he'd be dead or gone, though the thought did still cause my stomach to sink despite all that had happened today.
I hadn't seen myself either, but that was likely due to the fact my choice for the near future was to stay essentially glued to Jacob where possible.
Though I knew it was a bad idea and would only upset me, it wasn't long in the silence of the room before I started to imagine what my next conversation with Jasper would be. We hadn't spoken at all since he'd left immediately after the fight with Edward, and there hadn't really been time to say anything in that moment.
I really didn't want to talk to him at all, truthfully. There wasn't anything other than a ranting lecture about how messed up this all was, and how he'd hurt and betrayed me, that was coming to mind.
Whether he was sorry or not didn't really make a difference to me. Even why he slept with her didn't make a difference because there wasn't any reason he could give that I would understand and agree with.
Everything's just broken, I admitted for the first time in my thoughts.
As I processed the full magnitude of what had transpired today those words seemed only more and more apt.