Day 4: Part 1

Epiphanies Suck Ass

I woke up from a nightmare.

"Welcome back."

The room was entirely too bright for whatever time of the day it was and I pulled the pillow I was laying on from underneath my head to put it against my face. I could make out bits and pieces of the nightmare, though I felt it slip by as each second passed. After another minute, it had gone entirely. I adjusted my weight, rolling to my side, and was suddenly quite aware of the sheer and utter nakedness of my form.

I threw the pillow off my face with quite a bit of violence and pulled the covers, which were around my shoulders, up to my nose. The motion hurt my stomach, which burned in protest.

Edward. Naked Edward. Naked Edward and sex. Good sex. Glorious. Yum.

"You talk in your sleep."

I wrenched my eyes opened and stared at the infuriating man sitting in a small, white chair with a cup of coffee and a newspaper in his hands. His curls were so clean they looked almost glossy, like an angelic depiction of what they should have been.

Where did that Shakespearean crap come from?

And then I blinked and the image was lost.

"Jasper?"

"Good morning, Bella."

"Jasper? What the fuck are you doing here?" I screeched, grabbing the pillow and putting it unnecessarily against my already covered body. "Get out!"

He set the coffee mug down on a small, white table next to the chair and folded the paper into half and then a quarter before placing it on the table. He looked at the folded, bunched paper for a moment before looking at me. And he just looked. Not in a creeptastic way or a leering way, but in an interested way that made me feel inconsequential; like looking at a beautiful house you want to own, but it owned by your arch nemesis, so you begrudge its existence. Like looking at a statue that you'd love to see in your own house, but that belongs to The Louver, so you scratch a pen into the side of it, permanently marring its chance to be glorified in its perfection by anyone else.

My heart stopped.

"Edward left early for work and asked me to come over."

"You're a fucking idiot," I said, barking out a little laugh, and trying to hide the nausea in my stomach. His expression didn't change. He did, however, uncross his long legs and splay them out before his body, re-crossing them delicately at the ankles. I looked at his expensive, pointed-toed shoes. "Did he ask you to watch me while I slept?"

"No, I decided that."

"Get the fuck out of here," I said, pointing at the door. "Now."

"Alice insisted I stay out of her sight and it is, after all, her home." He shrugged and the gesture was casual, too casual for the circumstance. But it wasn't just a shrug, it looked like the roll of a wave as it moved forward, lifted, and settled back down. He smiled, a soft, innocent smile, but his eyes flashed malevolently.

I closed my eyes. In, one two. Out one, two. In one, two. Out one, two. "This is disgustingly inappropriate and unnecessary," I said. "If you want to fucking talk to me, you sick fuck, you leave right now, let me dress, and join me downstairs. Lock yourself in a goddamn bathroom if you have to stay out of her way. Just leave."

"Bella – "

I was aware of the hysteria of my voice, but his presence made me nervous. Not the jolty, panicky nervousness when I see a spider crawling across the floor, but the overwhelming nervousness, the tired nervousness, of walking through a haunted house as a little kid.

He locked his jaw and frowned for such a small moment I thought I hadn't seen it before a large grin spread across his face. "If you insist."

"I do."

He stared at me, his eyes a little softer, but his grin slowly turning into a smirk. "You talk in your sleep."

"Leave."

"Complete sentences and all. It's quite fascinating."

"Why are you such a goddamn creep? If you don't leave in a five seconds, I am going to scream for Alice." My stomach was rolling violently and I was a second away from hearing the wet, sickening sound of my heart in my ears.

"Not a creep," he said calmly, "just interested in human behavior."

I waited, incredulously, for him to leave. When he didn't move, I cried, "GET OUT OF HERE!"

"You had sex with Edward."

My mouth dropped open stupidly and I fought for a moment with a blush that threatened to give me away. But I couldn't quite hide it and his smile grew a little as I diverted my eyes.

"Okay," I said, trying to be firm but feeling too self-conscious to put any real gusto behind it. "One, that is none of your business. And two, if you don't leave I swear – "But my stomach rolled with such force that I caved over on myself. "I'm going to throw up," I said, through the disgusting buildup of saliva in my mouth.

Jasper ruffled for a moment before putting something under my mouth, the fabric kissing my lips as he moved. "Here."

I vomited violently, purging whatever remained of last night's sushi into the cloth. Jasper wound his fingers around the strands of my hair, pulling them back off of my head and away from my mouth. His cool fingers brushed the back of my neck and I shuddered.

I looked down at the mess I made. "You gave me my own shirt to throw up in? What the hell am I going to wear now?"

"Alice has clothing."

"Alice is six inches shorter than I am!"

"Edward has clothing," he said, folding my purple shirt up and going into the bathroom. He returned, empty-handed, and sat back down on the edge of the bed. I couldn't move. Mostly because his scent was . . . unnerving. There was his personal musk, of course, which smelled like pure man. Mint, because maybe he'd brushed his teeth. But it was that weird, sweet scent. Like fruit. I inhaled. I was still hunched over, my hands splayed in front of me and holding me up from the covers. I was horribly aware that my entire back was exposed, but I was sure if I moved I would collapse.

"You know," Jasper said after a moment of silence and I shuddered at the sound of his voice. "Tanya, and Alice for that matter, both had a history of panic attacks."

"I don't have panic attacks," I spat, my mouth still thick with saliva. "The sight of you just makes me sick."

"Perhaps," he said, "but I would bet you have been struggling with these episodes for years now. If only because you have not yet learned how to handle them properly. They both exhibit many of the same symptoms you do: tension, nausea – " he paused, "fear. And I assume you, too, have irregular heartbeats and the feeling that you have lost all control."

I felt immeasurably weak. My arms were trembling under the strain of my upper body. "Jasper," I said, desperation making the words sound like a plea, "if you give me five minutes, I will talk to you outside."

"It might be linked to your submissive personality," he continued. "You do not feel as though you are capable of maintaining control over yourself, so it is too easy for you to let someone else control you. It is in your personality.

A weird lethargy was creeping into my body, making my muscles threaten to buckle under the small amount of weight resting on them. It must be early, I thought absently.

"Tanya, however," he continued in the same, calm tone, "has many other issues that extend beyond her panic disorder. Her need to wait on people, for instance, stems from other factors."

He leaned into me and I knew what he saw; a blank, paled expression, a mouth opened into a perfect "o" shape. I felt like I was in a trance, bending to some unseen will that was neither Jasper's nor my own. My body registered its nausea, but as I mirrored Jasper's movement and leaned towards him, the feeling dulled and it became no more than an annoying ache put somewhere in the back of my mind.

It was then that I knew exactly what Edward had meant when he'd spoken of Jasper trying to get me.

"You were born to be a sub, Bella," he whispered. "It's in your genetic makeup, in your brain. Without it, you cannot function."

White spots appeared in my vision. I opened my mouth to speak but the lethargy that crawled slowly across my body forced my mouth to just hang open soundlessly.

"You need a Dom in your life, Bella," he whispered. "And lucky for you, I truly know panic disorders and how to remedy them."

I blinked slowly. My body felt achy and wobbly and it took much effort to close my mouth.

"We will talk later, I am sure," he said and before he had even risen from the bed, I had fallen asleep.

I awoke to Edward screaming from the other side of the bedroom door. My eyes felt almost too heavy to open and I prepared myself to turn over and go back to sleep, but when I heard him speak, I shot up in bed and threw the covers off, ignoring the tightness of my stomach as I swung my legs out from under me. I searched frantically on the ground for anything resembling clothing as I listened to Edward shout.

"Absolutely not, Jasper. That was completely inappropriate! If you ever – " He paused for a moment, clearing listening to Jasper speak. When I didn't hear another voice, I understood he was on the phone. "If you ever come near my house again, I swear to god I will have you arrested. You have no idea what damage you – " He paused again and I walked quietly to the door, placing one hand on the knob. Edward laughed hollowly. "No, I suppose you do. But do you understand what I had to say to Alice? She freaked out and almost had a panic attack, you asshole. How the fuck did you manage – "

He cut off again as I opened the door. He was pacing the corridor outside of the bedroom, still in his formal attire from work, though his tie was pulled down from his neck, crooked, and his shirtsleeves were un-cuffed and rumpled unceremoniously up past his forearms. He paused in his pacing to look at me.

Without saying anything else into the phone, he shut it and rushed to me, pulling me against his body.

"Jesus, Bella," he said into my hair. My arms lay stiffly at my sides. "Jesus, Alice went out for only a moment. That bastard must have been casing the house. I already called the alarm agency and I'm setting up fucking cameras around the house tomorrow, I swear to god – "

I wrapped my arms around him to get him to stop talking. It worked, and I held him for a moment, reveling in the feeling of his trembling muscles against my chest and face. He felt warm; so warm that my eyes felt heavy again. I could see through the space left under the crook of his arm as it rose just over my line of sight to curl around my shoulders.

Alice sat, huddled on the ground next to the door, her face in an expression of absolute despair. Her knees were drawn up to her chest and her hands were wrapped around her neck, her fingers interlaced and tight at her hairline.

"Alice," I said. "Alice."

She was already looking at me, but when she heard her name leave my throat, her eyes seemed to come into focus. She opened her mouth and I untangled myself from Edward's grip to squat down in front of her.

"Bella, I'm so sorry, I didn't – "

I shook my head and gripped her knees. She winced at the pressure but shut her mouth. "Alice, when did you become Jasper's sub?"

Though I couldn't see Edward, I could feel him stiffen next to me. It was like an electrical pulse that had once been quivering and then snapped tight and I could feel the tug of it in the back of my head, heavy and strong.

"What?" she asked. "Why?"

"When did you become Jasper's sub? Why did you? Where did you meet him?"

She didn't understand what I was saying, but she registered the panic in my voice and sighed, heavily, before answering. "I met Rosalie in college. She introduced me to Emmett and the three of us attended a dungeon party hosted by a mutual friend. Emmett and Rosalie were already in the culture and I wanted to try something new."

She spoke softly and her voice was small but steady. Her eyes were serene and determined but in them was something infinitely sad. She paused for a moment and looking silently at me. And then she closed her eyes and a resigned expression fell across her face. "Rosalie talked to me for years about what she did. It made sense to me. So I went to a party and I met . . . Jasper." She spoke the name with detached reverence, as one might speak of their god. "He was with another sub at the time. We met, talked, and then we were we."

"Why did he choose you? Why did he leave his other sub?"

"Bella," Edward said. The pulse quivered lazily. "Bella, don't."

I ignored him and continued to stare at Alice, who now refused to look at me.

"I-I don't know. I don't know why. He just did." She opened her eyes. "Bella, what did he do to you?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but I didn't want to confess. I didn't want the look of disappointment, anger, and contempt to cross her face. The resigned look was so much better than anything resembling pity.

I stood up and turned to Edward.

"Bella," he whispered. He extended his hand to me but when I made no movement towards it, he curled his fingers slowly around the air in front of him.

"I have to go," I said in the same whisper.

"Where are you going?" he asked. We stared at each other for a moment. I fixed as penetrating a gaze as I could at him, trying to give him a knowing look. A look that said "Don't play stupid" as much as it said "I'm sorry for every bit of pain you're about to feel."

But when his brow remained furrowed and his hand remained in the air, clasping nothing, I said, "To Emmett's."

"Emmett's?"

"Yeah." I looked over his shoulder. "I have to go see my dog."

"Will you come back?"

I took a few steps towards him and placed my palm against his cheek. He leaned into it. His eyes were closed now, but the rest of his face looked prepared for a fight.

"Of course," I said and his body sagged in response.

I turned to leave but he wrapped his fingers on my wrist, not painfully, but with enough force to let me know he wasn't finished. I turned to him. "It's good," he said. "Isn't it good? Isn't it good? Aren't I good?"

"You're good," I said, "you're good. It's good, everything is good. I'm the one who's not good."

He frowned. "You're good, Bella." When I didn't change my expression, he said, "There's medication, there's behavior therapy, it could work, it could be fixed, you don't have to do this."

"I do."

"No," he said, angrily. "No, you don't. You will be ruined. It will ruin you. What will you do when you're honestly not good enough? Where will you go?"

"I'm good enough for that."

He let go of my wrist and pulled at his hair. "You're not. You can't be. No one is good enough for that. For him."

"Then I have to try," I said.

"There is no trying at this, Bella, there is only succeed if you're wanted and fail once enough time has passed. You're too good, Bella, too good for all that." He gestured down the stairs, towards the front door. "Don't ruin you. Don't let yourself ruin you."

I pressed my hand against his cheek again and the electric pulse vibrated in slow, painful tugs. "I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Visit sometime," Alice said as I descended the stairs.

A few moments later and I was in my car, driving. The look on Edward's face kept me chain-smoking. It was a look of deep loathing, deep understanding, and immeasurable sadness. I turned into the driveway and parked my car, sitting inside the rumbling vehicle for a moment, absently aware that the moment I left this car, I would be unable to turn back.

I opened the car door, closed it, and walked to the front porch to ring the bell. I fought the urge to run and head back to Edward's. But the good doctor couldn't fix me and Emmett couldn't fix me and Alice couldn't fix me. But he could.

The electric pulse snapped.

Jasper opened the door and looked down at me. He smiled.

"Well, hello there, Bella."