Author's note: okay so I did not give all the details of jasper's past so if you can't remember or have never read the book…see Chapter 13 of Eclipse. I stuck to what we know of jasper. Tell me if I did it well…or not.

Thankyou to all those who reviewed my past chapters… u made my day!

As you read, remember that Jasper's thoughts are puzzles. Pay attention and you will find the hidden meanings. Everything he thinks does not have the simple meaning that it seems to !!

Chapter 3

My Story

Hesitantly, I began, "Well, Miss Alice, I am from the South…do I have to start at the beginning… or will an outline be satisfactory?" I fervently hoped that she would not make me relive my gory past. No such luck.

"Oh yes, yes, do tell all. I want to hear all about you!" She was genuinely excited now. I steadied myself for the onslaught and began again, "I was created by a vampire called Maria in the time of the wars of the South, 1861. She was my…," confusion had filled my interviewer and she- thankfully- interrupted me, "Wait, wait…what exactly do you mean by …created?" she flinched on the last word and then focused on my eyes wearing an apologetic expression.

"So you do not remember your transformation?"

"No, I told you, the farthest memory I have is waking up on the ground," she reminded me.

"Well, I suppose having no memory of your transformation is a good thing," I continued wryly, "It's not really something I like remembering." My interviewer was suppressing her impatience now. "Well, a vampire is created when another vampire bites them and leaves the venom to spread. It is a difficult thing to do; stopping the instinct to feed. I cannot understand why your creator would leave you though, it's not normal." I paused. Alice said nothing, just stared intently at me, like she was reading the story right from my face.

"So, Maria found my extra abilities useful…,"

"You see the future too?" she asked excitedly

"No, no, I can… feel what you feel and I can control how you feel," She looked at me in awe, like a child watching a magician. I had a feeling that she wanted a demonstration. "Are you angry?" I asked.

"No, why would I be?" she answered quickly. I remembered how I felt when the newborns disobeyed direct orders. I let that emotion fill me then I focused on the small, wide-eyed girl in front of me. I let my anger permeate her aura but only on the edges. Her breathing rate increased, her face contorted, her eyebrows pulling down and her jaw tensed. "Are you angry now?" I asked. She did not respond. I took a deep breath then, let the anger drain from me and retreat from her aura. Her face returned to its awed expression and her mouth formed a small 'o'.

"That was…"she couldn't finish. I laughed a small laugh.

She asked many questions about the war; why it had started, what was my role, how my abilities helped, who were my friends. I tried to explain as best as I could but all the while, I was acutely aware that I was speaking to a lady and so I only brushed over the details of how newborns were dealt with.

" I began to get negative feedback from Maria," I was explaining why I left, "…fear, malice and I began to prepare to destroy my only ally, my creator, my teacher, the very core of my existence…" My voice was low and intense, at this point pain and sadness spiked the stomach of my questioner. I had been looking away from her and now I refocused. Her eyes were locked on my face, her eyebrows pulled together and little creases formed at the edges of her eyes. "I didn't want to kill her…" I explained, "I had never known anyone as much as I'd known her and we had spent many decades as partners…," I sighed. Alice used my pause to ask the question that had been burning her.

"Were you in love with Maria?" Her face was concerned, her aura projected pain and sadness still. That question threw me for a moment. I had never considered it really. Maria and I were bound together by threads of convenience and necessity. Though, during the length of time we had spent together, we had become…intimate –physically- we had never become intimate emotionally. I contemplated how to answer the young woman before me. Alice could not have been more than eighteen when she was changed. I began slowly, weighing each word carefully.

"Love…is what Peter feels for Charlotte. That is the only guide I have to judge what love is. Peter will die for Charlotte, any day, without a doubt. I …wouldn't, for Maria, and she wouldn't for me," I finished my sentence quickly, sure of that fact. Alice was scrutinizing my face. "It was easy for me to leave her when Peter came back for me. I had grown tired of her greed and bloodlust, her vengeance and brutality. I was glad that I didn't have to kill her, but I would have, had it become necessary. She was my closest companion but I was not in love with her," I admitted, shaking my head. Alice felt relief and I struggled to understand why. She was such a caring, compassionate creature; she was probably relieved that I had been able to escape my situation without the added pain of lost love. Lost love -ha- there's a good one; cannot lose what you never had.

Alice was stroking my fingers now, her eyes boring into mine. "So you don't like killing people?"She asked.

"Humans? No. But what choice have I? I need sustenance." As much as I felt at ease with this girl, enough to make me spill my life story, I did not want to tell her- tell anyone- what killing even mere humans reminded me of. When they watch in awe and admiration at my unnatural beauty, when their subconscious screams for them to run, when they realize that they will never see another day again and the pain overcomes them, I remember feeling those emotions the night I met Maria, Nettie and Lucy. I felt a prick of regret for that lost other life, my human life, when I was truly Jasper Whitlock.

"Yes we do have a choice, like Carlisle," she reminded me.

"Miss Alice, It is not our nature to hunt animals. They do not taste anywhere near as good as humans, neither are they satisfying. I have never even heard of a vampire surviving solely on blood of animals. It is unfathomable."

She was quiet for a while. "We both cannot kill people," she recapped, "So… do we give in to our new instincts to satisfy ourselves and disregard what we both know to be painful- to say the least-, immoral and cruel…or, do we make the sacrifice –sacrifice our desire- to walk closer to…to," she struggled for words, " …normalness," she conceded.

I was shocked. Her little argument brought back cloudy memories of my own 'normalness' as she put it, my human life. It made me remember what had started my depression and the slow deterioration of my spirit, the weakening of my drive, and the loss of my reason for living. I did not want to remember that!

"I don't know." I said in a hard voice. She recoiled at my harshness. "But I do know that, right now, I am very thirsty and require a drink. It has been nice to make your acquaintance Miss Alice. Good evening." I was off the bed, my hand ripped from hers but in an instant, she had grabbed my hand again. She was pulling me, making me stay.

"Please," she begged, "Don't leave me," the desperation that filled her now leaked into her voice. "I… am lost…Jasper," she said my name softly, beseechingly. Loneliness consumed her and she began to sob, tearless sobs. Her breath came fast and short. My body felt it too. Her pain washed over me, became my pain. She implored me with those desperate eyes… and I could not move. I strained to regain calm, to make her calm.

"Okay, okay, Miss Alice, listen to me. I really am thirsty. We can discuss our diet when I come back. I will come back tonight. I promise you." I did mean it. I could not leave her there alone, after she had explained all she had to me. She needed guidance, companionship. I could provide that. That was what I convinced myself but it was not the true reason that I promised to come back to Alice.

Author's note: Sooo what do you think. Tell me plz! I crave your thoughts. Review!!!!!!