A/N: Thank all of my reviews so much for being so patient with this story. I really, really tried to get this out sooner, but Jasper crossed his arms over his chest, sulked, and faced that wall instead of talking to me. I finally bribed him with a cupcake and made him talk. The next update will not take so long, I promise, and will be from Alice about the date.
Jasper's POV
I snapped awake in an instant, my mind fully alert even though my body didn't move. This was my one chance to suss out my surroundings without giving myself away. I was on something soft, so I hadn't been sleepwalking again, which was always good. There was light touching my closed eyelids, so it was morning. I stretched my ears out and heard a rumbling that sounded like a chainsaw. Emmett. I was on the air mattress in Emmett's room, and I had survived another night.
I stretched my body lazily, not feeling my usual urge to jump up before anyone could see me lying around. Carlisle and Esme didn't seem to care what time we all got up, unless they had something planned, and there no little kids here to get into things while I was trying to sleep, so I was happy to stay still.
At least I was happy until the alarm went off. Even though I knew it was coming, the unrelenting screech felt like it was tearing through my skull. My heart started pounding and my vision sharpened. It was a stupid reaction, but it happened every time I was startled, which was about twenty times a day. Felix calls it hyperviligence, and says it was actually a good thing when I lived with Maria. It kept me alert for danger and might be what saved my life on more than one occasion.
Now that I lived with the Cullens, I didn't need to be like that anymore, but my body didn't get that message. It was used to living in a highly stressed, highly aroused state, and, like an addict, I could no longer function properly without the massive doses of adrenaline and stress hormones. I closed my eyes and willed my heart to stop racing.
"Motherfucker, it's too damn early." Emmett slapped at the clock. "Screw this, I'm ditching school."
We both knew that he was all talk, so I didn't bother replying. I didn't need to get up, but I was so anxious that my muscles were actually twitching under my skin. I stood up and rubbed at my face, carefully keeping my back to Emmett, who had no problem stripping naked with me in the room. He gave me a push. "Go distract Edward so I can have the first shower."
This was the fifth day in a row that he had wanted me to do that, and I had only been sleeping in his room for six nights. Still, I kind of felt like I owed him. I had only had one nightmare in those six days, and was feeling rested for the first time since I had woken up in the hospital. Edward wouldn't be fooled by my attempts to distract him, but I would give it my best shot.
It turned out to be a moot point, because Alice met me in the hallway. She was wearing red baby doll pajamas, and no makeup, and I thought she might be the prettiest girl I had ever seen. She raced up to me and gave me a huge hug. "Jasper! Good morning. Did you sleep all right? Well, I know you slept all right, because you didn't wake any of us up. I mean . . ." She trailed off, looking embarrassed that she had been so forward, both with her words and with the hug.
She didn't need to be. I loved that she was so freely affectionate, always willing to give us a hug or pat on the back. I had been like that, too, at one point, but not anymore. Shit, I could barely accept being touched at all, and it was nearly impossible for me to force myself to touch someone back.
I liked it when Alice touched me, though. She was so gentle and affectionate that she didn't seem dangerous at all. Good thing, too, because I was pretty sure she wasn't going to want to date me for very long if she couldn't even hug me. "It's okay. I slept really good."
Her face lit up in a glorious smile. "I'm really looking forward to our date tonight, even if we have to share it with Emmett and Rosalie." At my silence, her face clouded slightly. "You do still want to go out with me, right? It's okay if you don't."
I wanted to tell her that she shouldn't think that, that I would never give her up, not now that I had barely found her, but my throat had clogged and stuck. Of all the times for my stupid speech problems to act up, why did it have to be now? I cleared my throat over and over, trying to force myself to make a noise, any noise.
Luckily, Alice seemed to understand what was wrong. She took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "It's all right, Jasper. Give it a minute and don't try and force it."
I took another deep breath. "Of course I want to go out with you. I've been looking forward to it all week." There, that was good.
I could have looked at her resulting smile all day long. Without warning, she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. "I'll see you soon, then." Then she flushed and hurried away, leaving me stunned. I couldn't remember the last time anyone had kissed me at all. Maria certainly hadn't, and though some of my other foster parents must have, I couldn't recall a single time. While I was still standing there in a daze, Edward pushed by me and stole the bathroom. Oops. Hopefully Emmett wouldn't be too upset with me.
Since I had failed at my assigned task, I headed down to the kitchen. Alice was making everyone breakfast, already flipping French toast and singing to herself. "Can I help?" I was an all right cook. Not fantastic, but I could keep myself and the little kids from starving to death.
She must have still been a little embarrassed about kissing me earlier, because she didn't even try to meet my eyes. "Can you make the bacon, please?"
I nodded, glad to be able to do something. The package was already on the counter, so all I had to do was put it in the pan and put the pan in the microwave. I had never seen a pan just for bacon before I came to live with the Cullens. At my old house, I just put it in a frying pan and prayed that no one got burned and that I didn't set the smoke alarm off.
Alice kept her back to me, busy with the toast, and I wondered if I should try making conversation. I knew that my lack of social skills was a hot topic when they didn't think I could hear them, but I might be better off saving it for tonight. I was still pretty much confined to the house, unless Esme had me go with her on errands, so the chances of something interesting enough to have an entire conversation about happening today were pretty slim. Yeah, definitely better to wait. It was cool, though; when Alice was around, I didn't feel so desperate to say something, anything.
"Jasper, why is Edward taking my shower?" Emmett gave me a light tap with one of his textbooks. "You were supposed to be distracting him!"
I was pretty proud of the fact that I neither yelped nor flinched away from him when he did that. Emmett showed his affection physically, through pats and taps, and he didn't mean me any harm. It was a compliment, really, and while I didn't look forward to him touching me, I didn't dread it, either. "Sorry. I was the one who got distracted, I guess."
He scowled, then brightened. ""Well, you're going to have to take a cold shower, too, because Rose is in the downstairs bathroom. Between them, Mom, and Alice, there isn't going to be any hot water left for you, either."
Nice try. "I'll just wait and take one later. I don't have anywhere to be. Unlike you."
He pointed at the calendar above the counter. "Wrong. Looks to me like you have an appointment with your headshrinker at ten."
Instantly, my stomach started churning. Felix was all right, I guess, if you didn't count the fact that he had made me throw up once and pass out on three different occasions, but he was so damn smart. He could get me talking about one thing, no problem, but then he would steer the conversation until I was telling him things that I had never told anyone before, things that were better kept secret.
Emmett must have read my face, because he gave me a light shrug. "It's cool. Felix isn't that bad."
I appreciated his attempt at comfort, even as I swallowed hard. "No, I guess he isn't."
The microwave dinged and I carefully transferred the bacon to a plate. As I put it on the table, I checked the whiteboard calendar over again, hoping that Emmett had made a mistake. Damn, there it was in bright orange: Felix, 10 a.m. Each of us was assigned a color of ink, to make it easier to keep track of which appointment went with which kid. Esme had offered me my choice of the remaining colors, which had been red and orange. The red was too dark and reminded me of blood, so I had picked orange. I liked the way it looked up there, mixed in with all the other colors. It looked like it belonged.
Once the bacon was safely on the table, I set out glasses for everyone. This was good: keep it all nice and in its proper place. God knew nothing else was. Alice set a plate of food in front of me, and a much larger one in front of Emmett. I noticed that he got the bigger plate, but she let her fingers linger on my back, so I figured I got the better deal.
Edward came downstairs a few minutes later, smirking playfully at Emmett and I. "Guess we know who's getting the cold shower today!"
I flicked a pat of butter at him, and Emmett flipped him off. Of course, with my luck, all of this happened right in time for Esme to come into the kitchen. "Jasper and Emmett." Her tone was a warning and we both mumbled apologies.
She was over it in a heartbeat, and I wondered how I could have ever thought that she would hold a grudge and turn on me later like Maria had. "Jasper, I have errands to run today, so I'm just going to drop you off at the doctor's. Afterward, will you help me grocery shop?"
Even though I knew she was just asking because she had trouble carrying the heavy bags, it still felt good to know that she needed me for something. Not just because her needing me would ensure that I would have a place to live, at least until I turned eighteen, but because she had asked me to. After all, she drove me where I asked, chose foods that I liked in the store, and was always willing to keep me company if I was anxious or couldn't sleep. I couldn't do much for her that her husband or other kids couldn't do, but I could do this, and I wasn't about to fuck it up like I always did. "Yeah. Yes." I corrected myself quickly. Mom always said that it was fine to say 'yeah' with other kids, but an adult deserved more respect.
"Thank you, sweetheart." When she smiled at me like that, I would have done anything for her, and not because I was afraid of her, either. I would have done it because I liked her, and I was desperate for her to like me back.
Everyone ate in relative quiet, occasionally looking up to ask that some condiment or the plate of bacon be passed. Rosalie had already left for class, and Carlisle was still asleep after working the late shift, so it was just the five of us. Once everyone was done, I gathered up the dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher. Usually everyone did their own, but I was already getting nervous about my upcoming appointment and I needed to feel like I was doing something useful.
Once that was done, I excused myself to take a shower before my appointment. The cold water was a shock, but living in a house with a dozen or more foster siblings and a hot water heater that only worked half the time meant I could take it. Still, it may have been one of the fastest showers on record. It was still shivering when I pulled my clothes on.
Esme was waiting for me in the kitchen, a manila envelope sitting open in front of her. I sat down, hoping that she would tell me what it was without my having to ask. She did. "These are your school records, Jasper. I needed them so I would know what courses you still need to take, so your tutor can be ready. I requested them as soon as we decided to have you tutored this summer, and they just got here."
A surge of joy went through me, quickly followed by one of panic. Esme had remembered what she had said about getting someone to help me out. She actually did care about me, and was trying to make things easier for me in school next year. That feeling quickly faded when I realized that she would be able to see just how terrible of a student I actually was. I wondered if there was a way for me to creep back out of the room unnoticed.
She was flipping through the pages. "Your history grades are very good. Art, too. It looks like you could use a little help in math, though."
That was a bit of an understatement. Math had always been hard for me, and the past few years had been horrible. I had managed to squeak by in Algebra, but I was in the process of failing Geometry for the second time when I got hurt.
She glossed over the math. "What part of history do you like best? I always loved the ancient Greeks."
I was happy to chance the subject. "Civil War. I had this really nice book that had all of the battles and the different important generals and stuff, but it got lost." I had a strong suspicion that Maria had had something to do with it, but I had been too afraid to ask.
She tucked the papers into a neat stack and stood up. "I need to stop by the post office, so we should get going."
I wasn't sure if that was an improvement or not. It freed me from having to explain why my grades sucked so badly, but I didn't really want to see Felix, either. "Okay." Even I could hear the reluctance in my voice.
She touched my back. "We can go out to lunch after."
It bothered me that her words were enough to make me feel better, just like I was a little kid. It didn't bother me enough that I would turn down a free meal, but it bugged me all the same. I followed my foster mother to the car, dragging my feet like a sullen toddler. The post office didn't take as long as I was hoping it would, and too soon we were heading for the therapist's office.
We were idling at a red light when Esme turned to me. "Jasper, honey, this is a little awkward, so I'm going to come right out with it. I don't think I have to tell you to act like a gentleman tonight. This is Alice's first real date, and I want things to go smoothly for both of you."
Now was probably not the best time to remind her that it was my first real date, too. She was likely counting on at least one of us knowing what we were doing. I didn't need to worry for more than a minute, because she kept right on going. "I know that this is your first date, too, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask."
Luckily, we were at Felix's office before I had to think of a nice way to tell her that I would die of shame before I ever tried to talk about sex with her. For the first time, I leapt out of the car so I could get away from her faster. She laughed, like she knew what I was up to, and waved. "I'll see you in an hour!"
There were thirty-two stairs on the way up to Felix's office. I knew, because I had counted them on several occasions, and probably frozen on at least half on them at one point or another. I forced my body to keep moving. At the door to his office, I pulled my head up and my shoulders back. I was getting sick of cringing like a baby all the time. Taking a deep breath, I went inside.
Jane, the receptionist, waved. "Hi, Jasper. I'll get you signed in."
I wondered sourly if she recognized all of her clients, or just the ones that could lead to lawsuits. A lawyer had come to see me in the hospital, and told me that I was in an excellent position to sue both Maria for assaulting me and the foster system for failing to protect me. At the time, I had been too intimidated at the thought of seeing Maria again, so I had refused. Now I was starting to get more afraid when I thought about how I was going to support myself with no ability to drive, few social skills, and a brain filled with scars. Maria had money, I knew she did, and even a portion of it would go a long way.
"All right, Jasper, Felix is ready for you." Jane was pretty, I guessed, with her long blond hair and delicate features, but no one, not even Angelina Jolie, could ever be as pretty as Alice. Now I just had to figure out a way to not fuck up the first date, like I tended to fuck everything else up.
Felix had a couch in his office, just like the therapists in the movies, but I had never laid on it. I liked the big, overstuffed, reclining chair that was against the opposite wall much better. That way I could waste time rocking myself while I tried to think of a suitable answer for his harder questions. I flopped into it and looked up at Felix. He would start things off, just like he always did. "Good morning, Jasper. Is there anything specific you would like to talk about today?"
"No." It was what I always said, even if it wasn't true. There was a certain comfort in the routine.
He sat down and turned on the tape recorder. I probably wouldn't have known he was doing it, except Peter had warned me that all therapists recorded their sessions. "So, how have you been for the past few days?"
If I didn't think of something to say about my present, he was going to start badgering me about my past again, and I didn't want that. "I have a date tonight." My voice sounded obscenely proud of it.
His eyes widened. "Really? With whom?"
"Alice." I noticed that he didn't seem at all surprised that I was going out with my foster sister. Of course, he had already seen the rest of the family, so he knew about Emmett and Rose.
"That's wonderful. Where are you taking her?"
That was a good question. "Emmett knows a good Italian restaurant. Then we're going to a movie. It was supposed to be a double date, but then Edward's girlfriend got the night off, so now it's a triple date. Carlisle's going to take Esme somewhere fancy, since none of us kids are going to be around."
Felix gave me a long look, as if I had said something wrong. I raced back through my previous words, but everything seemed fine to me. "And how are things with Carlisle and Esme?"
Alarms started ringing in the back of my mind. I was being set up, but I couldn't figure out how. "Things are okay. Carlisle's been helping me with my hitting, and he's says that I can play baseball with Edward and Emmett when his work has their annual game. I don't limp as badly as I used to, so I can run pretty fast." I wasn't sure what he wanted me to say, and that was making me blurt things out.
"And Esme?" Was it my imagination, or did he seem particularly interested in my answer?
"She's running errands." I spoke slowly, trying to buy myself some time.
He kept watching me. "Are you still spending a lot of time with her?"
Well, yeah. "She's the one who's home with me all the time. I like helping her." Maybe that was what he wanted to hear?
"How do you get along with her personally?"
"Okay, I guess." No, that wasn't right or fair. "No, I like her a lot." To my utter horror, my mouth kept moving, despite my best efforts to stop it. "Sometimes I wish she really was my Mom."
The words hung in the air, defeating my efforts to call them back. I didn't need Esme for a mother. I had a real mother, even if she was dead, and Esme had four kids of her own. What did she need me for? I hastily tried to back up. "I mean . . ."
Felix gave me a few seconds, during which I floundered pitifully. "What do you mean, Jasper?"
My heart was pounding so hard that I would have been surprised if Felix couldn't see it through my shirt. I didn't know how to explain to him that as much as I wanted, and sometimes even needed, Esme, I had to keep a distance from her. Getting too attached to a woman had never brought me anything but grief.
A thought occurred to me, one that hadn't before. Alice, too, was a woman. Would it be different with her, because I was looking at her as a girlfriend and potential lover instead of a family member? Or would it be more of the same?
I was aware that Felix was speaking my name, but only because I could see his lips moving. I couldn't hear anything, because of all the blood rushing around in my ears and even my vision was starting to dim. Then a brilliant light rushed over everything and I couldn't see anything but white. Oh, God, I was going to die.
Cold hands touched my skin, one of my forehead and the other underneath my chin. "Damn it, Jasper, breathe!"
I always tried to listen to adults, especially adults who were actually touching me and thus in a position to harm me, but my chest had tightened until my breaths were whistling in and out of my throat, reducing my air intake to almost nothing and making blackness scroll across my vision. I couldn't feel anything at all.
There was no way to tell how long I was unconscious, but I suddenly felt something cold on my face. Even though it was an enormous effort, I forced my eyes open, rolling them until I met Felix's concerned gaze. He gently wiped my face with the damp paper towel again before sitting back. "You back with me again?"
"Yeah." My chest ached, and when I tried to draw a deep breath, I started coughing.
He pulled me upright, making me realize that I had slumped way down in the chair. "Easy. Jane went to get you something to drink, so you just rest for a minute."
I could do that. Shit, the way I felt right now, it was about all I could do. Within a few seconds, she appeared with a soda and a straw, which I accepted gratefully. "Thanks."
Felix waited while I took a cautious sip of the soda, then a longer one when the first one stayed down. The cold liquid tasted good and pushed away the lingering dizziness, so I drained the glass. Once I was done, I raised my eyes to meet Felix's. "Jasper, you do understand that you're safe in this office, right? Not only physically, but mentally, too. I am legally bound to not repeat anything you say to me. Not to Social Services, not to the police, not even to Carlisle and Esme."
At my nod, he continued. "Feelings are never wrong, and it's all right for you to feel attached to Esme. She's a very kind lady, and she does nice things for you. It's natural for you to want to be around her and be kind back. It's also natural for you to feel a little guilty about that, like you're rejecting your own mother. You aren't, though. You can love your mother, and love Esme, too."
There were times that I forgot that Felix specialized in foster children and their issues. No matter what I threw at him, he had probably seen it before. As if he read my mind, he spoke again. "This happens a lot with foster kids not knowing how to treat their foster parents."
This was exactly what I meant when I said that he sometimes got me to say things that I shouldn't. It was hard enough to admit to myself that I wanted Esme to treat me the same way she treated her own kids, especially since it would never happen, but it was another thing entirely to have to say it out loud. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."
The words sounded feeble, and Felix ignored them. "I'm sorry, Jasper, but it doesn't work that way. As your therapist, part of my job is to give you new ways of coping with your issues. Right now you're having panic attacks and getting sick, and that isn't helping you in the long run."
He had a point. I really didn't want to be like this forever. "How did the other kids end up?" What I meant was, am I going to be fucked up forever?
"Well, it depended on a lot of things. Younger kids, especially those who were long term or permanent placements were more likely to call their foster parents 'Mom' and 'Dad'. With older kids, it's about fifty-fifty. You shouldn't get caught up in what to call them. The main thing is your relationship towards them. Now, if there were no boundaries, what would you want to say to Esme?"
I played with my empty cup. "I don't know. I guess, maybe, thank you for taking me?" At his nod, I continued. "And, um . . . maybe that I love her?" I knew full well that she wished I would say those things, or at least give her some indication that I was happy in her home.
"Good." Felix's voice was very gentle. "Now, what would you say to Carlisle?"
"Uh, the same? Thanks for giving me a chance?" I hated not knowing what I was expected to say to someone, so I treaded very lightly. Usually I was good at reading someone's mood based off their face, but Felix was good at being a blank wall.
"You answered that pretty quickly. Much faster than when I asked about Esme. Why is that? You've already told me that you spend most of your day with Esme, so it ought to be easy to think of things to say to her. Why do you think it's so hard?"
He had a reason in mind, I was sure of it, but I couldn't guess what it was. "I don't know." I managed to clamp down before I said something else, something along the lines of I'm sure you can tell me.
"Your father died when you were just a baby, right?"
"A car wreck, yeah." I had only seen a few pictures of him, but it was enough to see the resemblances between us. He was twenty-four when he died, not much older than I was now.
"So, you were raised alone by your mother for five years, then in various foster homes, then with Maria for four. Do you think it's fair to say that you've never really been that attached to a man? I know there were men in some of your foster placements, but how long did you actually stay in each?"
I was starting to see where this was going. "You think it's easier for me to accept Carlisle, because I don't really have any father figures to compare him to. I just accept him as Carlisle. With Esme, though, I've had the two extremes, Mom and Maria." I felt extremely pleased with myself that I had worked that out.
"I think so."
Now that he had led me to this place, I couldn't help but keep poking. "So, what do I do?"
He was quite for a long time. "Jasper, I'm going to explain something to you about attachment. Think of it like a journey down a road. First you start out in the womb, where it's just you and your birth mother, bonding for nine months. This is one of the reasons that so many adopted children, even those adopted at birth, feel such a strong urge to connect with their birth parents. Then you're born, and begin to bond with other people. Your father, siblings, grandparents, et cetera. In a few years, there will be friends, though the bond is different than that with the immediate family. Once puberty hits, the child begins to date, and develops sexual attachments, which eventually lead to marriage and babies and the cycle continues. Are you with me, so far?"
Any lingering fuzziness from my earlier fainting spell was gone. This was important, and I needed to be as focused as possible. "Yes."
"Now, what I'm talking about here is normal attachment, what happens to the majority of people on this planet. Attachment can be disrupted at any point. If the birth mother, for example, is abusive or neglectful, the child might fail to bond with them. Without that first bond, it then will be difficult, if not impossible, for the infant to bond with anyone else. Still with me?"
More than he knew. I could think of several foster siblings over the years who had had never attached to me, no matter what I did. It had just never been named to me before. "Uh-huh."
"Good. Even when the bond between a parent and a child is healthy, it can still be damaged. When a child enters foster care, the bond is not only damaged, it's forcibly severed. The more foster placements, even if the foster parents are as kind as possible, the more damage to the child's psyche. The loss of each successive parent figure weakens the bond, makes the child feel insecure about the world and his or her place in it. Eventually, the bond has been pulled in so many different directions, cut and frayed so many times, that the child loses the ability to bond at all."
Logically, I understood his words, but they didn't make much emotional sense. The thought that a child could be so badly, or even permanently, damaged at such a young age was frightening. What did that say about me, at seventeen?
Felix must have read my face, because he backed up a little. "Think of it like this. Say I was to ask you to hold out your hand, but every time you did, I slapped it. How long do you think it would take before you quit holding your hand out?"
With me, probably only once, but I could see how some people would keep trying. "Not very long, I guess."
"Exactly. Now imagine someone saw me doing that to you, so they said we couldn't see each other anymore, because it was damaging to you. So you get a new therapist, and he's very kind to you. You like him a lot, and you tell him most of your secrets. Then, for no reason, they decided that you need a new therapist, and you never see the old one again. After this happens four or five times, would you want to tell the newest therapist your secrets?"
"No."
He sighed softly. "All right, now let's get out of the hypothetical and talk about you. Every foster placement you had was like being sent to a new therapist. By the time you got to Maria's, you were probably already having some problems."
I wanted to deny that, but it was probably true. The night terrors hadn't started with her, though I couldn't exactly remember when they had.
"And then she did nothing to help and everything to hurt. So, now here you are."
It was a lot to take in, and for a moment I couldn't speak. I knew that I was a fucked-up mess, but it still hurt to have someone point it our so bluntly. "So you think I have this . . . attachment problem? I won't ever be able to love anyone?"
"No, that isn't what I'm saying, and I'm sorry if I made you feel like it was. A complete inability to bond is one extreme end of the attachment spectrum. I do think that you're showing some signs of a milder attachment issue, especially towards Esme, but there's no reason to think that the bond won't come in time. Actually, I think it's already trying to form, which is why you're suddenly feeling so conflicted and panicky about her. I just don't want you to feel like this is your fault, or that you're the only one who has these problems. In older foster kids, I would say that the rate of issues like this is more than half, and almost one hundred percent in the kids I see."
So I was still a freak, but I belonged in a large pool of freaks instead of a small one. I wasn't quite sure if that made me feel better or not. A little, I guessed. "So, I'm not ruined?"
It was my biggest worry. If had never had a normal relationship, how would I know how to treat Alice properly? I had a pretty good idea what not to do from movies and stuff, but I was pretty sure the nuances were escaping me. Even worse, how would I ever be able to nurture a child of my own? Maybe I was getting too far ahead of myself. After all, one date didn't infer a lifetime commitment and cribs full of babies.
Only it did. Somehow, I was sure that Alice was the one, and I would never want anyone else. Provided she never noticed what a loser I was, of course, and didn't find someone who could offer her much more.
Felix gave me a hard look. "Of course not. Everyone is capable of change, and the biggest factor in these cases is whether or not the child wants to heal. You obviously do, and that's a step in the right direction. I'm not saying that it will be easy, or fun, but it's entirely possible."
"So, just a little ruined, then?" As hard as I tried to keep my voice light, I could still hear the fear echoing around in it.
"Yeah, just a little ruined. Certainly fixable." He gave ma fond smile and brushed the hair out of my eyes. "Esme isn't your mother, Jasper, and she knows that, but she does love you. It's not wrong for you to love her, too, okay?"
This was another one of those things that was usually easy to understand with my mind. My mother was dead, and had been for more then two-thirds of my life. She was beyond things like jealousy, and even if she hadn't been, I knew that she would have wanted me to accept Esme, so that Esme could provide me everything that she couldn't. Yet I couldn't help feeling a tightening in my gut every time I thought about it. But Felix was still waiting, so I nodded minutely. "Okay." After all, Mom had left me first.
He sat back and clicked off the tape recorder. "I think you did very well today. I'll see you Tuesday at eleven. You have a good weekend, Jasper, and I'll be very eager to hear about how your date went."
Of course he was. Whether the date went well or poorly, I was sure it revealed a lot about me and my issues. Or maybe he was just jealous. I had never heard him mention a girlfriend or a wife, but then again, we weren't here to discuss him. "You have a good weekend, too."
Felix always told me that I had done well in my sessions, whether I actually had or not. It made me happy to hear it, like someone thought I was good at something.
I was cautious as I stood up, waiting to see if the dizziness would return. It didn't, but I did feel a little lethargic, like I could use a good nap. Maybe I would still have time after we got home. Jane waved me to the lobby, and I raised a hand back. The thirty-two steps seemed to waver a little bit under my feet, but I made it down without tripping or otherwise embarrassing myself.
The dark blue car was recognizable in an instant, and I crawled gratefully into the passenger seat. Esme started to smile, but then drew back. "Oh, honey, you look pale. Are you sick?" Her hand rested on my forehead, cool and comforting.
"No, I just got a little dizzy during my session." I prayed that she wouldn't push it, but Esme had a mother's instincts and she kept talking.
"Did you get sick? Pass out?"
I let my eyes close. "No, and yes. But I'm fine now, I swear."
She sighed, and I sensed her eyes roaming across my body. "Jasper, look at yourself."
When I opened my eyes, I could see that she had pulled down the sun visor and opened up the mirror on the back. I barely recognized the pale, sweaty stranger looking back at me. I looked beyond sick. No, I looked more like I belonged in a hospital. "Oh."
She put the car in drive. "Are you hungry? If you want something to eat, we can stop and get it."
"But we were supposed to go shopping." I really didn't know why I was arguing with her. I didn't feel like shopping, or even trying to interact with people.
"We'll go tomorrow. Since none of you kids are going to be home tonight and your father is taking me out, it doesn't really matter if we go today or tomorrow. I'm going through the Wendy's drive-thru for myself, so if you want something, speak up. It's probably good for you to get something in your stomach."
I nodded dumbly, too shocked by her words to formulate a reply. For the first time, she had referred to Carlisle as 'your father'. Felix was right; she did accept me into the family. She noticed my staring. "What? Do you feel sick?"
A little, but it was mostly nerves. "I'm all right."
She ordered the food, remembering exactly how I liked my hamburger. It was a small thing, really, but it meant as much to me as a thousand declarations of affection. Esme carefully passed me the food, and I held it for the drive back. I didn't trust myself to speak to her, so I closed my eyes again and rested. By the time we got home, I looked and felt a little less like a dead man walking, though I was still pretty pale.
Esme picked up both drinks, leaving me with the bag. "Jasper, why don't you lie down on the couch and I'll make you up a tray?"
A part of me felt kind of embarrassed that she was fussing like that when I was perfectly capable of sitting at the table like a normal person, but another part appreciated the special attention. I couldn't remember anyone bringing me a tray when I was sick, except for at the hospital, and that didn't really count. I still didn't feel that great. I never did after a panic attack.
I lay down gratefully, turning on a game show, and was a little lost in it when Esme appeared with my food and a fleece blanket. "Once you eat, I want you to try and rest a little. I don't know late the movie's going to run, and the doctors said you need plenty of sleep."
Lack of sleep could cause seizures. So could too much stress or excitement, missing doses of my medication, illness, and rapidly flashing lights. Then there were the seizures that were bound to happen, even if I did everything right. Epilepsy sucked, but I knew how close I had come to dying, so I wasn't about to complain too much.
"All right." I hadn't really wanted the food when it was ordered, but my instincts were still telling me to never turn down food when it was offered, because it might not be offered again for a long time. Now that Esme was actually bringing it, though, I found that I did want it after all. We ate together, enjoying the quiet that came when everyone else was at school or work. Once we were done, Esme patted my shoulder. "Try and rest now, and I'll come check on you in a little while."
I desperately wanted her company, but pride prevented me from flat out asking for it. Something must have shown on my face, though, because she paused. "Do you want something?"
Every part of me wanted to say yes, or beg her to stay, but I couldn't make my mouth work. So I finally gave my head a miserable shake. Even when I curled up on my side and closed my eyes, I could feel her still looking at me, trying to understand. Good luck. I could barely understand myself.
With my back pressed into the back of the couch, I felt secure, if not actually safe, that no one would try and sneak up behind me. I would be able to hear Emmett from a mile away, even when he tried to be quiet, so I would know as soon as everyone else was home from school. Sleep pulled at my body, and I surrendered to it.