Alice POV
"Good morning, Alice. How are you doing?" Felix was welcoming, the same way he always was.
"I'm well, thank you." I set my purse down on the floor before picking the most comfortable chair. "I'm missing a math test."
He smiled. "Something tells me you aren't exactly missing it. I'm glad that you were willing to see me today, though."
"No problem." I really don't mind coming to see Felix. He's helped me a lot, and I'm not too proud to admit when I need some extra help.
The thing is, I don't think I need it right now. Mom does, and Dad does, so I'm going to make them happy, but I'm fine.
"Do you know why your parents wanted you to come see me?" He cut right to the chase.
"Because of Jasper. They think that I'm going to freak out now that he's gone and do something stupid to myself. But I'm not." I had to make that very clear. I had no intentions of harming myself over a boy, even if it was my Jasper.
"Are you going to do those things?" As a therapist, he had to ask.
"No. I'm not a little girl any more, and I'm stronger then I was then. I haven't had a serious episode in almost a decade." He knew all this already, of course, but he likes to hear us say it, too.
"Do you miss him?"
Despite wanting to appear strong, my eyes welled. "Yes. I miss him so much, and he didn't even tell us goodbye. He just left."
"Are you angry with him?"
That was a tough one to answer. I love Jasper. He's my heart and I want nothing more then to have him back, in my arms. But love doesn't make you totally blind to someone's faults. "Sometimes. I know that he's really scared right now, and Jasper runs when he's scared. He did this because he really felt like he had no other choice, and that makes me feel really sad for him. But he hurt all of us. We would have helped him if he had asked for it, but he couldn't trust us enough to do it. So that makes me mad at him. It's a little confusing."
Felix nodded but didn't say anything else. I was stuck here for a whole hour, and we had only talked for five minutes. It made me nervous, because he's sneaky and smart, and he might trick me into giving up all of my secrets.
Because I have a big one, one that no one knows. Not Mom, not Dad, not any of my brothers. Not even Rosalie. I've never been good at keeping secrets, but I'm guarding this one with my life.
I miss Jasper, and I worry about him, but I'm not as freaked out as Mom and Dad are. Because I know he's at least minimally ok right now. And I know it because he calls me every night after I go to bed.
He didn't call me the first night, or the second. He didn't contact anyone. One day we had a Jasper, the next day we had nothing.
No one knew what to do. We had lost foster kids before. Some of them went home, some went to other biological family members. A few went to new foster homes, for a variety of reasons. One or two went to residential treatment centers because we couldn't keep them or everyone else safe in our home.
But we had never gone through something like before. Our other kids had been kids, little ones. They couldn't just run away from home like Jasper had. Legally, someone had to find them and bring them home.
It wasn't that way with Jasper. At 18, he was able to make the decision to leave and none of us could stop him. Had he decided to bolt the day before, we could have sent the police after him and had him brought home by any means necessary. How could 24 hours make such a big difference in the eyes of the law that now he was on his own?
No one knew what to do, so no one did anything. We didn't talk about Jasper, because didn't know what to say. Mom got upset any time she saw his abandoned possessions, so Dad and Emmett boxed them up and put them away. It was like he had never existed.
In fact, I actually began to worry that he hadn't. I'm not a stupid person, and I don't believe in hiding my own faults, any more then I believe in hiding Jaspers. I've had a nervous breakdown in the past. It happened, and pretending that it didn't doesn't do anyone any favors.
Had I finally become so pathetic that I had just invented myself a boyfriend? No one wanted to talk about him, unless I brought him up first. Were they all just humoring me?
That thought spun around and around in my brain. The pictures of Jasper had been packed away as well, and I didn't know how to ask for them. What if they didn't exist? Then I would not only have to face the fact that I was going crazy again, but then everyone else would know about it.
I couldn't go to Mom or Dad about it. They thought that I was fixed, and it would devastate them to find out that I wasn't. No, I had to test the waters first, with someone who I knew wouldn't lie to spare my feelings.
Luckily, I knew just the person to go to. Rosalie has been spending a lot of time in her garage lately, grumbling and snarking at family members. Does she miss Jasper, or is she worried about me instead? Whatever the truth is, I know that she'll be honest if I ask.
Sure enough, I could hear her banging and slamming things inside. I knocked gently on the door. "Rose? Can I come in?"
My big sister can be a bit…difficult at times. Ok, she can be an outright bitch. But she loves her family and I knew that she wouldn't turn me away. "Come in."
Her normally immaculate garage was a mess. "What do you want, Shrimp?" The words were a little harsh, but her smile betrayed her. As rough as she can be to people outside the family, she loves those within it.
"I…" My voice trembled and I forced it to be strong. I could do this. "I wanted to talk about Jasper."
I made sure that I was studying her face carefully when I said his name. Rose is closed off, but I thought that I should be able to see at least a little something. I was just scared that what I would see would be confusion or pity.
"What about him?" Curiosity, with a hint of sadness and anger. "Have you heard from him?"
He heart soared, then dropped. Jasper was real. He had been here, and he had been mine. I wasn't losing my mind again.
But I had lost him. If he had been real, and been here, then that meant he was really gone now. "I just….do you think he's coming home?"
"I don't know." She slammed a part down with more force then was needed. "He needs to, but he's so fucking stubborn that he'll end up back in the hospital before he swallows his pride and calls us to come home."
"I wish he would at least call."
"Yeah." She turned to face me. "Are you pissed at me?"
Honestly, it hadn't occurred to me to be angry with Rose. "Why?"
"Because I let him go. I knew that Jasper was going to walk out of this door, and I didn't do anything to stop him. I even helped him to escape."
Oh. When she put it like that, I probably should be angry with her. But I couldn't be. She was trying to do what was best for Jasper. He had clearly made up his mind to run, and it least Rosalie had made sure he had somewhere to run to. If she hadn't helped, he might be on the streets right now.
"No, you did the right thing." My eyes welled up and I looked down. "I just miss him a lot."
She wrapped an arm around me. "Me, two. When he comes home, I'm never letting him out of my sight again. When I'm done smacking the shit out of him, of course."
That was Rose in a nutshell. She would hug Jasper with one arm while choking him with the other. "Do you think he would talk to me if I called him?"
I already knew that he wouldn't, but I had to ask. The entire family had blown up his phone with calls and texts. He let each call go to voice mail and didn't respond to the texts. I know he talked to Mom once, because she cried all day. I think she cried while they were talking, too, which is probably why he won't talk to the rest of us now.
Rose shook her head. "Probably not. I've tried to get him to, but he's stubborn as hell. I'm sorry, Shrimp."
"What if I used your phone?" I was getting desperate now, and I knew she could hear it.
She was thinking about it, I could tell. But she shook her head. "No. If he answers the phone, and it's not me, I'm afraid that he won't answer it again. Then we'll have no connection to him."
It was a smart thought, even if it wasn't what I wanted to hear. "I guess."
"I'll try again, ok? But you have to swear that if I get him to call you; you won't tell Mom and Dad, ok? Let me work on it."
I hugged her as tight as I could. "Thanks, Rose. You're a great sister to both of us."
She sighed. "We just have to get our family all together again."
Then Mom was calling us both, and we headed back upstairs. We didn't have to speak, or even look at each other to know that what we had just discussed was to stay between us only.
I didn't expect much from our talk, which was why I was so surprised when my phone rang at close to midnight. "Hello?"
"Hi." It was Jasper. "Rose said you wanted me to call you." He was very quiet, almost sleepy.
"I do. I miss you and I want to make sure that you're alright." I rushed out the words, so he wouldn't hang up on me.
"I'm ok. I miss you, too."
Liar. I did believe that he missed me, but he was far from ok. With ever word that came out of his mouth, he sounded less sleepy and more confused. I wondered if he even knew what time it was. "It's really late. Are you working a night job?" I already knew that he wasn't, but I wanted to keep him on the phone.
"No." There was an odd whooshing noise, and I knew that it was the air on the phone as he moved it back to check the time. "Oh. I didn't realize it was late like this."
That wasn't good. Jasper is usually beyond hyper vigilant. He knows everything that's happening around him at all times. When he lost time like this, it meant he was having seizures. But if I tried to call him on it, I knew he would deny it. "It's fine. You can call me any time you want."
He didn't say anything, but I could hear his breathing so I knew that he was there. "Jasper, please come home."
"I can't." Quiet and desperate. He wanted to, I could tell. So what was holding him back?
"You can. Any time. If you would call Mom or Dad, they would come get you right away." He needed to understand that he was part of this family, whether he liked it or not.
"Not now, Alice." His voice picked up a slight edge, and I knew it was time to back off.
But I didn't quite understand what he meant. Did he mean for me to not discuss this with him now, or that he wanted to come home, but not right this minute? "Can I come visit you? You could show me around your new neighborhood."
"Ok. Give me a little more time to settle in and get everything unpacked, and I'll show you around." His voice perked up, now that he was away from the threatening conversation we had been about to have. "I'll let you go now, so you can go to bed."
"Are you going to call again tomorrow?" If I trapped him and got him to agree tonight, he would stick by his word.
"Yeah. But earlier" He was sounding confused again, like he didn't know where the time had gone.
"Alice?" Felix's voice brought me back to the present. "What were you wanting to say?"
I met his eyes squarely. "If I tell you something, you can't tell my Mom and Dad, right? Unless I threaten to hurt myself or someone else, it's all between us?"
"That is correct." He leaned forward, very interested in what I had to say.
"Of course I'm worried about Jasper. I don't think that he's doing well on his own, because he's not ready for it. But I'm not super freaked out; because I've talked to him a bunch of times, so I know he's alive and kicking."
That surprised him. "Really? He's spoken to you?"
"Yes. Me and Rose. And Mom, once, but I think it was just that one time because she cried and it made him upset, too."
"What kind of things do the two of you talk about?"
He sounded delighted, which I couldn't blame him for. After all, Jasper was his patient, too, and I had just handed him a 2 for 1 deal when it came to therapy. "All kinds of things. He got a cat and named him Denali. He sent me a picture of it." It was a really ugly cat, but I told Jasper he was beautiful. I was glad that he had a friend, even if that friend looked like he had fallen straight out of the ugly tree.
"I know about Denali. He's a rather…interesting looking cat."
Suddenly I felt protective of Denali, even though I had never met the beast and had just been thinking about how hideous he was myself. "He's cute! I like his…." I fumbled a bit, because there wasn't much cute on Denali. "He looks like a survivor. And Jasper loves him and that's what really counts." Sorry, Denali, I didn't make much of a case for you.
"That is what matters. What else do you talk about?"
I picked at my sleeve. "Other things. He tells me that he misses me, and that he misses our family."
"Does he talk about wanting to come back?"
"No. I've tried to bring it up to him, but he gets really snappy and defensive, so I just stopped. I'm scared that if I make him mad, he won't call again."
One of the things I like about Felix is that he doesn't treat us like little kids. He didn't tell me that Jasper would never do that, because we both knew that he might. Jasper was like a feral cat. If you held still and let him come to you, you might have chance. If you got impatient and tried to grab him, he would bolt and never come back. It was just so hard to wait.
"Does he tell you that he loves you?"
My face burned. I didn't like talking about things like this, because I wasn't sure that I understood them myself. "No. But he didn't say it before, either. I think he'll only say it when he's completely sure."
It was alright. I knew that Jasper loved me by the way he looked at me, or saved me the best pieces of everything. I didn't need to hear him toss the words around just because he thought that was what I wanted to hear.
That was when a thought popped into my head. "There is something kind of funny, though. When I ask him to come home, he never corrects me. I think he still thinks of our house as his home, even if he doesn't know that he thinks it."
I was half talking to Felix and half to myself. That realization gave me hope that we would be under one roof again soon.
"Do you think he wants to come home?" Felix interrupted my thoughts.
"Yes." I was sure he did. "Do you think he does?"
"I do. I just don't know if he will." Just thinking about it made my heart drop into my shoes. "Can we talk about something else? I'm sad about Jasper, but I'm not going to die over him."
"Certainly. Tell me what you're doing this summer."
"All of the same stuff. We're going camping next week, and Rose and I have been going down to Port Angeles and shopping. I'm drawing more, too." I reached into my bag and pulled out a sketchbook, holding it out for him to see. "I'm working on animals right now."
That wasn't exactly true. Well, it was true, but not the entire truth. The truth was, I had another notebook at home, hidden underneath my winter clothes. That notebook was dedicated to Jasper. He's a difficult boy to capture, and I had scrapped dozens of picture in disgust. Some of the pictures are nothing but the quirk of his lips, or the colors that swirl in his eyes. Others were things that wouldn't happen for a long time, but I could see as clearly as if they had already occurred. I had already sketched my wedding dress, a slim sheath that took full advantage of what I had and made the most of what I didn't (mostly breasts. I'm starting to think I'll be flat forever.). Jasper would wear a classic tuxedo of course. It was impossible to think of him in anything else. Even the little boy that I was sure we would have. A little one with my dark coloring, but his Daddy's curls.
I haven't shown that notebook to anyone and I never will. I would probably even hide it from Jasper himself. After all, nothing says creepy stalker like the sort of pictures I had been drawing. Even if he had all but promised me he would be back for me.
"These are quite beautiful Alice. I especially love the one with the wolves."
I blushed a little. "They're supposed to be werewolves. I tried to draw them a little bigger because of it."
"Why werewolves?"
"Because I can hear wolves out in the woods sometimes. I just thought it would be cool to have fantasy wolves, too." There was no real reason. "Being a werewolf might be kind of cool. Except then the rest of the family would be werewolves too, and Emmett would probably shed too much."
Felix laughed. "I never though of that, but he probably would."
"And he would lift his leg in the house. Werewolf Edward would just howl at the moon and hope that Bella would howl back." It was fun to think about our family this way. "Mom and Dad would still be taking care of us, and I think we both know what Emmett and Rose would be doing all the time. The same thing they do now."
"What would you be doing?"
Roaming around with Jasper. When you're a werewolf, the miles between us would just be a short walk. But that was a private thought. "I would be drawing pictures of us as humans, of course."
He let that comment go, and we spent the rest of the session talking about my drawing and our upcoming plans. Hopefully I had satisfied him that I wasn't suicidal over Jasper. Sad, yes, but not suicidal.
When the session was over, he gave me a quick smile. "Alice, I think you're doing a wonderful job of dealing with all of this. If you want to come back and talk to me again, my door is always open, but I'm not going to require it."
"Thanks. I…if Jasper asks about me, you'll tell him that I miss him, right?"
"Certainly."
Mom was still in the waiting room, pretending to read a magazine. I hugged her as tightly as I could. "I'm done! He says I don't need to come back unless I want to."
She smiled. "That's wonderful. Do you want to book another appointment or just play it by ear?"
"Play it by ear." I liked talking to Felix, but I don't really have enough going on in an average week to talk about for an hour.
The ride home was a bubbly one, where Mom and I talked about what trip we would take this summer. It was supposed to be Jasper's choice, but he wasn't here. He might come back in time, but I wasn't counting on it.
Rose was waiting for us when we got home, catching me as I came in the door and pulling me aside to whisper in my ear. "You have a present waiting upstairs. Eeyore has it."
Eeyore, of course, was Jasper's Eeyore, the one he had been given for his birthday. I had found him sitting outside my door the morning he vanished, like a parting gift. I didn't need to be able to read minds to know that Jasper had left him for me, and that it was all part of his promise to come back to us, one way or another. Maybe he would never live with us again, but he would be back.
I had put him on my bed and forgotten about him, except to give him and occasional pat, and tell him that I was keeping him safe for his real owner. So what was he offering me?
At first, he didn't look any different, but then I caught the shimmer of something around his neck. I picked him up and slid the brand new necklace over his head. It was silver and delicate, in the shape of a figure 8. No, it wasn't an 8, it was an infinity symbol.
"It came in the mail today. I think we both know who it's from." Rose stepped in and touched it. "There were some instructions for where to put it."
Rose might not be sure that Jasper was coming home, but this was enough to convince me he was. He was claiming me as his, forever. "Did he say anything else?"
She sniffed. "Nope. Not a word for his favorite sister. It's a lovely necklace, though."
"He's coming home." It wasn't a question.
Rose rolled her eyes. "Yes. Jasper's coming home."