Edward POV

I didn't notice anything different when I woke, but by the end of the day I knew it had been one of my splendidly bad ones.

When I looked in the mirror as I was getting ready I admired all the pretty scars and cuts on my skin. They were the only pretty thing about me, why did everyone look beyond the only pretty thing on my and look at all the ugly things? I was supposed to be the only one looking at the ugly things. They weren't supposed to know about the pretty things or the ugly ones, but at least if they had to know and look they could look at the pretty ones.

Maybe they didn't think they were pretty. But how could you not? The newest ones were a result of years of practice and perfecting, and they looked glorious against my skin. I promised myself that I would make more pretty things before the day was up. I promised myself only five, and then I would have to go downstairs and go to school before they came to find me.

It was very hard to stop at only five, so I made sure that they were good, deep ones. They would be at their peak for a while, at the height of their prettiness before fading to the still radiant pretty of the rest. I stopped only by re-assuring myself that I would do many more over the period of the day. No-one could stop me. Maybe if I put enough on me they would finally see the prettiness of them and stop trying to get me to stop.

I got to the school not remembering how I got there. All I could think of was the need to make more pretty things and soon. I barely managed to sit through my first period class. It was one of the longest hours of my life, but at the end I couldn't remember a thing that had happened. I ran to the bathroom, trying to hide my desperation to get there and avoid drawing attention to myself. Attention would only mean that people would try to stop me from going and making more pretty, and the world needed more pretty in it. I would put as much pretty in it as I could before I died, I decided.

I managed to slow dawn to a fast walk when I noticed people starting to look at me, and once I did they seemed to forget that they had seen anything unusual. I really hoped the bathroom was empty...

I slid into the bathroom bordering on breathless and did a quick scan, hoping against hope that there was no-one in there. I was almost lucky, as there was one other person in there, but they were washing their hands, so I wouldn't have to wait too long for them to leave. I hovered impatiently next to the door so I could lock it as soon as they left. I still hadn't processed who it was that was in there with me, but they were taking so long. I mean, honestly, how long can it take to wash your hands?!?! I glared at the figure, my glare softening slightly as I realised that it was Jasper. I couldn't wait any longer, and he wouldn't mind, after all, he had practically said so. I slammed the door shut and locked it quickly, before he could protest.

I suddenly didn't care that someone was in there with me, I needed to cut NOW!!! Jasper be damned, he already knew that I cut, so it shouldn't make much difference if he saw me do it...

I tossed my bag on the floor, frantically searching through it until I found one of the blades I had stashed in there. I ripped my sleeve up to my elbow, faintly registering Jasper's frown out of the corner of my eye, but I didn't care. I swiftly brought the blade across my skin one, two, three, four, five, six times; watching as the cuts swelled with blood and spilled over, quickly releasing the blood down my arms and flowing onto the floor. It was beautiful.

I was brought out of my daze brought on by the pretty as Jasper reached out and grabbed by hand with the blade in it in a firm grip. As I started struggling against his restraining grip he deftly reached out and plucked the blade out of my fist. I stared at him in disbelief; at least in doing that he had cut open my palm, but still!!

I stopped my struggling, defeated. All of a sudden I had no fight left in me, only a foggy sort of hurt. Jasper looked at me sorrowfully, while pocketing the blade he had taken off me. He stared at me until I broke down completely, collapsing onto the floor while scratching at my arms and pathetically sobbing out 'why did you have to stop me'.

It wasn't fair! He was the one person on this earth that I thought I could trust not to stop me, to understand and now he goes and does this. I was unaware of the steadily growing pool of blood around me, or the light-headedness that was staring to affect me until Jasper called my name and I tried to focus on him. I must have given away something in my expression or eyes because his face suddenly took on a slightly worried look before he grabbed my newly pretty arm and held it above my head, grasping the pretties tightly.

"For the blood loss." I faintly heard him say in explanation. My eyes widened in horror. I didn't want to prevent blood loss. If I lost enough blood I would die. Why was he stopping me? I weakly tried to pull my arm down, but Jasper was too strong for me to do anything.

I was muttering "no, why won't you just let me die, please, just let me die!" But all that succeeded in doing was getting Jasper to hold me arm tighter. With his other hand he reached into his bag, pulling out some anti-bacterial wipes and gauze bandages. Releasing my wrist for only long enough to transfer his grip so it wasn't covering any of the pretties he carefully wiped over them with the wipe before binding it tightly with the bandages. Huh, why would he have had bandages in his bag?

"I thought something like this would happen," he said, answering my unspoken question. So he can read minds too, now.

"No, you are speaking aloud." He said. Opps.

The bleeding must have at least slowed, as the bandages weren't getting any redder, so he allowed my arm to drop. I used it to pull my knees to my chest and bury my head in them.

"Looks like we are going to have to sit in here for a while, doesn't it. Not that it really matters to you; you would have left about now anyway. Oh, well, it's only a few classes. I'll live." I looked at him, confused.

"Why do you say that?" I croaked out.

"Well, I doubt that you will want everyone to see you covered in blood-"he looked down pointedly to the puddle of blood we were both sitting in, "-so we can't leave until everyone else has; we have to clean up the blood, so that there want be any intrusive questions as to how it got there, and I can't leave because you would just finish off the job, or at least cut again."

Which brought me back to one of my original questions "why did you stop me?" I asked accusingly.

"Because you are my friend and I care about you, I don't want to see you hurt." I was instantly angered by his answer, scrambling away from him.

"You're just like the others! Feeding me a bunch of lies, trying to get me to trust you, when all you want to do is stop me from doing what I want! Well! I'll show you! Nothing you or anyone else does will ever get me to stop! Never!"

He looked at me sadly, "I have never told you anything but the truth. I don't want to see you hurt. You think you know what you are doing, but you don't, because you care more about dying and hurting than what you do anything else. Do you realise, that the only reason you are not strapped up in some psychiatric ward at the moment, with no chance of dying or ever being able to cut again is because I convinced them that you would try to get better after I talked to you? That I lied to them to protect you? I have noticed when you have just cut and not told anyone. So don't you dare tell me I am not looking out for you. If I hadn't stopped you just then you would have lost enough blood to at least passed out, and then someone would have found you, and there is no way you wouldn't have been sent away!" His voice was low and dangerous, and I curled further into myself, huddling into the corner, not looking at Jasper, just thinking about what he had said. And that is how we stayed for the next few hours, until school was out and mostly everyone had left.

It must have been fifteen minutes after the final bell had rung that Jasper grabbed my arm, again putting pressure where the most recent pretty where and yanked me to my feet. Scowling, I glared at him. I wasn't some small child that couldn't get up by himself, and I wish he would stop treating me like one.

He handed me my bag, casually collecting his own before dragging me unwillingly to his car and forcing me to sit down. He even child-locked my door, the bastard!

"Where are you taking me?" I demanded to know.

"To your house, and no, I won't tell them what happened unless it becomes necessary."

"Why have you locked me in then?" I was getting seriously pissed now.

"Because I wouldn't put it past you to jump out of the car while it is moving." His tone was blunt and no-nonsense, and it annoyed the hell out of me.

"Have you ever considered that I don't want your 'help?'" Spitting out the word 'help' as if it were poison, well, maybe not, seeing as I would just swallow the poison, but you get the idea.

"You may not want it, but you need it." His tone was final, and I could tell that for now, at least, there would be no changing his mind. For today he was still blind to the pretty...

It was then I realised that he still hadn't given me back my blade. He would have to give it back to me. I couldn't lose another one! I had already had to surrender four of them to the clutches of Carlisle, I couldn't afford to lose another one.

I quickly ordered him to give it back, but to no avail, he refused and told me that if I wanted it back I was out of luck, because I wasn't getting it back anytime soon. Disgruntled, I rolled down the window, we were still a good ten minutes away from my house so he wouldn't be able to get help that quickly if I jumped out of the car. I slyly unbuckled my seatbelt, Jasper not noticing and driving along as normal. When I got my widow open I concentrated on reaching out and finding the door handle, so focused on my task that I did not notice Jasper slow down evenly to an unnoticed stop. I grinned triumphantly when my hand found the handle, but that quickly faded when I realised that the car was stationary. How had he noticed? I was being careful!

"Do you want me to have to lock the window shut as well?" He asked, lifting an eyebrow at me. He continued "now, you will get back into this car, and put your seatbelt back on." He reached across and wound up my window before locking it.

He could stop me now, but he couldn't stop me when I was at home. I at least would have those few hours of opportunity tonight. He couldn't stop me then...