It Was Me
Alice sprinted through the front door and up the stairs. She didn't have to knock; Jasper knew it was her and the door was open.
She glanced at the empty suitcase sitting on the bed next to him. "Were you going somewhere?"
"You know that I'm not." Jasper wouldn't look at her.
"You can always change your mind," Alice whispered sadly.
"And the second I do, you'll know."
Alice knelt in front him and took his hands in hers. "I know you don't really want to leave."
"She saw them."
Alice squeezed his hands. "I know," she said quietly.
Jasper bared his teeth. "All of them."
Alice nodded her head. "I know."
Jasper closed his eyes, remembering the look on Esme's face. He didn't need his special ability to see the absolute shock, the sorrow, and the pity.
If all he'd have to endure was seeing the emotions written all over Esme's face, he could live with that, but feeling them was so much worse.
The sorrow had been deep and aching and the feeling had wrenched his gut, but the pity had incensed him, ignited his carefully controlled anger.
He pulled his hands from Alice's and clenched them, pressing his knuckles against his eyes. "I don't want to feel…" He exhaled loudly.
"Every time she sees me, I'll feel it and I'll… I'm afraid I might come unraveled."
Alice rubbed Jasper's knees through the denim of his jeans. "Leaving would hurt her more."
When Jasper didn't reply she said, "You do know, next to Edward, you're her favorite, right?"
"Esme doesn't have favorites. And even if she did, I wouldn't be one of them. She worries more whenever I'm around."
"Is that honestly all Esme feels when she's in the same room with you?"
"It's the more dominant feeling."
Alice stood and sat on Jasper's knee, wrapping her arms around his neck. She kissed his temple. "That's because she feels protective of you, silly."
Why would Esme ever think he'd need protecting? She'd seen the scars on his face and neck, on his hands and arms from day one.
Esme pressed her fisted hands against her stomach. "Oh Carlisle, if you'd seen it…they were everywhere, just everywhere."
Carlisle placed his hands on Esme's shoulders, kneading them. "You're trembling."
"That's because I want to cry and I can't." Esme wrapped her arms around Carlisle's waist and buried her face against his chest.
That poor boy! What a horrible existence! What if he'd never run away? What if Alice never found him?"
They heard a knock on their bedroom door. "Come in, Alice," Carlisle said.
Esme walked toward Alice and took her hands in hers. "Jasper?"
Alice sighed. "He thinks he wants to leave."
"Absolutely not!"
Both Alice and Carlisle gave her a shocked look. Esme was shaking her head.
"Esme darling, Jasper is a grown man and if he wants to leave we cannot force him to stay."
"But we're family, he's part of our family." Esme glanced at Alice and then locked her gaze on Carlisle's eyes.
What Esme saw in his eyes spoke volumes: We are not a coven. Not like Maria. Not like her coven. Jasper is free to come and go as he pleases.
Alice interrupted the silent exchange between Carlisle and Esme. "He only thinks he wants to leave. He hasn't made a firm decision yet."
"I'm not afraid of him," Esme said. "Reneesme isn't afraid of him."
"Jasper knows that," Alice said.
"Then why does he want to leave?"
He heard her ascending the stairs; her unmistakable smell reached his nose before she knocked.
"Come in," Jasper said. He tensed against the anticipated feelings as Esme closed the door and approached him.
She reached out her hand. The action became hesitant when she saw he was tensed and not breathing;
her fingers brushed lightly against his back before she dropped her hand back down to her side. "Jasper, I'm sorry—"
"You have nothing to feel sorry about," he whispered ferociously.
Esme took one step back and tried again. "I wanted to apologize. I know Reneesme and I saw something we weren't meant to—"
"Stop. Please." Jasper turned to face Esme. "I don't want you to feel sorry for me"
"I don't. We don't." Esme shook her head, her eyes wide.
Her emotions told him differently. "I was a bad person. I did unspeakable things," Jasper paused as the image of the auburn-haired girl with the cornflower blue eyes flashed in his memory.
"Selfish, selfish things," he whispered, unable to look Esme in the eye. "Things I won't tell Alice."
But Edward knew. He knew everything.
Esme shivered when she felt Jasper's fear and anxiety roll toward her. As if reading his mind, she said, "Edward would never tell us—any of us-- anything unless you wanted him to."
It was a lie.
He knew it.
And so did Esme.
Edward had set aside his personal code of conduct in the past. Not long after he and Alice had shown up on the Cullens's doorstep
and Carlisle had taken the two of them in. The look in Esme's eyes told him she was remembering the same thing.
"We didn't know you then," she whispered, "not like we do now. Nothing Edward could tell us now would make us love you any less…
would make us want you to leave. Jasper, please… don't leave."
Jasper shook his head, trying to deny the warm feeling in the pit of his stomach as Esme's love radiated out and covered him like a shroud.
"I don't deserve your love. Especially not from you, Esme."
Esme approached him, intent on embracing him; he stopped her, bracing his hands on her shoulders.
He really had been blind all these years. She looked so much like her.
Esme gently placed her hands on his forearms and looked up at him, and for a brief moment Jasper was seeing that other woman.
"I thought I loved her, but it was her, all her. I was too lonely to care, too lonely to untangle her emotions from my own,
to sort them out like Peter had told me to do… before I did something rash."
Esme placed her hands on Jasper's cheeks. "You are not the only one in this family who has killed a human."
He pulled Esme against him suddenly, his lips brushing up against her neck until his mouth was hovering next to her ear. "It was me."
He crushed her closer to him, swaying. "Oh Amy, I tried to stop, you have to believe that."
Esme stopped breathing. Did Jasper just call her Amy?