Amy
Esme stopped breathing. Did Jasper just call her Amy?
It was a coincidence. Nothing more. But Esme found herself pushing Jasper away. "What did you just call me?"
He released his hold on her. Jasper looked confused. "Esme?"
She shook her head. "You said Amy."
She hadn't spoken or thought about Amy since before Carlisle had turned her.
How could Jasper have known her baby sister's name?
He blinked once, slowly. "Are you sure?"
Esme nodded, trying not to jump to conclusions, but failing miserably.
She noticed Jasper looked agitated, his eyes darting around the room, his breaths coming in closer together.
Her escalating feelings of panic were clearly affecting him, overwhelming him, so she tried to squash them, push them away before she asked,
"How do you know my youngest sister's name?"
Jasper's hands were shaking and he looked miserable.
He should have run away like the coward he knew he was; let Edward tell her.
He swallowed. The taste was bitter and the venom abraded his dry throat.
Jasper looked Esme in the eye. "I knew her."
He watched. And he waited.
Esme glanced away when she asked, "Did you kill her?"
Her voice was so small, and when he felt the rawness of her vulnerability, he imagined his dead heart shattering into infinite pieces.
He wanted to tell her no. But that was a lie.
He wanted to say that he hadn't meant to do it.
But the irrational beast inside him had known what his rational brain had not:
he would trip over that fine line, he would cross it, and he would murder the girl he had intended to use
as a buffer against the agonizing loneliness.
He had allowed himself to believe the lie, much to the delight of the monster inside him.
He couldn't speak. So he nodded instead.
And he closed his eyes, tightly.
He didn't need to see the look of agony on her face. He felt it.
He felt it all coming crashing into him: agony, hurt, disbelief, betrayal, anger, shame, and on and on and on and on.
Jasper hung his head. The pain Esme was feeling was too much to bear.
It weighted him down, made his soul feel weary; his bones and sinew ached.
He fell to his knees and buried his head in his hands, shaking under the strain of it all.
He wanted to shout at her, to tell her to leave, but his voice wouldn't come.
Edward lowered the picture he had been holding against the wall and handed it to Bella.
"Something's wrong with Esme," he told her as he sped out of the cottage toward the main house.
He raced into Carlisle and Esme's bedroom without bothering to knock.
She was sitting on their bed, wrapped in Carlisle's arms, sobbing. Edward knelt down next to her.
"Esme, I couldn't follow what was happening…" Edward looked up at Carlisle.
Carlisle saw the anger on Edward's face and shook his head. No, you and Emmett keep away from Jasper.
He's even more distraught than Esme. She'll be fine once she lets it all out. We should be more worried about Jasper.
He tends to hold onto these things.
Edward rubbed Esme's arm. She reached for his hand and he took it.
Edward, you know I don't normally condone spying, but… Esme will want to know what Jasper is thinking.
Of course Esme would worry more about Jasper and his feelings than her own.
Edward understood, from her thoughts over the past fifty-plus years, that she felt one day, with enough love and patience,
the broken man that was Jasper Whitlock would eventually accept that he did deserve unconditional love.
Edward had his doubts that Esme would ever see that transformation.
He'd caught glimpses of too many dark thoughts, memories of past deeds and wrong-doings that didn't just haunt Jasper, they seemed to hunt him.
And anything and everything, no matter how trivial or minor, could dredge up some of the oldest and harshest memories.
Edward hated that the only thing that seemed to soothe Jasper was Alice. It didn't seem fair to Alice.
Did Jasper truly love her for herself, or because she kept his demons at bay? Edward wasn't sure, and he didn't think Jasper was either.
He wouldn't allow her to lead him to the soft bed, so they sat on the floor, in the corner.
She was sitting with her back against the wall; Jasper was curled up against her, his face pressed against her breast, his long arms wrapped around her tiny frame,
holding her much too tightly. But she didn't complain.
That would only add one more hurt to the jumbled mess of emotions Jasper was sorting through.
Most of the family, with the exception of Edward and she, did not fully realize the very personal and lasting impact their emotions made on Jasper.
He didn't just register everyone else's unique feelings. He wasn't a casual third-party observer, safely observing their emotions outside of the experience.
He absorbed them and could easily lose his sense of self in the maelstrom of other people's emotions.
Sometimes, like tonight, it was hard to let go of the sinking ship.
Alice noted, with no small amount of pride, that Jasper had gotten good at tucking away the barrage of feelings he was confronted with
on a daily basis without dwelling on each and every one. He made a conscious effort to minimize the impact
all those feelings made on him as they chipped away at his self, his identity. When he was calm, he was able to focus
and could separate his own feelings from other, but when another's emotions were especially strong, or insistent, or relentless
he floundered like a man drowning.
Alice didn't know what had happened between Jasper and Esme, but she was certain there had to be some rational explanation, perhaps Edward would know.
"I…can't believe I struck him," Esme sobbed into Carlisle's chest.
With that single nod, something inside of her had snapped.
She had closed the short distance between Jasper and herself and she had struck him across the face with both hands until he sank to his knees;
then she beat him around the head and shoulders with her fists until Emmett had pulled her off him.
She may have struck Emmett as well. She wasn't certain.
Carlisle was at a loss. Esme was not a violent woman. He knew this even as he watched her strike Jasper repeatedly.
Both he and Alice had been too stunned to react. Emmett had been the one to push through them, the one to pull Esme away from Jasper.
"Did he threaten you?"
She shook her head and twisted Carlisle's shirt in her fist. "Why did he even tell me? I'd forgotten all about her!"
Carlisle pried her hand from his shirt and held it. "Esme, what did Jasper tell you?"
Esme looked up at him. "He killed my sister Amy."