Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or its characters.
Thought I forgot about this, didn't you...
I couldn't hold my excitement once my eyes opened. Bella had already jumped in and out of the shower before I finally decided what outfit I was going to wear. The royal blue skirt with cream lace peeking out from the bottom which, once on, would stop about a half an inch above my knees and cream colored shirt to match the lace along with the caramel colored brown knee high boots would make the perfect first day of school look. I only hoped Bella chose something a little prettier than a sweater and jeans, but I knew I was setting myself up for a disappointment. At least she was going to wear that good looking coat. She would definitely get a compliment or two on that; I was sure of it.
We made it to school and received our schedules without too much trouble. My second disappointment of the day happened to be when we saw the only period we had together was lunch.
"At least we have that, right?" I commented, trying to make her feel better. It didn't work, and, by the time we left for our first classes, she looked as though today was going to turn out as the worst day of her life.
I walked into my first class and easily got the teacher's signature I was required to get on one of the papers from the office. Two seconds later, I was seated at a desk near an overly happy girl who seemed to like talking a lot about boys, fashion, and herself. I waited until she paused to take a breath and introduced myself.
She took a moment to look at my clothes. "Hi! I'm Jessica. Love your skirt."
I smiled back, relishing the complement. "Thanks. I -" I wanted to add how I liked her red off the shoulder shirt, but the teacher started his lecture with a booming, "Civil War!"
For the rest of the class I kept my face in my hand and my elbow resting on the desk as my other hand took notes and scribbled clothing designs in the margins. Needless to say, I barely paid attention and relished any attention before and after to let me forget about the needless information that school was all about.
Soon it was lunch and a much needed social break. I ended up walking over to a table with most of the people I already met and politely asked if I could join them seeing as how they were pretty nice to me so far. It didn't take long before I noticed Bella slowly walking in as if she were afraid of being in a room full of people exactly like her.
"Bella!" I called, getting her attention so she'd come over to the table to at least try to socialize. Seeing how the student population of this school was less than our graduating class, I would have thought she might actually enjoy it here. But I supposed it would take a couple of months to let her guard down and finally get rid of her old, introverted self for once. Or it could be never. But I was going to try until she started scratching my eyes out. "This is Tyler, Ben, Connor, Lee, Samantha, Angela, Eric, Lauren, Mike I guess, and Jessica, who you already know."
The rest of the lunch period went by uneventful until Bella spoke up. "Who are they?" The question brought a group of people to my attention. I looked at them and their fairly similar features and quickly wondered the same thing.
"That's the Cullens. They're all Dr. and Mrs. Cullen's foster children," Jessica piped up. "The tall blond girl is Rosalie Hale. She's dating Emmett McCarty, the muscular guy next to her with the dark curly hair."
I followed the people. The blond, Rosalie, had great fashion sense, and I could tell she knew that. It didn't take a genius to realize she believed she was better than anyone in this room. I didn't let it get to me, though. If she got on my bad side, she wouldn't hear the end of it. I could also be a bit of a spitfire. My eyes moved past her to the overly muscular guy who was probably on everyone's 'Tall, Dark, and Handsome' list. While he looked nice, he didn't hold anything to the man sporting the honey blond hair. He looked taller than I was, but, at 4'10, everyone was taller than me. While Emmett looked happy and Rosalie looked indifferent and maybe a little angry, the honey blond pained, sad, and depressed. I immediately felt something, although what it was, I didn't know. I just knew I needed to meet him. But first…
"Who's the cute blond guy?" I asked, a sheepish smile playing across my face.
"The guy who always looks in pain is Jasper Whitlock."
Jasper Whitlock, I repeated to myself as my sister spoke up. "And what about the bronze haired one?" I tore my eyes from Jasper and looked at the man with the too chiseled features, something that would earn him millions of dollars in modeling contracts.
"That's Edward Masen. He's good looking, but no girl here is good enough for him," said Jessica with a sigh that had an edge. I laughed inwardly as I realized he would be the one my sister was stuck on.
I pulled my eyes away from the table as each of them slowly looked up to give our table an angry glare. Well, everyone but Jasper and Emmett. I didn't stop looking at Jasper and tried my best to hide it every time I glanced.
"Why the sudden interest in Jasper?" asked Bella after the twentieth time I turned to look.
"He looks so sad," I said truthfully. "I want to make him feel good." I smiled a determined smile. It was something I always showed when I was ready to take on a big project. And usually it was a project involving Bella. "I bet he's just waiting for a woman who will make him happy and sweep him off his feet."
"I thought you wanted to be swept off your feet." I nodded, remembering the times when I was younger and danced with Renee as the prince in the kitchen.
"I do, but I have to sweep him off his feet first," I finally answered, knowing full well he wouldn't have that frown if he had ever been in love.
As if on cue, Jasper stood up with his tray of untouched food. I took a deep breath and stood up, "Time to go find a way to talk to him." Only one tiny step later, I saw Edward lean near Jasper and his lips move. Then I saw Jasper silently sit down. I let go of that breath and my shoulders fell. Not looking away from the two of them, I sat down again.
"Let me know when he stands up again."
Jasper didn't – or wasn't allowed to – stand up again which put me in a slightly sour mood after lunch. I tried not letting it show as I walked to my next class with some of the people from the lunch table, but I was sure I wasn't doing a good job. No one seemed to notice, though, and I soon made my way out of the locker room and into the gym.
After a day of boring classes, I was glad to have lunch and P.E. next to each other. I was probably more excited about P.E. than anything because I would be able to just let go and have a good time as nothing came easier than sports or dance to me. Even my muddled thoughts didn't have a chance to trip me up.
And today was no different.
As soon as I stepped into the gym, I started asking around about Jasper. Knowing I only had a couple classes left, I wasn't feeling hopeful about running into him. It turned out I was right. He was a senior and there was no chance we would run into each other as it was obvious he didn't have P.E. with the other seniors since he would have been standing with them at the opposite end of the gym. It was seriously going to slow down my plan when I couldn't even get close to him. Lunch would have been an ideal place, but with his family right there...
"Alice," Tyler called me, breaking me away from my new funk. "You're on my team."
The rest of the school day was uneventful as the beginning. By the time I met up with Bella, I had already decided I was going to do whatever it took to get closer to Jasper. My declaration brightened me up and made me laugh that much harder at my sister's ability to be the most accident prone person I knew.
I almost forgot about returning our signed paper back to the office secretary, Mrs. Cope, when Bella pulled me toward it. It was there I saw the object of my ire sweetly arguing with the secretary. My sister stopped in her tracks and I couldn't quite figure out what was going on until he practically growled, "I guess there's no point in trying," at her. After pushing past us, I was about to turn and go after him, but Bella stopped me, placing her hand on my arm.
"Let it go."
A few questions about how our day went later and the two of us were walking back to our car. A shiny object caught my attention and I turned my eyes toward a silver Volvo. Edward's face was the first I saw which indicated Jasper was somewhere-
And there he was.
I smiled. I don't know if it was the smile that caught his attention or the motion of an almost waving hand did it, but I was glad something did because he looked at me. And I knew I wasn't mistaking that.
"He looked at me!" I burst out. Bella barely nodded and I could tell she was still brooding over something. My tone turned serious. "I would have yelled at Edward for being so cruel to you."
"I know, but it obviously wouldn't have done any good."
"He has absolutely no right to be that way with you. What could you have done to him? You're one of the most timid people I know," I grumbled as I stepped up to the truck.
"I don't know what I did," she shrugged back before explaining the whole story of Biology class as we made our way to the grocery story to stock up Charlie's fridge. As it went on, I moved my arms from my side to cross in front of my chest, the happy mood turning sour.
"That certainly doesn't give him the right to be that rude. Tomorrow I'm going to confront him about it."
"No!" she shouted. "I'll deal with him on my own tomorrow."
She pulled into the grocery store's parking lot. We both knew I wanted to say more, but I held it in and instead shouted back, "Yea! Shopping!"
It wasn't long before the day called for an ending and we ended up in our double bed. I stared into the dark wall while I thought about the day and how tomorrow was going to be better. I felt the need to lift my sister's spirits up just one more time, but all that spilled out was, "If Edward doesn't start acting civilly towards you, I'll take care of him for you."
"I know," she answered and I could feel her moving beside me.
"I hope Jasper isn't like that."
She didn't know what to say. I could tell by the slightly uncomfortable air between us. I knew this was a Renee situation, but I didn't care. Renee wasn't here and Charlie was even more clueless as to what to say. I only hoped Bella would reach out with at least one or two words of encouragement. When nothing did come, I closed my eyes.
He won't be.