AN – Hi everyone! Back with another chapter. I have to say, I am so happy over the amazing feedback so far! I'm trying really hard to keep not only your interest, but mine as well with this story. So please continue to review and express your ideas.
Disclaimer- I do not own Twilight – property of S. Meyer. I also don't own the lyrics I used from the song Masochist by Ingrid Michaelson. I do own the idea of this story. NO STEALING PLEASE.
Music – "Gotta Figure This Out" by Erin McCarley
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Gotta Figure This Out
It was nine o'clock at night when I finally woke up from my 'nap'. I was glad that I was left alone to sleep; the day had been more than dramatic enough for me to stand. But I could feel my stomach twisting, and the urge to eat overpowered my desire to stay wrapped up in the sheets.
I walked out into the immaculate hall and looked to both my left and right. The halls were empty and the silence that hummed in my ears told me the house was most likely empty as well. Although the idea of being able to move around the house freely without any interruption was exciting, it also scared me a little. Like the kind of fear you feel when your about to walk around the corner of a haunted house, the anticipation that something will jump out at you having your heart beat a mile a minute. I was in my own personal haunted house. Except the creepers that go bump in the night we actually real here, not some plastic mannequin with a wig on.
Bravely, I found myself walking down the long staircase and into a wide foyer. I had no idea where the kitchen was, but decided to try going through the entryway to my left to see where it brought me.
I felt like it was forever and a half before I finally caught sight of the object that had my stomach leaping for joy. The amazingly large, and brand new, fridge seemed to be glowing; calling me to eat whatever was inside of it. I answered that call with a delirious grin and hard tug of its handle. The glorious food that sat inside was like an answered prayer to the loud grumbling noises my stomach was making.
I found myself pulling out an assortment of items ranging from chocolate ice cream to peanut butter to pickles and bread. The spread of food would have looked disgusting to most, but I felt my mouth salivate at their sight, my brain fumbling over different meal ideas I could possibly make.
It took all of two minutes before I had a half decent sandwich made and a bowl of ice cream with chunks of peanut butter globbed on top. I took a seat at the island in the center of the extravagant kitchen and set to work on stuffing my face. I was wrapped up in my meal that I didn't even hear the footsteps approach me from behind.
"That is disgusting." I heard a deep voice say, the words dripping with horror. I turned in my seat and found a burley young man standing about a foot from my seat. His large eyes were staring at my spread of 'dinner', his handsome features pulled up into a nauseated look.
I felt my stomach turn a little after I noticed the same topaz eyes as the rest of the Cullens, and what he was suddenly become clearer than day. Great, ANOTHER vampire. When did they end?
"You would be?" I asked, my mouth full of my sandwich and bits of it flying out as I spoke.
"Ehhhcckkk. Keep your moth closed if your gonna eat that stuff." He threw a hand over his eyes dramatically at my atrocious manners. "And shouldn't I be the one asking who YOU are? This is my house ya know." He pulled his hand away and looked me up and down.
"I'm Alice Brandon. I'll be living here on a count of I have a debt to Mr. Cul… err Carlisle, I'm expected to pay off." My explanation was vague and I had a feeling he would have no clue what I was even talking about.
"… Huh… Well Alice Brandon, even though I have no idea what the fuck you just said, I really don't care. As long as you can toss a baseball, you're fine with me. Emmett by the way." He raised a hand out to me and waited expectantly for me to shake it, which I did with probably too much vigor.
I liked him already by the way he was so nonchalant with me. His presence frightened me as much as an overly stuffed toy bear would. I found that fact oddly strange; he was, from what i could tell, the largest one in the house . But he also seemed the most down to earth and 'human' out of them all so far.
"I can pitch a fairly decent game. I lived with a baseball junky for about five months way back when. He taught me a decent amount about the game."
His face broke out into a grotesquely adorable grin. He looked like a six year old who just made a friend on the first day of school. It was infectious though and I couldn't help but give out a short chuckle.
I hadn't expected him to grab me by the arm and all but drag me off the seat, and I was suddenly thrown off balance. I would have fallen if his grip around my arm didn't keep me tumbling down. "Excuse me, I was eating," I huffed.
"I know, you can bring that crap into the den, there's a game on and you're the first person who has enough interest to follow the whole thing without loosing it halfway through," was his reply.
He was obviously not about to let me get away with sitting in peace to finish my meal. And even though I hadn't said anything about actually enjoying baseball, I still followed him into the den. If it kept him from sucking the life out of me, then I wouldn't risk the chance of not doing it. So I grabbed my ice cream bowl and the last half of my sandwich and walked over to plop myself down next to him.
I listened intently as he explained the rest of the Cullen crew I would be sure to meet. Edward was apparently off at some Bella girl's house, a "human" like me as Emmet put it. That tidbit made me feel slightly more stable in my current situation. If there was another girl my age around, maybe the family really wasn't harmful. Although the girl was probably a little off her rocker if she was accepting of this whole vampire thing. I was still intrigued enough though to want to meet her. It would be nice having someone who didn't want to eat me around.
The he mentioned Rosalie, and that was it. He suddenly didn't shut up through the whole game, and though it was nice hearing him talk so enthusiastically about something, it was still a bit annoying. I grasped the basics on her; her being his 'wife', something about blonde hair, being the most gorgeous woman in the world, yada yada yada. It made no difference to me. As long as she kept her teeth to herself, there would be no problems.
I was almost finished with my 'desert' when Jasper walked into the room. Emmett was still chatting to my left, the volume on the flat screen in front of us turned down through some point. I could see his reflection in the TV, the only reason I knew he was there. I listened as hard as I could for footsteps as I watched his reflection move towards the couch, and was amazed when I didn't hear as much of a shuffle of clothing.
"Hey Jasper, this is Alice. Apparently she'll be staying here. Anyway, as I was saying Alice, she's got these legs that run on for miles…" Emmett's voice trailed off into the background and suddenly all I could hear was my own heartbeat resonating in my ears.
I slumped down into the soft brown leather of the couch and shoveled a spoonful of peanut butter and chocolate into my mouth. I could feel my face heating up, my memory replaying my embarrassing moment shared with him only a few hours ago.
"What's going on in here? Why are you sitting with him? And what IS that in that bowl in your hands?" Jasper was clearly not in a good mood after my earlier dismissal of him and I suddenly felt a pang of guilt spread through my chest.
I hadn't meant to hurt his feelings by being such a bitch, but it was my best defense after embarrassing myself the way I had.
Emmett went silent next to me and I could suddenly feel both of their eyes on me. I only managed to slump a little lower, hoping the couch would save me by swallowing me whole.
"I WAS listening to Emmett and watching the game with him before you so rudely interrupted us. And this," I said in just as angry of a tone and jutting my bowl above my head in a brave act to show him what was inside, "is called ice cream. It's cold and chocolaty and it makes me happy. Although you wouldn't understand that because your idea of good food is a dead animal!" I was furious with him. How DARE he come in and talk to me like I was some annoying thing ruining HIS life, instead of the other way around. And to think I actually considered him to be sympathetic.
Pushing myself off of the couch, I started for the kitchen to put my bowl in the sink. Emmett's face was quite comical as he watched the dramatic show Jasper and I were putting on in front of him. I was practically counting down the seconds to when he would break and laugh hysterically.
Snubbing past Jasper, I stared straight ahead and pretended to ignore his body as I passed him. I say pretend because I did anything BUT. Inside I was heating up and it made me sick to my stomach to know it wasn't because of how angry I was with him, but rather how unfairly good looking he was standing there with his full lips turned down into a childish pout and his eyes narrowed in the slightest way, his arms arrogantly folded over his toned chest. Somehow I had managed to walk past him and into the kitchen without melting into a puddle and I was glad I had still managed to keep my face emotionless to him.
But as he followed me into the kitchen and to the sink, I felt my "ignore him" walls crumble. I spun on my heels and stared up at him. "Can I help you with something? Or do I need permission from you to clean this bowl?" My sarcasm had me internally giving myself a pat on the back. Alice Brandon was not going to back down to the likes of Jasper Hale.
He rolled his eyes at me and backed off half a foot to give me more room to wash my dirty dishes.
"I thought you said you needed to sleep." He hadn't said the words in a question form, rather made them into a statement.
So that's what this was all about. I turned my back to him and turned on the water and began to suds up the dishes. "Stop acting like a baby Jasper. I did sleep. In fact I slept longer than I intended to. So when I woke up, I came down to eat."
His body shifted behind me and I could see him move to lean against the counter next to me. He still had a pout on his mouth and his arms were still wrapped across his chest. "If you were hungry, you should have come to look for me. I would have made you something more substantial than ice cream."
"I though the house was empty. And I am more than capable of making myself food when I'm hungry. I'm seventeen." I couldn't help but roll my eyes. He was making a big deal out of nothing.
"You obviously knew you weren't alone. You were sitting there with Emmet. Rosalie would have ripped your head off if she walked in and saw that." He was making up stupid excuses and it was frustrating me even further.
I turned the water off and began drying the dishes off with a towel. "Your not Rosalie and you practically bit my head off."
He finally unfolded his arms and, instead, took to gripping the marble countertop. "I did not almost bite your head off. I just don't get why you can so calmly sit there with him and eat when you can barely stand to be around me." He looked so let down and it made my chest tighten.
I looked down at the towel in my hand, I couldn't hold myself responsible for making him upset. "Jasper… Things aren't going to be normal between us. Ever. Your parents expect me to give my life up for you, not Emmet. You're the one ruining things for me… Not him." As much as I meant the words, it still didn't lessen the pain I felt for saying them to him. Just because it hadn't been his idea to change me, didn't mean he wasn't responsible. He hadn't done nor said anything to even attempt to change Carlisle's mind.
He turned his face to stare at the wall to the right of him, obviously hurt by what I had admitted to him. "I can still make you happy, but you have to let me into your life Alice. You can't just ignore me and think that it'll change your fate. Isolating yourself from me now will only make you more miserable later. The least we can do is attempt to be friends with each other. I don't think that's asking a lot."
After placing the towel down on the counter, I turned and walked to the other side of the kitchen where the door that led to the porch was. I opened it up and walked out into the cold night air. For some reason the moon looked twice as big as it normally did, and I noticed how the stars seemed to cover the whole sky. He had followed me out and closed the door behind him. I felt him throw a blanket over my shoulders and watched as he lay down onto the wooden floor to stare up at the sky. I allowed myself sit down next to him and placed the blanket over my lap so that I could throw some of it over his body as well.
"If things were under different circumstances, maybe we could have made it work somehow. But as it is now, I don't see how I could be happy after everything's all said and done…"
I didn't get to finish speaking before he interrupted me, "You mean things would be different if I weren't a vampire." He scoffed at me and threw his portion of the blanket off of himself, sitting up and glaring at the trees ahead of us.
"I can try and be your friend Jasper, but that's all I can offer you right now."
"Try." He said the word with venom, like he didn't believe in me to give him a shot.
My heart was breaking in my chest and I couldn't understand anything anymore. I had known of his existence for little over half a day, and yet I was feeling distraught over him feeling rejected by me. I couldn't explain the tug-of-war that was going on inside me. It didn't make sense even to myself.
"Please stop sounding so hurt. I'm not trying to upset you... God Jasper! It's just not fare. I shouldn't be the one feeling like the bad guy." I traced my index finger over the scar on my wrist. "Everything in my past has taught me not to trust what you are. I feel like I'm betraying my mother by just sitting here with you. I'm offering you more than I should. Realistically, I should have ran off or called the cops by now." A headache was forming in my temples and I couldn't restrain myself from attempting to rub it out.
"We aren't like Laurent. He'd been drinking human blood for so long… You don't understand what it does to us. You lose all control over yourself. I'm not giving him an excuse for what he did to you and your mother. But I can sympathize with him. There was a time where I was just as lost for control over myself as he was. I was lucky enough to find the Cullen's. They put a lot of faith into me to change my ways, and if it weren't for them, God only knows where I would be or what would have come of me. I will never go back to being who I was. My control has become much stronger. I just wish you could see the difference between Laurent… and me."
My heart went out to him and the urge to hold his hand over took me, so I reached out and entwined our fingers together. My heart was in my throat and I could hear it pumping in my ears again. His cold thumb was gently tracing over my skin and it caused a blush to catch fire to my cheeks at the sensation of the innocent act.
"Your skin feels… like no one else's." He breathily whispered, catching my gaze and holding it with his own. His gaze, like his touch, was soft and it made my throat tighten.
"I don't quite understand what you mean by that. It's just a hand," I managed to get out, my voice sounding so small to my ears.
"It's just different somehow… It's… Nothing… You wouldn't get it." He broke eye contact with me and instead took to staring down at our hands. "It's not so bad… Right?"
I raised an eyebrow to him.
"Holding my hand?" His grip around my fingers tightened for a brief second as if to remind me where my hand was.
"No." I simply stated. It wasn't bad at all. In fact I felt silly for my earlier dismissal of his hand when he was just being polite and offering to help me up. It was surprising, actually, because it felt quite natural.
His mouth broke out into a smile at my answer. I marveled at the way it seemed to light up his face, the deep dimples in his cheeks making the act all the more adorable. But no matter how gorgeous and happy he looked, I couldn't find it in myself to smile back. I was too absorbed in the feeling of my heart bursting between my ribcage.
"I can feel your emotions ten times stronger like this." He squeezed my hand again. "It's overwhelming in a way." He chuckled softly and I think I felt my heart explode for a second time at the amazing sound. "God I haven't felt anything like this before in my life. I wish I could explain it to you…"
But he didn't have to because it was evident in the way he looked at me. I could see his pupils dilating in pleasure and it made me shiver. He looked so euphoric as he spoke to me and I felt slightly envious of his ability.
"So does this make us friends now?" he asked me hopefully.
I couldn't deny him his request. "Friends."
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Yay for Jasper and Alice's new friendship. Haha. Hope it was enjoyable for you all to read. Hopefully I'll hear some more feedback from everyone! I love all the encouraging words =). Love to all - LL