Disclaimer: Of course, I own nothing but my own words. The characters belong to Ms. Meyer and a very small number of the words do, too.
1949
Chapter 2
Jasper controlled his desire to panic. The human appeared to have expectations of him that he was not sure how to meet. Had she seen him before? Surely that was unlikely. He did not remember her. Coming into this diner had been a bad idea, too many humans in a warm, close environment, but the sun was peaking out from behind the rainy day and he was risking exposure outside. He needed somewhere to stay for a while.
Surely he could handle the human, dazzle her if necessary? He preferred not to do that, raise expectations and lust levels all at once. He didn't want to feel the lust. He sent a tiny bit of relaxation and trust towards the human, just a little so that she wouldn't think of it as a foreign emotion. He would build it over the next few minutes. That should solve the problem.
He was still left with the problem of what to say. You've kept me waiting a long time? What could she possibly mean? Perhaps the human was not altogether sane. He fell back on long ago training from when he was human, too, and decided that politeness was soothing yet noncommittal.
"I'm sorry, ma'am." He sent a little more trust towards her.
Should he ask what she had been waiting for? No, let her take the lead. He would prefer no conversation at all. Passing as a human was too difficult. He should find somewhere to stay permanently and leave only when he absolutely had to feed.
She was flabbergasted. Flabbergasted was a brew of emotions: largely extreme disbelief, mixed with a pinch of anger, a wallop of surprise, and a preparedness to find whatever had just happened extremely funny. Her face only showed the disbelief. She looked at him as if she thought he was the one who might be not altogether sane. Then she was filled with caution and wariness, and her anger level increased. The trust he was sending did not appear to be working.
Before she could say anything the waitress came over and asked him for his order. The waitress also looked at the human girl as if expecting her to leave. The girl flushed and was filled with shame and desperation. Jasper looked around. If she left, he would probably have to deal with other humans, and the waitress was sending lots of lust at him. The girl was not. She could offer him protection from all of the other humans, even if it meant he would have to cope with her.
"Won't you stay a little longer?" Jasper asked the girl. "I'd be happy to get you another drink and anything else you might like." He looked dubiously at the cup and pot before her. What was it? Coffee? He remembered coffee over the fire in the morning as something almost everyone drank.
She had been feeling dubious and a little condescending as he placed his order, but her emotions suddenly switched to calculating. She smiled at him as if she had just won an argument they were having.
"I will, thank you. A tuna sandwich and another bowl of soup as well as a new pot of tea." The girl looked at him while placing the order not the waitress. Was that normal?
The girl waited until the waitress left and then told Jasper, "It will take at least 15 minutes for the food to arrive and then we have to spend a minimum of 15 minutes eating it. Otherwise people will think something is odd. Then you have to pay the check at the desk. That could take time, too, if there's a line." A ring of victory echoed from the girl as she spoke.
This was just the sort of information that Jasper was looking for, but he couldn't understand why the girl had told him. Over half an hour. It should be almost dusk by the time he had to leave. Perfect. So long as he could handle the girl successfully—and no one suddenly had an open wound—he would be fine. He would make sure not to get in another such situation again.
There was a pause in the conversation and Jasper felt awkward. The girl's expectations were pressing in on him and he knew that a man who offered food to a girl would probably start a conversation with her, so he really ought to find something to say. He rejected several options and fell back on noncommittal politeness again.
"Thank you for joining me."
The girl gaped at him in open disbelief. "It's not particularly voluntary. What choice do I have?" echoing what she had said before.
Jasper simply had no idea how to respond to that. He tried a new tactic. Honesty. "I have no idea what to say, ma'am."
The girl looked at him with contempt. Her emotions, though, were more confused than contemptuous. "Then perhaps you should say nothing at all."
Jasper could not keep the look of relief off of his face. "Alright ma'am."
They sat in silence for over 10 minutes. Jasper thought again of finding a remote, human-free place to hand his hat, not too far from a city, where he could just exist without worrying about anything. It was only a dream, he knew that. Feeding was an even worse problem when he was away from humans. If he was alone and hungry for long periods of time he would start to obsess about feeding until he could think of nothing else and then finally he would snap and go after a large number of humans. He had no Peter, no Charlotte to help him cover up taking out a house, or bar or hotel of people. Or a diner like the one he was in right now. He was on his own to force himself not to do something like that ever again.
The human seemed to be dreaming, too. Her emotions had changed completely and drifted toward much more positive ones until suddenly he was hit by a blast of horrible pain. Loss, abandonment,unworthiness, a confirmation of fear, an acceptance. He had felt worse from many newborns, and much worse from Peter when he thought Charlotte was going to die, but this pain was bad. He looked at the human girl for the first time, trying to see who she was, what she needed instead of simply trying to figure out what she expected from him.
She was wholesome. Or, she had been. She seemed completely defeated right now, feeling that pain. He realized before that all of her feelings and actions up until now had been some kind of defiance. A defiance of the pain? He wasn't sure what she was defying, but she had been fighting back against whatever had caused this.
Defiance of pain was something he could understand. He was tempted to send her calm or understanding or even some love, but he wasn't sure he could get through the pain enough without taking some of it in himself. Influencing emotions was easy but changing them completely to something opposite to what they were was far more difficult and he was already under some strain, smelling all of these humans around him. He paused for a few moments, unsure what to do, and then realized he could offer comfort without using his gift. If she rejected him, that would be fine, he would be leaving this girl in another 20 minutes or so, but if she accepted then maybe the awful pain would stop, and perhaps he might even be able to help her a little.
Jasper reached out and lightly covered the girl's balled up hand with his own. She was gloved so he did not need to fear her reaction to his cold hands.
"Can I help?" He asked.
The girl had to fight through her emotions to even lift her head and look at him. He felt her try to push them away to find cohesion or clarity. She opened her mouth but did not speak. She looked at him. Her disbelief came back, but this time it had more of an edge of puzzlement to it. The disbelief was a small feeling, now, anyway. It could not compete with her other feelings.
They stared at each other, and then the girl pulled her hand away. Jasper was not used to humans, though, and hung on to her glove without intending to. It pulled part way off her hand.
Jasper hissed. He was no longer quite so concerned about appearing human. He looked in horror at the girl. And felt the mantle of command settle on his shoulders. Some of the girl's remarks made more sense now.
The girl felt shame as she pulled up her glove.
Jasper reached out and grabbed the girl's wrist firmly. He would no longer be leaving the diner without her. He spoke a little faster than a human would in his shock and need to understand. "How in hell did you get a scar like that?"