Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its characters etc, and I wish SM didn't own them either.

Chapter Seventeen – She Surrenders

Bella stood nervously, wringing her imperceptibly trembling hands together. Her weight shifted from foot to foot as she stared at the door in front of her. Three times already she'd raised her hand to knock only to have it drop back down without ever meeting the hard wood. If she hadn't been afraid of the noise it would make, she'd have sobbed at her indecision.

"Pathetic," she whispered.

With a deep breath, she steeled her nerves. Her hand raised and formed a fist. Just as it was about to fall forward, the door it had been approaching swung open. A woman with honey blonde hair, blue eyes, and enough makeup to keep Lauren Mallory happy for a lifetime stood, her bright red lips parted in shock.

"Bella?" she asked.

"Hi, Mrs. Hale. Is Jasper home?"

Jasper's mother snorted. "Probably. He's been moping around here like a little girl."

Bella couldn't help but compare Mrs. Hale's tone to that of Esme. Esme would tease Edward, possibly even with that very remark, but her voice and expression would make her affection toward her son obvious. Mrs. Hale…it was disgustingly clear that she thought Jasper was just as pathetic as Bella had been feeling moments ago.

"Um, would it be all right if I went up to see him?" Her voice was timid…meek…and she hated it.

"Mr. Hale and I are having important guests for dinner." Mrs. Hale's chest puffed up as she smiled. "Chief Ranson is stopping by in a few hours."

She had to suppress a giggle at the mention of the Port Angeles Chief of Police. Chief Mark complained every time Bella cooked dinner for him that Mrs. Hale made the driest roast he'd ever eaten and that her company wasn't much better.

"I'll be out of your hair by then," she promised.

"So long as you are, he's upstairs in his room. Please remind him that if he keeps up this childish brooding that his father and I will be…displeased with him."

"Yes ma'am," Bella sighed, remembering all at once that being Jasper's best friend hadn't been all sunshine and rainbows.

Moving as quickly as possible away from the hateful woman, she reached the wide wooden staircase to the left of the entryway. She climbed slowly, trying to steady her breath and her nerves. It was ridiculous that she was still so tense. Charlie had let her pull her sick act on him, so she'd had an entire day home alone to read Edward's journal and to think and stress and get herself ready for this moment. She'd just reached the top of the stairs when Rosalie emerged from her room. Bella froze as she made contact with icy blue-gray eyes.

"What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to your brother," Bella whispered.

Rosalie frowned. "Why the hell would you need to talk to him?"

"None of your business."

"Just…you know what? Never mind. You're right. It's none of my business."

"No, wait!" Bella said, grabbing her arm as she moved to walk past her. "I…"

Still frowning, Rosalie removed Bella's fingers from around her arm. "Just keep the whole picture in mind. The whole picture."

"Why are you suddenly being all nice to me?"

"Because you're better than this. And because you don't have anyone else to tell you so."

Bella watched her go, the strangely thoughtful words echoing over and over again inside of her head. Puzzling though they were, coupled with the mouth speaking them they became almost inconceivable. She breathed deeply, filing her confusion away with the knowledge that if she allowed herself to think about one more out of order aspect of her life, her brain might very well implode.

With a few tentative steps, she moved to stand in front of Jasper's door. She could hear the muffled beats of some angry rock coming from inside. At first, she raised her hand to knock. Frowning, she instead reached for the brushed silver of the knob, the clamminess of her palm making it slippery in her grip.

Steeling herself, she turned until she heard a faint click and then pushed the door open. Inside, Jasper law sprawled across his floor, his eyes covered by the crook of his elbow. The room around him was a complete disaster; clothes were strewn everywhere, paper was crumpled and pitched about the room, stacks of books leaned precariously in ever available space except the shelves they belonged on. The mess was almost enough to make her smile. She took comfort in the familiar, in the idea that some things about him were exactly as she remembered.

His voice, worn and annoyed at the same time, snapped her focus back to his prone form. "Rosalie, I told you to leave me the hell alone."

Bella started at his words, staring at him. He didn't flinch when he spoke. His eyes remained covered, and she took comfort in her momentary anonymity. The element of surprise made her brave, and the trembling in her knees seemed to slow.

"Do you want me to leave you alone, too?"

Immediately he was upright, his gray eyes wide and his mouth gaping open. He sat there, staring, for two blinks before scrambling to his feet.

"You're here."

"Yes."

"But…why?"

"To talk."

"To talk?"

"Just to talk."

"Ok," he said slowly, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

She felt those narrow eyes on her as she walked toward the leather office chair in front of his large computer desk. Her first inclination as she sat was to perch on its very edge, ready for flight at a moment's notice, but she knew she had to pick fight over flight, and so she forced herself to push back, settling for at least the appearance of calm.

"What are we talking about?" Jasper asked when she didn't say anything.

"You," she said, pivoting with her feet so that the chair moved from side to side. "And me. You and me."

"I thought we already did that. Yesterday. Remember? When you kicked me out because you needed time because fucking Cullen brought you baked goods."

"I kicked you out when it became clear we were incapable of talking. And I took the time I needed. All my time did was create more questions."

"What did his note say?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Like hell it doesn't!"

"J, I'm here to talk about you and me, not me and Edward."

"If I had a fucking say there wouldn't be a you and Edward."

She clenched her eyes shut, grimacing in annoyance. "What do you think I'm here for, you ass. I'm giving you your say!"

"Oh."

"Yeah. Oh. When did you become such a raving douche?"

"Right about the time you morphed into a selfish, manipulative – "

"I'm manipulative?" she demanded.

Jasper exhaled through his nose, his fingers moving up to massage his temples. "I didn't mean that. You just…I get so frustrated and…well…"

"Look, I didn't come here to fight with you. Why don't I just ask you my questions and you can answer them?"

"Do I get to ask you about shit?"

"Yes," she said, deciding that she didn't feel like tip-toeing around their issues. "What did you mean when you said you wanted me?"

"Is that seriously a question?"

"I seriously just asked it, didn't I?" she snapped.

"What happened to not wanting to fight?"

"This isn't going to work," she countered, rising to her feet and shaking her head.

"What? No!" he objected, moving to block the door.

"You're making fun of me. Again. You're deflecting me. Again. Answer my damn question or get out of my way!"

"So that's it? You're just going to run away? Again?"

Her breath came in angry huffs as she seethed at the mockery laced in his last word. "Stop it. Just stop it."

"What, B? Stop calling you on your shit?"

"Stop trying to distract me from my questions by trying to make me feel worthless. It's not going to work. Not this time."

"I'm not."

"You are! You're such a freaking coward!"

"What did you just call me?"

"A chicken. A wuss. A fucking coward!" She was yelling by the end of her sentence and didn't care.

Jasper was across the room in a second, his hands reaching to grasp her upper arms. His hold was lose and almost gentle, completely incongruous with the wild intensity in his eyes. "I am not a coward."

"Then answer my question."

"Bella – "

"Answer my question or let me go," she whispered.

"I…" he trailed off, his eyes staring skyward as though he'd find some way to counter her spelled out in the coded texture of his ceiling. His chest heaved with the effort of forcing himself to breathe. "I want you…I want you because I fucking love you."

The slow reluctance of his words, his inability to look at her as he said them, was like a stab in the gut and she wrenched herself away from him. "Then why?"

"Why what?" he asked, his skin paling as he sank onto his bed and stared at his hands.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Why would I tell you?" he asked, the flames of his quelled anger flaring back up in his tone.

"What?"

"Why would I tell you?" he asked again.

"Because…Because you knew!"

"Knew what, B? That you were replacing me in your life like it was no big deal? That you didn't want me muscling in on your new best friend? That all of a sudden I wasn't fucking good enough for you? Not even enough at all?"

"You're being deliberately obtuse!"

"Fancy words don't make what I'm saying any less fucking true."

"You said. The day you keyed Edward's car, you said that I was just a bitter, jilted – "

"We weren't friends!"

"But…what about my secret?"

"God, Bella. That was the worst secret ever. I wouldn't have even had to tell anyone. Everyone could see you salivating over him!"

"Him?"

"Fucking Cullen!"

"Edward?" she asked, confused.

"Who the hell else would I mean?"

"You!"

He blanched. "Me?"

"Yes! You! You were talking about my secret…about me seeing you and Alice on the couch that day. About you jilting me when..."

"I…wait, what?"

"You…you weren't talking about how I feel about you?"

"No, I wasn't. And like I would ever tell anyone about…about that day."

"But…"

"You liked me?" he asked suddenly.

"Love," she corrected in a voice so quiet that at first she didn't think he heard. "I …I thought you knew." His serious expression – his obvious confusion – freaked her out. "I kissed you! Twice! You said we had to!" She was floundering, drowning under the weight of his revelation and hers. She realized she was crying when she started to sob, her chest heaving with every gasping breath.

"You mean you kissed me the first time and then you crumpled up my God damn not and pitched it back at me!"

"Because you'd been manipulating me! For ages, Jasper. I was so confused. You were with Alice. You'd never shown interest in me!"

"You just weren't looking!" he yelled.

The door suddenly swung open. Mr. and Mrs. Hale stood shoulder to shoulder, matching expressions of disgust on their faces.

"Is there a problem here?" Mr. Hale asked.

"The only problem is you eavesdropping on my private conversations," Jasper seethed.

"You don't have private conversations in my house, pal," Mr. Hale argued.

"Not that it would have mattered with all the barbaric shouting. I simply will not tolerate it any further," Mrs. Hale pouted. "Bella may have been raised by a – "

"Don't you talk about my father! Don't you dare!"

"I will talk however I want in my own home, missy. And if you plan on staying here much longer I suggest you speak to both my wife and I with respect!"

"She's not going to be here much longer," Jasper scowled. Bella sucked in her breath and whirled to face him. "Come on," he continued, grabbing her hand and moving toward the door. "We're leaving."

"You most certainly are not! We have dinner with the Chief tonight and – "

"And I'm not going to be there."

"Don't you talk to your mother that way!"

"Then don't you let her talk to Bella that way! We're leaving."

"Jasper Whitlock Hale! You get your butt into the kitchen right now!"

He didn't respond. His hand still clasped with hers, he drug Bella past his red-faced and steaming parents and down the stairs to the front door. She stayed silent as he grabbed his keys and leather jacket off the hooks by the door, scooping up his helmet just as his parents came running down after them. Jasper swung the door open, yanking her out behind him. She'd just managed to pull her free hand through the doorway when he slammed it shut behind them.

"Where are we going?" she panted as she ran behind him toward the garage. She prayed that he didn't say Lake Crescent…that they were going anywhere but there.

"Away from here," he said, sliding the cool leather around her shoulders.

She reached for the offered helmet and held it poised over her head. "Jasper, I – "

"The river. We're going to the river."

He waited for her to tug the heavy plastic into place before climbing into his bike. She hesitated, wringing her hands as she stared at the tiny space left for her on the seat.

Jasper's lips pressed into a thin line. "We can take my dad's car if you want."

"No," she whispered, moving to slide behind him. "No, let's just get out of here."

Her arms wrapped tentatively around his waist, and she felt him suck in his breath as her hold tightened, leaving her hands pressed up against the firm muscles of his abdomen. It was absolute déjà vu, right down to the sinking feeling of guilt when she unconsciously pressed herself against him as closely as she could. As he revved the engine, Bella told herself that she was hanging on for safety – that she didn't want to get hurt – but the tighter she clung, the more she ached. Her only consolation was that the Hale's lived so near to the Bogachiel that the ride would be a short one.

When Jasper approached the turn at the end of his drive, she shifted her hands higher up his chest to get a better grip and immediately felt his heart banging against his rib cage. It was so strange to compare this reaction with the cold, sneering veneer he'd hidden under for so long. She still couldn't combine these two Jaspers and didn't know if she ever really could.

They'd just rounded the last bend that would take them to the spot they'd always used to hike down to the river and fish with Charlie and Emmett when she saw the black car flying closer. She tried to tell herself that it was just a black car – that it could be anyone behind that wheel – but as it flew closer she could see the black of the rims and she knew that it could only belong to Edward. Her whole body tensed and her stomach turned over as the guilt again flooded her system. She turned to face away from the oncoming car, clenching her eyes shut and resting her helmeted head against Jasper's back.

She could feel herself buckling under the weight of it all, knew that she was too weak to keep carrying on like she had. All she'd wanted were answers, to know the things that everyone seemed to be hiding from her so that she could finally figure things out. Now she wished she didn't know any of it – that she hadn't followed Edward out of the cafeteria that day. That she hadn't crumpled up Jasper's note. That she'd locked her window. That she'd just read her damn book instead of wondering about the sounds outside. That she'd just kept to herself and just survived high school like a normal person.

It was easy – too easy – to think about all the things she could have done to not rock her boat. It was even easier to imagine burying herself in the sand for the next year and a half and pretending none of this had happened.

At that moment, she wanted to punch Edward square in the nose. A surge of anger swept through her at the realization that he was exactly right. She'd been weak and mousy and pathetic, and she'd expected him to stand there while she fixed herself. She'd read his journal from cover to cover and had practically felt his frustration and annoyance at her in the entries after their fights. But she'd sensed impatience too, impatience for her to turn burst out in front of him like a butterfly out of a cocoon and she just wasn't ready.

Her eyes opened when she felt the bike slowing, and her death grip on Jasper loosened as they eased off onto the shoulder. They coasted to a stop behind the tree-line, shielding the sleek motorcycle from view. Bella climbed quickly off the motorcycle, jumping immediately to stand next to a large cedar and yanking off the helmet.

Jasper watched her with a frown. "You don't have to feel guilty, you know."

"Guilty?" she squeaked. "What would I be guilty about?"

He rolled his eyes and sighed, running a hand through his hair and immediately sending her mind back to Edward. "That was Cullen's car, B."

She sighed. "Yeah, it was. And I can't help it."

"Why did you come to my house today?"

"I told you. To talk."

He reached for her hand, and she hesitated for only a second before lacing her fingers with his and following him down the narrow, overgrown trail that led to the river. They walked in silence, and Jasper's hold on her was firm and sure and steady and confusing. Only when they finally broke out of the woods and stood next to the clear, rushing water of the river did he release her.

"What made you want to talk?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You could have said any of this to me the other day. Or any day for that matter. But you didn't. What made you want to talk to me now?"

She stood staring at him, biting her lip. He needed to know but she was terrified to tell him, terrified that he would misinterpret it. "Because of Edward's journal."

His brow furrowed. "Edward's journal? What the hell?"

"Edward left me his journal. And he told me to read it – all of it. And I did."

"And that made you want to talk to me?"

"Didn't you…didn't you read it?"

"Only the part I read out loud, B. And I fucking swear that I never meant to read the parts about you. I only wanted to read the shit he said about the rest of us."

"We've gone over that," she said, brushing the statement aside with a flick of her hand. "But if you didn't read it, how did you know where that section was?"

"Alice."

"Alice?"

"She was the one who took it. I'd talked about it – he wrote in the fucking thing every free second, watching you like a creepy ass stalker the whole time – and then Alice just slipped it out of his bag in calculus. She must have read some in class, I don't know, but I didn't notice she had it until we left for lunch. She pointed the part I was reading out to me, fucking laughing. And then…that's when I stood up like an idiot and I just wasn't thinking and he makes me so god damn angry and I yelled at you that night when that wasn't my plan at all and I've just sat around stewing about how epically stupid I was ever since."

"Alice took it? Alice is the one who stole it?" Bella demanded.

"Yeah, she said we could have fun reading it all later and laughing. I think…well, what I think doesn't matter."

"She is such a bitch."

"I'm the one who read it," he said, jumping in. "Not Alice. She didn't want me to read it, she tried to talk me out of it."

"Because she fucking knew what it said after. But that's not the point. The point is she thought that the journal would be about Edward and I doing stuff. She was trying to make you mad. She was scared and so she tried to…she was freaked out because you were being so jealous and so she tried to make you hate me!"

"That's awfully – "

"Awfully what? Devious? No shit. I can't believe her! No, I take it back. I totally can."

"You're getting distracted," he said. "Why the fuck did Edward Cullen's diary make you want to talk to me."

"Because most of it's about you."

He just stared at her.

"Most of the notebook is about you and me. I mean, lots of it is about Edward and I, but most of it is about how mad he was for how I felt about you and how weak I was around you. And a huge chunk is about you watching me. Your face when you would watch, how you acted. Things I never even noticed because I'd convinced myself that you just hated me for that stupid note you wanted me to give to Alice."

"I was a jackass, I'll admit it."

"You were worse than a jackass. You were downright cruel."

"Because you'd been treating me like dirt!"

"No I hadn't! I was terrified of losing you! I thought I already had!"

"Does it look like I'm fucking going anywhere?"

His words hung there in the air between them. She stayed perfectly still, considering those words, thinking about what she'd planned to do. She remembered her still raw guilt when she'd seen the Volvo. She remembered what Emmett had told her in the library. She remembered every mean thing Jasper had ever said to her. She remembered cartoons and crustless PB&Js. She remembered the day she'd caught him and Alice on the couch. She remembered every other trip to the river he'd taken her on.

"I don't want you to go anywhere," she said simply.

"Good. Because I'm fucking not."

"I mean I want you to stay with me, J."

"Are you serious?"

"Would I really lie to you right now?"

"And Cullen?" he asked cautiously though his eyes already sparked with the same passion that had already been her undoing.

"I've waited for you forever. It's like you said…"

"We have to," he said gruffly.

"We have to at least try."

"Fuck trying."

And then he was at her side, lips burning up her throat and to her mouth. She felt like flames were licking at every square inch of her. Fear came with the heat – that terror that a burn like this would leave her scarred – but this time she didn't let herself think. This time, she surrendered.