Hello again! I'm so glad you're here!

For the first time in a while, I don't think I have much to report from my side of things since my last update. It's kind of nice to have a little more consistency than what I've been dealing with for the past year. My co-writer and I have been working hard on writing chapters for the debut novel we're releasing for free on Wattpad. The story is called THE MIDNIGHT CHAPTER, and our handle is CressandLeigh, if you want to check it out. While I update you guys with this chapter, we'll also release character aesthetics on The Midnight Chapter. So if you want something to look at after reading this, I totally recommend it!

And, as always, this is also your friendly neighborhood fanfic writer checking in. I hope you're doing well.

JUNE

Part II

I NEVER CONSIDERED MYSELF TO be very materialistic, but I always believed the right outfit could give anyone a boost in confidence. When I was human, I always felt that when I wore workout clothes. Running shorts, leggings, tank tops and sports bras were my go-to. I always felt like they showed off the results of the training I put my body through, they were always the most comfortable, made me feel like I could jump into any situation and start moving.

Wearing them now, studying the way they covered my new body… was strange.

Since becoming a vampire, I avoided looking at myself. Ever since I was turned, I flinched from reflective surfaces on reflex, so I could avoid the monster's face that would stare back. Still, the instances when I caught my reflection were locked into my mind as obvious pieces of information my enhanced senses and memory wouldn't ignore.

I knew what I looked like – red hair, red eyes, flawless skin, any imperfection I could've had before was blurred over by a glamor and took an extra second to find because I really had to look – but… along the way there had been a disconnect. I wanted it that way, so I could pretend I still looked like that girl in Forks with frizzy hair, blue eyes, and so many freckles.

But she was gone. Washed away by tidal waves of blood, and replaced by…

Nothing. She wasn't replaced. She wasn't gone. She and I were the same, and I was still here.

I had to tell myself that over and over again as I contorted my body in the reflection of the mirror in the cabin's bathroom, studying all my hard lines and definition. The transformation left me looking like I would after summer, where my days had been spent devoted to training and meal plans. The clothes I picked out from Alice's sampling – biker shorts and a cropped tank top – highlighted every muscle group I'd spent most of my human days obsessed with developing.

Achieving my dream physique wasn't worth the price I'd been forced to pay, though.

But it was another thing I needed to understand. Running and hiding from it had only gotten me so far. So I twisted to the side, pretended to adjust the smooth lines of the buttery soft shorts and tank top for the hundredth time, posing for myself more than anything. Watching my fingers, nails painted that bright yellow Alice threw at me, move across my arms in a delicate kind of way, rake through the strands of my hair, smooth and shiny and more voluminous than ever from Alice's shampoo and conditioner.

"Do I look like her?" I asked.

There was a very specific monster I feared looking at when I crossed those reflective things besides my own.

"No," Alice said immediately, dropping the guise of painting her nails electric blue at the slower-than-human pace she'd set for herself. Probably giving me the space and time to settle into myself the exact same way Jasper would have. Did she learn that from him, or did he learn it from her? What else had they taught each other before they met the Cullens? What about after?

"She had a sharper nose. Thinner brows." Her own thin brows narrowed, unaware of the current my thoughts pulled me down. "A troglodyte, really. For her to think you looked alike was a stretch."

It wasn't that funny, but I smirked. When I caught the upward quirk of my mouth in the mirror, it dropped just as fast as it came. "Has," I corrected her. "She has all those things. She's still alive."

Still suffering. We had that in common, too.

"The way I looked wasn't the only reason they picked me," I went on. "They picked me because I could be made worse. I am worse."

A monster. Victoria and I had that in common, too.

"No, Blaire," Alice said. Her tone was quiet. Too gentle for the anger and fear and sadness swelling within me. I didn't deserve it – "You've only been hurt –"

"That's not what Charlotte said," I interrupted her, my stupid too-keen eyes taking in all the anguish splaying itself on my face, with my wide doe-like eyes and quivering lips. I didn't deserve to have such an expression of beautiful horror on my face when the humans I'd already killed flashed behind my blood red eyes – "She said I nearly killed him. She said that I'd drag him back to… to something, but I have no idea what. He's afraid to tell me, I know, just like I know it wasn't good, and that it hurt him. Alice… I need to know. You said this was inevitable, but is it inevitable that I'll hurt him?"

"My visions don't necessarily work like that. If you remember, they change as quickly as someone makes a decision. I think the only reason I saw you as a vampire so consistently was because someone had always made that choice. It was just the when that needed to be decided. It was decided after the phone call I thought was between you, Bella, and her mother. When you decided you would meet James head on."

Sorting through my human memories was like wading waist-deep through the ocean. I couldn't grasp at the exact moment. It was lost to me, like so many things.

"The vision of you being turned hit me then. It was crystal clear," she went on. "And then… everything fell into place."

Further proof that all of this had been nothing short of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It only made Charlotte's words more frightening. I turned into a monster, and James made me worse. "But will I hurt Jasper?" I pressed.

"No. Not now," Alice said. "There had been a… a moment. Right after you were turned. Jasper couldn't get to you, and James was… conditioning you. Saving you almost felt like a race against time. We didn't know how many more kills it would take until he engrained his influence within you. You fought and fought every step of the way, but you're so young, and a newborn vampire too. I had a vision that you succumbed and would become something insatiable. A danger to our kind. Something the Vultori would notice."

When Jasper first told me about them, they seemed so remote and surreal. A chill worked its way through me at the realization that they could've been in my immediate future.

"Charlotte heard that conversation, but she never understood how my gift works, or never wanted to," Alice went on. "She sees things in black and white. I think it's all she can do to cope, after what happened to them down south. She doesn't want to be in the way of anything she considers a risk, even if it is a one out of thousands of other possibilities. Back then, they barely got away, and she wants to keep herself, her mate, and Jasper as far away from that life as she can."

I sunk to the cold tile floor, curling my knees up to my chest. Everything Charlotte said and did made so much more sense. She'd been so cautious because she knew there was a reality that I could hurt her and Peter. And Jasper. My fingers curled into my knees when I thought of a world where there wouldn't be days with him standing in my line of sight, drenched in sunlight and golden. Without him, everything would be so, so dark.

"I say this so you understand you aren't a danger to any of us," Alice said, crouching in front of me. "You're safe, and everyone else is safe. For now, I don't see anything that will make that change. I know Jasper probably tells you that all the time, but I thought it might help coming from me."

From the one being who could see the future and all its possibilities.

"You can rest now, Blaire," she said. "You can heal."

V

THE DAY STRETCHED on and raced all at once. After we exhausted Alice's first spa routine, we left the cabin to hunt. She taught me more about how to make cleaner kills so the animals wouldn't suffer and I wouldn't make such a mess out of my clothes. They were designer, after all, and even though the Cullens could afford such luxuries thousands of times over, I didn't want to spoil her gifts.

Conversation flowed easily, as she admitted she always knew it would, even when I was human. Even before we ever met. "I knew I would love you as much as I loved him," she explained. "Like I told you before, Jasper is my best friend the way Bella is yours. I only want him to be happy, and you make him happy."

Her words mollified me, especially when I didn't remember her telling me that before. Especially after Tanya and her greedy eyes. Alice didn't hold any kind of intent besides getting close to me. Besides being unapologetically incessant about becoming my friend.

"Look at this," she suddenly said when something else flew at my face. Like the nail polish, I barely caught it in time, even for my enhanced senses, but this new thing smacked into my palms with a solid thud! It… It was a ball.

A baseball.

The fabric was smooth against my hands, but it was heavy. It didn't give when I squeezed it with a pressure that was gentle enough for a vampire, but strong enough to crush a normal baseball.

"I found it in the loft," she said. "It's reinforced with tungsten, so we can play. Emmett and Jasper made a few of them. I know it's not the same as a soccer ball, but I thought you'd like it."

I never ventured up to the loft in the cabin. It was a space I'd left totally reserved for Jasper's use. But as I turned the ball over in my hands, I didn't know why he didn't bring it out sooner. Or if he would've ever brought it out at all.

"When you're ready, you should play with us sometime. If you want to."

The idea of playing any sport made my throat uncomfortably tight. I didn't know if that was something I deserved. That was why Jasper didn't bring it out. Always one step ahead of my emotions, knowing me so well he wouldn't push me if he didn't see a reason to.

"Let's hunt again," Alice said before flitting off into the trees.

V

ALL THE FACE masks were exhausted by the time the sky turned a dusky pink. When it succumbed to a deep blue, Alice rummaged out speakers from the loft and connected her radio to them. She danced and sang to all the Top 40 songs that roared through the house. As always, she was effervescent. She had a way of making everything around her lighter. She even managed to pull me from sitting on the counter to join her, bouncing around and even on the bed. It felt normal, like there could be something to this life besides hurt and anger.

I glanced at the baseball sitting innocently enough on the kitchen island, somehow a visual representation of yet another thing I'd lost, but… but also something I might get back. Alice's words from earlier this morning played in my head on an endless loop. I could rest. I could heal.

It was wrong, wasn't it? The one person who should've died, who ended up outliving everyone, shouldn't get a happy ending. The most important people in my life suffered, sacrificed themselves to a debt that never belonged to them and they hadn't known why, and I was… dancing. Playing. Smiling.

I took a huge step back, putting as much distance between myself and the impromptu dance floor. Alice stopped and frowned. The little bubble of happiness within me popped.

I should have died. Even if me becoming a vampire was supposed to happen, I should have died. For them.

"I don't know how to rest anymore," I finally admitted. "There's this… weight on me now. It's heavy, and it's always there. When I get distracted, it always crashes back, and it hurts."

"Some wounds scar deep."

How had I not felt his approach? Or heard him? I wrenched around to face the front of the cabin as Jasper stepped inside, his golden eyes hot and intense on mine. Pinning me in place. Seeing through everything, down to my core, to the rage that always threatened to overflow and the grief that haunted my every step.

"Oh," Alice suddenly said, startling us. She waved her phone absently and darted around me, heading for the door. "Carlisle is going to call."

I barely heard it close behind her, too focused on Jasper, not even bothering to mask the relief I felt now that he was here, but unable to shake the sorrow clawing at my chest.

"Sometimes they cut so deep they just don't heal," he went on. Just as he had on all his other supply runs, he dropped the boxes he carried at the door as if they weighed nothing. As if my sadness weighed nothing to him, either, even as I'd done nothing but hurl it at him. "They can't."

His words smoothed against me like a salve as he closed the space between us, reaching out for my waist and pulling me close. With his other hand, he lifted mine and wound it around his neck. "You learn how to live with them, though, in time. You'll get strong enough to carry that weight."

He stepped back in time with the song I just registered was playing on the radio, but my new senses kept track, instinct pulling me into following his lead. Following him always. He smiled, bright and warm as the sun. Just for me. "Until then, you've got people who can shoulder the burden with you."

He pulled away until only our hands were joined, and he gently coaxed me into spinning under his arm. "Come on, darlin'," he whispered, his voice low.

I twisted under it, letting him pull me back into his next steps. His smile widened into a full-on grin, looking more boyish than I'd ever seen him, and it made something in me so much lighter.

This moment. His smile.

I'd had a thought before, an idea that we were paired together because we could balance the weight we both carried. But it was more. It was him, who had seen the darkest corners of myself unfurl into the monster I was meant to be without flinching, who saw my despair and didn't recoil or expect me to change. If I stayed this way forever, I knew he would still feel the same as he did now. And if I ever healed, if I ever somehow broke the surface of this unending sadness, he would still look at me the same.

Two beings, reaching for one another from the dark. Every single day for a bunch of single reasons.

"This moment," I realized, the words so quiet I barely heard them myself.

But Jasper heard me and he knew what I meant. He faltered, missing a step. I almost stepped on his foot, barely twisting myself out of the way in time –

His hands caught my waist, steadying me. Then they were under my chin, tilting my head back, before he pressed his lips against mine in the softest kiss. So gentle it ached. My hands rested flat against in his chest as I leaned closer to him, melting into him, settling into his lines as they fit along mine. One of his hands trailed back behind my head, fingers threading through my hair as he deepened his kiss, while the other dropped and curled around my waist, pulling me in even closer. He was still so careful. So loving.

I loved him.

When he pulled away, his smile was just as soft as his kiss. Just as warm. His own love settled around me, palpable like the mist that overtook the cliffs in the mornings.

"Hi," I said.

"Hello," he replied, even though his kiss said it already.

V

Did you see what I did there in the last paragraph? If not, it's a callback to RAVAGE: Chapter 39 (CALL TO ACTION). Does that give off the same energy as someone explaining their own joke? Sorry, I just loved it so much I wanted to share. Jasper's honestly writing himself, so I'm getting to work on the next chapter as we speak. Y'all are going to have to help me with some stuff soon, though. I'll let you know when we get there!

Again, for some light self-promo, feel free to check out THE MIDNIGHT CHAPTER by CressandLeigh on Wattpad (for free) if you want to see an aesthetic for the story's main characters!