A/N: So Bella is finally going to do some serious soul searching, acknowledging those ugly truths she's been avoiding. You'll see I tweaked her and Edward's beginning a bit, mostly because my Bella isn't quite canon-Bella so she would've reacted to some things differently.
I'm not an angst person, so this doesn't drag out. (I also wasn't a fan of SM's Twilight so I have no desire to revisit that part of their story in any kind of detail.) The next two chapters lead up to the present day (night) of the prologue when Bella and Jacob are sitting on the back porch and Alice and Jasper are up in a tree. Finally!
Bella sat beside Edward with her eyes closed. She'd slept for most of the flight from Pisa to New York but even so, she was still exhausted.
When they'd boarded their plane in New York and Edward asked if he could change seats with Jasper so he could sit with her, Bella had simply given a tired shrug. When he'd reached over to hold her hand she'd gritted her teeth but allowed it.
She'd planned on sleeping through the last leg of their trip home but once they were in the air again, her mind wouldn't slow down.
Every painful truth that she ignored about her past relationship was brought into sharp relief in the Volturi's throne room.
How the hell had her life ended up here?
She had the fleeting thought that she wished she'd never met Edward Cullen, but she immediately dismissed it. If she hadn't met Edward, she wouldn't have met Jasper or Alice. Or the rest of the family, for that matter.
When she'd caught sight of the Cullens across the cafeteria on her first day at school, she couldn't deny that she'd been curious about them. She figured most teenagers would be curious about three siblings who were all intelligent, well-behaved, and ridiculously gorgeous.
By the end of her next class, however, Bella had decided that curiosity was all well and good, but she had no desire to get to know the boy she'd sat next to in Biology. There were plenty of other potential friends in Forks, she didn't need anyone in her life who appeared borderline mentally unhinged. When he wasn't in school the next day, she couldn't help but be a little relieved. He'd made her really uncomfortable with his weird, aggressive staring.
When he didn't show up the following few days, she simply pushed him from her mind and didn't think too much more about it.
Upon his return, when he had quietly introduced himself, Bella started to feel badly that she'd judged the boy so harshly. He seemed nice enough… perhaps he hadn't been feeling well her first day? It would explain his absence, and Bella knew she tended to be a bit short-tempered when she wasn't feeling well.
She figured there was no harm in being polite, so they passed the extra time in class talking quietly.
It didn't take too much time before they sort of stumbled their way into an awkward relationship, and only a short time after that Jacob Black told her the Quileute legend of the 'Cold Ones'.
At first Bella had dismissed the younger boy's story as a silly superstition. The more she thought about it, though, the less crazy it seemed. Just because she was too polite to draw attention to all the slightly strange things about her boyfriend didn't mean she hadn't noticed them. Edward saving her from an out of control van in a decidedly non-human manner was the thing that tipped the scale in her mind.
After working up the courage - and accepting that Edward Cullen might just think she was crazy - she decided to simply ask the boy directly. Worst case, he laughed at her. Actually, worst case was probably that he'd laugh at her and then eat her.
But no. She had faith that her boyfriend wouldn't kill her just because she wanted to know if she was dating a mythical creature.
Even with all the thinking she'd done, with all the guesses and assumptions, Bella still found herself shocked when Edward Cullen confirmed that yes, he was a vampire.
Their relationship changed after that. She attributed it to the fact that Edward could finally be himself around her without the fear of giving away his secret.
The two fell in love astonishingly fast, and Edward eventually told her that she was his mate - basically the vampire world's version of an eternal, unbreakable life partner.
She'd met the rest of the family at that point - with the exception of Jasper and Alice, who she learned were visiting Jasper's brother and sister in Texas - and knew that both Carlisle and Esme, and Rosalie and Emmett were mates. She watched the way the two couples interacted with each other to try to put her relationship with Edward in perspective, trying to understand what being a 'mate' meant.
When she eventually met Jasper and Alice, she'd initially thought they were mates as well. The strength of their bond was obvious to any who observed them, and she couldn't help but feel a little envious.
Nothing about her relationship with Edward felt as easy as what she saw between Alice and Jasper. Half the time the two seemed to have their own nonverbal language.
But she was assured by Edward, along with both Alice and Jasper, that the two were not mates, simply the best of friends. Bella figured that after being best friends with someone for six decades, communicating with a simple look wasn't so unlikely.
From the beginning, Bella had found Jasper intriguing.
He was obviously as handsome as the other males in the family - though Jasper was firmly in the 'man' category with Carlisle, while Edward very much appeared to be a boy, regardless of his decades on earth - but she found his personality equally attractive.
She was always fascinated to learn anything about his gift and the way it made him view the world. He was always calm, never having the wild mood swings she saw from Edward, and he always treated her with kindness and respect. Generally speaking, he was quieter than the others in his family, but he made her laugh often, which was something virtually nonexistent in her relationship with Edward.
It wasn't always easy to not make comparisons between loving Jasper as a friend and being in love with Edward as her boyfriend.
Shouldn't both relationships be that easy?
But Bella was still young. She didn't have any close friends in Phoenix and had never been in a romantic relationship. She'd never even been on a date before. Interpersonal relationships weren't exactly her specialty.
Maybe romantic relationships were always intense and serious with very little levity.
Looking back, Bella knew she'd had a bit of tunnel vision when it came to Edward Cullen, along with a nice pair of rose-colored glasses.
When she saw the discrepancies between how Edward treated her and the way Emmett and Carlisle treated their mates, she ignored them, attributing it to the fact that she was human, rather than a vampire like Rosalie and Esme. When he acted in ways that upset her, she brushed it aside. When he was overprotective and controlling, she excused him on the grounds that he just wanted to protect her. She tended to let him have his way to avoid arguing, because their arguments were never productive.
There was never a discussion about whatever was causing their disagreement, no trying to meet somewhere in the middle. For the most part, their 'arguments' consisted of Edward giving her an ultimatum about something and then being immovable until she caved.
The only thing Bella had truly fought for was the ability to spend time with the rest of Edward's family. She genuinely liked each of them and wouldn't allow Edward to put 'rules' into place about her friendships with them.
Up until Bella's birthday party, she was mostly content with their relationship and was willing to overlook these things. She loved Edward and thought they would eventually get to a place where they were on more equal footing.
That night the previous September, however, had turned her life - along with a lot of assumptions she'd made about her relationship - upside down.
Edward had made the occasional comment about Jasper's control to try to get Bella to limit her time with the empath, but she had already made note of the fact that Jasper's eyes never darkened around her the way Edward's did. Edward's eyes frequently got darker, occasionally turning completely black, and those were the moments he put some distance between Bella and himself.
Bella already knew from experience that there was nothing she couldn't talk to Jasper about. There wasn't a topic she'd ever brought up with the man that he brushed her off about. Her never ignored her, never told her she was being ridiculous. If the two ever had conflicting opinions about something, he simply asked about her reasoning so he could understand her better.
So when Edward made his third veiled insult about Jasper's control a few months into their relationship, she just ignored him and decided to talk to her favorite Texan vampire about it directly.
She didn't really know what exactly she expected to hear when she broached the subject with him, but his bright laughter certainly wasn't it. The sound of another laugh joining his confused her even more until Rosalie walked into his study to join them.
"I think my 'brother' is projecting a bit," Rose laughed.
Bella looked at Jasper in confusion. She hadn't felt him projecting any amusement.
That just seemed to make Rose laugh harder. "No, not that brother. And not projecting as in 'Jasper get your damn gift under control' but projecting as in 'Edward doesn't want to acknowledge his own failings so he passes them off on someone else'," Rosalie explained.
When Bella didn't look any less confused, Jasper reached over and gently took her hand. "My control is just fine, Bella, I promise."
She was quick to reassure him. "I know. Even if I didn't trust you completely - which I do - I've noticed that your eyes never get darker around me the way Edward's sometimes do."
Bella didn't miss the soft smile Rosalie gave her. It was no secret that Rose and Jasper were especially close, and Bella had a feeling she was happy to hear that Bella had so much faith in her favorite brother.
Bella had already learned a bit of Jasper's history by then but she was fascinated to hear more and to realize something that hadn't occur to her. The man had been in charge of a newborn army for nearly a century, which included having to help control their bloodlust to a certain degree so they were capable of rational thought rather just being perpetually-thirsty killing machines. There was a reason Maria's army was so formidable.
The difference with this life versus his old life was that the animal diet left them thirsty pretty much all the time. They were never completely free from the burn in their throats.
Rosalie had a pleased smirk on her face when she shared with Bella that she was the first in the family to realize that Jasper was affected by the bloodlust of all the Cullens. She never called attention to it, but she made sure that she and Emmett hunted regularly to help ease some of that burden.
Jasper explained that he occasionally had a difficult time when he attended school with the others, as he was with four other vegetarian vampires in the midst of several hundred beating human hearts, but he never felt any true strain until he and Alice had turned up in Forks.
Because Edward's bloodlust was so high due to her being his singer - meaning Bella's blood was just about the best thing Edward had ever smelled - Jasper had felt a slight corresponding spike in his own thirst when he was around Bella and Edward together.
That was one of the reasons the family had backed Alice and Jasper up about Jasper spending time with the human without her overbearing boyfriend hovering over them. On his own, Jasper could control his thirst just fine.
Even knowing how much her blood called to Edward, Bella had never truly worried about his control. She knew he loved her so she had faith that he would never do anything to hurt her.
Her birthday party had forced her to look more closely at that assumption.
Bella couldn't deny that she'd been scared that night. Edward had been completely lost to his thirst and she knew it was only because of the other vampires in the room, namely Alice and Jasper, that she was still alive. Or still human, at least. She had faith that even if Edward had latched onto her neck, one of the other vamps would have pulled him off before he drained her completely.
After doing some soul searching that night after Alice and Jasper had taken her home, Bella came to the conclusion that she still had faith in her boyfriend. Mostly. It was the first time her blood had been spilled around Edward and he hadn't been prepared for it. She thought maybe for a little while she would make sure one of the other family members was with them when they were together, just in case, but she still trusted him not to hurt her.
She also assumed that Edward would eventually agree to turn her into a vampire sometime in the near future - perhaps after she graduated high school - so he wouldn't have to deal with resisting her blood for too much longer.
But then came the day Edward had asked her to take a walk with him after school.
When he'd first told her he was ending their relationship, she assumed it was because he'd lost control a few nights before. She was just about to reassure him that she still had faith in him when he'd told her he was leaving because he didn't love her.
Bella had snapped her mouth shut at that point and just let him talk.
When he said their relationship had gone on long enough, that he was tired of pretending to be human, she couldn't help but be a little confused. Edward hadn't pretended to be human with her since she'd first learned his secret.
At that point she figured there was no point in arguing with him. He'd made his decision and she had never managed to change his mind about anything over the course of their relationship. She'd learned the only thing she got out of arguing with him was her own feelings of frustration and anger.
She also had a tendency to see vampires as some pinnacle of perfection, so she'd never quite believed she was good enough for Edward Cullen. She wasn't too surprised when he told her he didn't love her. Heartbroken, absolutely. Surprised, not so much.
Bella was jolted out of her thoughts when the plane's wheels hit the runway, signaling their arrival in Seattle.
She must have slumped over at some point in the previous five hours because she was leaning against Edward's arm. She quickly straightened herself up and pulled her hand out of Edward's tight hold.
When she took her first few stumbling steps up the jetway - Edward beside her, Alice and Jasper behind them - she'd swayed a bit on her feet. Jasper reached forward to steady her but Edward roughly shoved his hand away.
"I've got it, Jasper," he snapped and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
Bella couldn't see Jasper's face but she could imagine him rolling his eyes at the telepath.
"Don't be rude, Edward," Bella scolded him before a huge yawn escaped her.
She barely had the energy to put one foot in front of the other, so dealing with her overbearing ex-boyfriend was beyond her current capabilities.
All she wanted to do was get back to Forks, give her dad a hug, and then crawl into her warm and cozy bed for a solid day.
There was plenty of time after that to work out why the boy who said he didn't love her was behaving as if the last seven months hadn't happened and that they were still as happy together as they'd been the morning of September 13th, before everything had unraveled.
A/N: My heartfelt gratitude to everyone taking the time to read and review!
Take care, M. x