Bella opened the front door of the Cullen home.
It was always an experience that she noticed closely—the way her footsteps echoed because of the tall, unending ceiling, and the vast, empty space; the sense of unease caused by the uncertainty that she would never know who was really home. The cars in the driveway rarely indicated a vampire's presence or absence.
The silence was almost disquieting, until she turned into the kitchen where Esme was unboxing several cardboard boxes on the kitchen counter.
"Why, hello, Bella," Esme greeted her with pleasant surprise. Bella couldn't imagine why she would be surprised in the first place.
"Hey, Esme. Mind if I take over the island to study?"
"Go right ahead. Did Edward leave already?"
Of course he left. Couldn't she tell? "Yes, he should be back in a few hours."
Edward was on his second hunt of the week.
As Bella unloaded the contents of her backpack onto the counter, she addressed the boxes. "What are those?"
Esme pulled out a dark bottle from one of them, admiring it. "Edward said you loved wine. I figured we could keep some in stock."
Bella wouldn't say she loved wine. She enjoyed a glass here and there, but— "Are all three boxes wine, Esme?"
She placed a hand on each one as she announced proudly, "Red. White. Champagne."
Bella slipped onto the stool, settling herself in. "You really didn't have to."
"Nonsense," she told her, as she usually always did, then flipped the bottle to show her the label. "Would you like some?"
At 2 PM on a Tuesday? "No, thank you."
"Wine culture is…" she thought for the word, then seemed gleeful at her choice. "…intoxicating."
She placed the wine bottle down onto the counter. "Do you know how gorgeous charcuterie boards are?" She held up a finger. "One second." And then she walked around her and disappeared.
Bella booted her laptop, and before she could navigate to her lecture notes, Esme was back. She was carrying a large tray. Trays. She had multiple wooden platters that she lugged onto the counter. Charcuterie boards.
"Just look at these," she breathed, wiping a delicate hand down the woodwork of the topmost one. "And I've seen endless pictures of cheeses, sausages, grapes, and nuts, all beautifully arranged among glasses and glasses of wine." Her twinkling eyes flicked to her. "Isn't it lovely? Bella, please tell me you like charcuterie."
"I like charcuterie, Esme."
She nodded, satisfied. She then flipped to the board underneath, examining it as Bella attempted to focus on the work on hand. She finally found her lecture notes.
Esme's movement caught her eye. She was resuming unloading the wines. Bella watched momentarily as she delicately removed each bottle and stared at it for longer than was probably normal. She then reached down to open a drawer and procured a corkscrew. Sticking the end in, she popped open a sauvignon blanc. And then, she reached up and grabbed a wine glass.
Why did they own wine glasses? The question was ridiculous, Bella soon realized, as her eyes darted over the large kitchen. The Cullens now owned three boxes of wine, and probably twenty pounds of salt, in addition to a bunker's worth of canned goods. And honestly, who knew what else.
Bella watched Esme tip the bottle and pour. She didn't take a sip, but Bella secretly anticipated that she would.
Esme merely admired the glass with its contents. She seemed lost in her thoughts.
And then Bella prodded gently, "Esme did you want to become a vampire?"
Her eyes flicked to her, and she smiled, though maybe a little too harshly. "I didn't have much of a choice. I was dying."
"Like Edward?"
"He was dying of disease." The Spanish Flu. "I had… tried to end my own life."
"Oh, Esme," Bella empathized. "I never knew."
"It's been a very long time," she said, with a certain sadness in her eyes. "But I have a new life now."
"Yes, you do." She paused, considering. "And this life… you're happy with it?"
"Of course!" She exclaimed, her fingers skimming the stem of the glass. "I just generally wish I could taste what I'm cooking, or even this beautiful glass of wine."
"That's it?" Bella asked. "That's the only thing you miss?"
Her expression wavered, but Bella caught it. The smile remained, but it didn't reach her eyes when she said, "It's the only thing."
Her tone was off, and so was her distant gaze. And all Bella could think of, curiously, was—why would Esme Cullen lie?
And then, there was a crash.
The house shook forcefully. The first thing on Bella's mind was earthquake. But the only emotion on Esme's face was irritation when Bella caught her staring over her shoulder.
When she turned around, she saw Emmett pushing off heaps of drywall that had fallen onto him when he presumably blasted through the side of the house.
"Emmett!" Esme admonished.
Emmett didn't even look back at her. He addressed the figure in front of him, which was undeniably Jasper. "Again."
Another crash came when they collided.
Bella brought her attention back to Esme, who was glaring at the damage.
"Is everything okay?" She asked tentatively, feeling her breaths come out quickly.
"Oh, of course." Esme grabbed her glass of wine and emptied it into the sink. Bella almost wished she was willing to make the excuse of it's five o'clock somewhere as she watched Esme waste what looked like a couple hundred dollars worth of fine wine. The bottle, unsurprisingly for the Cullen bank, was from the year 2000.
"It's just a little sparring," Esme told her as she picked up the sauvignon blanc bottle.
Startled from the sparring, Bella raised a shaky hand, easily predicting Esme's next move. "Go ahead and cork it. I'll have some tonight. I insist."
Food or wine—waste was not something Bella was okay with.
Bella glanced back at the gaping hole, and then another one formed almost instantaneously. This time, she braced herself as the house trembled, and Emmett was once again shot through the wall, but this time further, and directly into the sectional. He threw the pillows off of him, ripping one in half in the process. The Cullens' large sectional now had a significant dip in the middle, with the wood underneath cracked beyond repair.
"Jasper," Esme commanded, and it wasn't a tone Bella had heard her use before. "Enough."
Emmett stayed put in the living room, brushing off bits of wall and couch filling. Jasper walked straight through the second hole and gave Esme one single nod.
"Oh hey Bella," Emmett said, grinning at her as he approached the women. "Did you like the show?"
Bella didn't quite know what to say, her hand gripping the edge of the counter for dear life.
"We've scared the girl," Jasper commented.
Esme continued to unload bottles of wine, and her tone was unusually negative. "Yes. This is not the time for this."
"It gives you an excuse to repaint the living room," Emmett suggested with a grin.
Bella relaxed her death grip. "Why are you…" What was the word again? "…sparring?"
"So we can be ready for red headed bitches who threaten us."
"Emmett," Esme scolded.
"Sorry. I meant witches."
Bella watched this short exchange with detached fascination. Bella knew that Esme wasn't Emmett's biological mother, and she couldn't exactly word why she found their relationship to be so peculiar. A pretend mother, and a pretend son.
Charlie would encourage Bella's colorful language at this age. But it seemed that Esme saw Emmett as nothing more than a twelve-year-old.
Closing one of the emptied boxes, Esme then smiled at Emmett. "I guess you're coming with me to grab supplies. We're fixing the walls. Today." She glanced at Bella. "Did you want to come? Just to Home Depot."
"No, that's alright. I should keep at this." She gestured at her laptop, and then pulled out a notebook. Her studying really should have been further along by now.
Esme made Emmett walk through the front door of the house as they left.
Before Bella let herself be engrossed by her lecture notes, she remembered that she wasn't alone. When she turned around in her stool, Jasper was staring distantly at the rubble on the ground, and then his attention switched to her. That was when Bella noticed the difference in the color of his eyes.
They were sharp, crisp, and undoubtedly brighter red.
The last time that Bella saw Jasper was when he had left for his own hunt—one that was entirely different from what Edward was currently out doing. And judging by his arm that was completely healed, Bella guessed that his hunt for a meal had been… successful.
"Hi," she said to him.
He stepped closer. "Hello."
As Jasper stood near, his eyes dancing around her laptop and notebook, Bella found herself watching him. She felt both drawn and disconcerted by how bloody his eyes were. She could have sworn she saw something swirling in them. How could they appear so lively?
Those eyes then snapped to her, and Bella felt her throat move in a swallow.
And then Jasper's demeanor shifted. There was a certain lack of sincerity in his tone when he asked, "Is something bothering you?"
Another swallow. Bella averted his eyes and immediately felt her body grow hot. She wouldn't deny it, because there was no lying to Jasper.
"So unsettled," he murmured, because he could feel it all. "It's entirely natural."
Bella took a deep breath. "Sorry."
"Why?" He leaned against the island. "This is exactly what you should be feeling."
"Well, it doesn't feel very great." She got up from the stool and ventured further into the kitchen. She grabbed a water glass, filled it, and pressed it to her lips. Sipping felt loud. Swallowing was going to make her deaf. Her senses were acute, sharp, and on overdrive.
This was the underlying fear.
"What's interesting to me is—you don't feel this way with the Cullens," Jasper noted.
Bella sat back on her stool, clutching her glass. "Not always."
"Not always?"
His eyes, wide, and attentive, had a level of interest in them that brought the tingling back in her spine. "Explain." And it seemed important for him to add, "There's no one here."
Bella's throat protested, but she swallowed to tame it. It didn't help that Jasper was just a foot away from her.
"At times, their humanity feels forced." She thought for a better term. "Synthetic. I don't always understand why they have to pretend." She paused, the confession light and airy on her tongue, "I find vampires to be unsettling."
It was probably the first time she had ever admitted that out loud. And her explanation changed something in the way that Jasper was looking at her.
"Well, hello!" Both of them directed their attention to the crumbling walls. Alice graciously hopped through one of the holes, examining them amusedly. "I see today's session went well."
Jasper took one big step away from Bella and said nothing.
Alice barely seemed to register Jasper's presence. Her eyes were trained on Bella, and her smile was painfully wide. "Bella! Don't you worry. You will do amazing on your history final."
Her history final? Her gaze fell back to her notes, and the entire reason she was supposed to be sitting there in the first place.
"Does that mean I can stop studying?" Bella asked, half-jokingly.
"Somehow, I feel that even a guarantee won't stop you, Isabella Swan," Alice teased.
Jasper was slowly leaving Bella's field of vision as he directed himself to the stairs.
"And where are you going?" Alice asked, and he stopped immediately.
He turned back to the two women, and his face was entirely blank. The emotion and intrigue Bella could read on him just a few minutes ago was nowhere to be found. "Where should I go, Alice?"
"You should stay."
Except it didn't come out as a suggestion. To Bella, it sounded more like an instruction.
And perhaps it was, because Jasper—without hesitation—walked back over and sat on the side of the sectional that wasn't caving in, facing them.
And then came a frustrated voice that Bella hadn't heard in a week. "Emmett!"
It was Rosalie, and she also accessed the house through the destruction. "I can't believe this."
Jasper was staring loosely at the coffee table that was miraculously in one piece. "We weren't meant to be confined by concrete."
"Maybe not you." She placed her hands on her hips and assessed the damage. "I'm assuming Esme's on her way to fix this."
"She is," Alice reported. "It'll be fixed tonight."
"Good." She flipped around to face them. "It's supposed to rain later." And then, she seemed to realize. "Oh, hi Bella."
Bella knew that Rosalie could sense her from a mile away. The delay of acknowledgement failed to offend her, as always.
"Bella," Alice began, stepping into the open kitchen and examining the wine bottles. "Did you know that Jasper fought in the Civil War? He was on the Confederacy side. As a human, of course."
"Ugh." Rosalie groaned, walking past them and towards the stairs. "Controversial."
Bella looked at Jasper, who was still staring at the coffee table. It didn't seem like he wanted to be here at all.
"We all have such rich histories," Alice continued, walking back around to glance at Bella's laptop. "We've lived through history. Our family's probably been impacted by all that you're studying right now."
Bella regarded her, interested. "Are there vampires older than Carlisle?"
"Of course!" Alice exclaimed. "I would say Carlisle's relatively young."
"And that was… the 1600s?" Bella asked, feeling a little absurd for even speaking it out loud.
"Yes, and I believe, the oldest…" Alice thought for a moment, comically placing her finger to her lips.
"Amun Akil of the Egyptian Coven," Jasper spoke automatically. "2500 BC."
"Ah, yes," Alice agreed. "Amun."
Bella was probably gaping at this. "2500 BC?"
Alice grinned. "As I said, Carlisle would be considered young."
"That's unbelievable, and amazing."
"Isn't it?" Alice spoke proudly. "There are endless possibilities, endless lifetimes. Infinite choices, decisions, and experiences."
Speaking of experiences. Bella glanced over at Jasper, who seemed intent on examining every inch of that coffee table. "The Confederacy, Jasper, was it—"
But Jasper had his response locked and ready. "A mistake. With the lack of knowledge comes poor choices."
"But I bet you didn't think it was a mistake at the time."
Jasper didn't even look once at her. "Of course I didn't."
He had most likely been directly influenced by his environment at the time, much like how anyone young and inexperienced could be susceptible t0 others imposing their own will onto them. Though it wasn't easy for Bella to imagine a vulnerable, human Jasper.
"Lessons are learned over time," Alice agreed. "That's the beauty of it, Bella. You never stop learning."
Bella flipped through some pages in her notebook. "Though I could probably do without going through the U.S education system." She gave Alice a pointed look. "Again. And again."
Alice laughed, brilliant and bright. "Oh, no. That's just what we choose to do. You can choose to never step foot into a lecture. You can choose to live out in the woods. You can choose anything!" She leaned against the island. "It's always your choice, Bella." And then Alice gave her what she presumably thought was a reassuring smile. "You can do whatever you want."
It was only then that Jasper looked up, his eyes locking directly onto Bella's. There was something in his expression that seemed to challenge Alice's words. It was something sinister, foreboding, and cautionary, and it left a hollow feeling in her chest.
Her mouth felt dry when she responded. "That's wonderful, Alice."
This chapter: Esme's delight in human wine culture, Jasper's fresh meal, and Alice's curious dive into history.
Q: What do you think of Jasper's treatment by the various Cullens in this chapter?
Excerpt for next time:
Jasper paused. "Let's talk about chocolate—that had been a good comparison, had it not?"
Bella nodded, and he continued, "The Cullens are humans that have messed up their hunger cues with severe dietary restrictions. It has caused this incessant addiction to chocolate—to blood—that whenever they're around it, they simply cannot resist."
"It's an eating disorder," Bella said, understanding.
"That's my theory."
See you next week.