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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ellie Hadley was having a bad day. That was the first thing Jasper Hale noticed as the car pulled into the car park. Hopelessness and misery wafted off her in waves as she looked down, completely resigned to her fate. The part that was almost more concerning was the fact that Ellie wasn't sitting in Sydney's car, rather than the showy car that Ellie had exclaimed multiple times her utter distaste for and instead of Sydney Taylor being the designated driver of Ellie, it was her brother who eyed his old high school with disgust.
Jasper half wished that she had called him, asked him for a ride. Although considering the scene that had occurred with Edward and Bella only a few days prior, it wouldn't have been the best idea.
Ellie had mentioned in passing about the occasional bad day that she had. Only that it had nothing to do with an argument with a parent, a breakup or a bad grade like what would be common with other people her age. For Ellie, it was something else entirely. Something that no one in Forks quite understood, because they have never experienced it and most likely never would. It was her Narcolepsy, the endless looming raincloud that could easily ruin her day with a snap of its fingers.
Jasper had been initially surprised that Ellie had opened up to him so easily, convinced that she would stray as far away as possible from him, once she found out the truth, not almost immediately open up to him about her past and fears, but he still had yet to explain his own past to the brunette. But at the end of the day, she had needed a friend just as Jasper had, and they had ended up with each other.
From such an unexpected friendship he knew that her bad day had stemmed from the increasing need to give up entirely, something that shook him right to his undead core. It was terrifying to watch someone such as Ellie, a bright light in the darkness of his life, fall into her own darkness, convinced that she might as well give up instead of trying to fight against her condition any longer. That it was better to not try, to lose her grip on the limited control she sustained, to just fall face-first down the endless pit willingly. He couldn't let her give up entirely, he refused to.
He could only watch as Ellie sullenly shut the door of her brother's car, Elijah Hadley almost immediately speeding out of the school's parking lot without another thought, yet another unfortunate car accident nearly occurring as he did so. Ellie barely paid this incident another thought before pulling her hood over her head, looking down to the ground and walking over to the main building, not meeting anyone's eyes. Jasper was grateful for that, knowing that if he met her eyes and looked into the despair locked around her soul, he wouldn't know what to do.
"Sydney Taylor is sick. That must be why her brother drove her." Edward muttered to his family, Jasper sending him a tiny grateful smile as they all watched Ellie enter the school building without another look back.
Ellie Hadley slammed the door of her locker, the sound of metal on metal ringing out across the corridor. She started forward, missing the wincing vampire that had joined her side.
"Hi, El." Jasper began tentatively, wanting to avoid the question that Ellie hated the most at any costs. "I finished my final paragraph for our history project last night and I wondered if you wanted to take a look at it. But other than that I think we are going to do very well next week for the presentation." Jasper continued, silently thanking his ability so he could still read the brunette despite the complete lack of emotions on her face.
"Yeah, that's great, Jazz. My final paragraph isn't quite there yet, but I would love to read yours, whenever I get the chance." Ellie said softly.
"You can take as much time as you like, Ellie," Jasper assured her softly.
"Well, not as much time as I would like because the project is still due next week at the end of the day." Ellie returned wryly, the slightest smile flitting at the corner of her mouth something that Jasper had to stop himself from grinning like a fool at. "Well, I guess I'll see you later."
"Well, we have the same class next," Jasper reminded her gently. "But I can just meet you there if you need some space."
"No, it's okay," Ellie said quietly before breaking into silence once more, Jasper soon following suit.
The walk to their history class was silent, Ellie hardly uttering a syllable but Jasper knew that that was maybe exactly what she needed. Without Sydney, the usual stand-in for Ellie, Jasper was almost lost at what to do, how to help her in any way he could, but as always he would just follow his instincts. It wasn't until halfway through the lesson that another syllable fell from Ellie's mouth.
The simple whispered 'I can't', heard by no one else in the room apart from him, followed by the tears slowly collecting in her eyes and finally Ellie roughly pushing her chair back, the chair in question scraping roughly against the floor and leaving the room without another word. It only took a millisecond later for Jasper himself to also stand up from his chair, every pair of eyes in the room immediately flickering to him.
"Um. . . I'm just going to go check on her," Jasper informed, not waiting for a response from their teacher before walking out of the room, every bone in his body wanting to rush outside to Ellie as quickly as he possibly could, his outward 'human' persona preventing him from doing so.
His enhanced hearing picked up on Ellie's 'I can't, I can't do this' almost immediately, speeding over to her location and sitting beside her. The tears were sliding shamelessly down her cheeks, her head thrown into her hands, her hair falling over her face. Even in this moment of complete despair she was still the most beautiful human he had ever seen.
"Ellie, just breathe," Jasper said, trying his best to soothe the girl, struggling to even change her emotions to a slightly less severe option to what she was currently experiencing, due to her emotions' current intensity.
"I can't do this," Ellie muttered once more. "I've tried a million times but I never get a different result, it never ends. It feels like I'm caught up in an endless cycle that won't ever spit me out. It's hopeless. Everything's so hopeless." She cried.
"I can't promise that everything will ever be fully okay, El. That's just the way things are, I don't exactly get what you are feeling right now but I did once feel something similar. You once asked me to trust you and now I want you to trust me that I'm not going to let you go through this alone, okay?" Jasper said honestly.
"Okay," Ellie muttered in return, her tears now leaving nothing but sticky trails running down her face.
"Okay then," Jasper repeated before pulling the brunette into his arms. The two of them sitting there together for the remainder of the lesson until her tears had complete dried, her sobs had morphed into the ocassional hiccup and Ellie was ready to start trying again.
