Ashes [Jasper Hale] [2]

06 ; miss missing you

"Ashley?" a voice I hadn't quite heard in the last few months spoke up, and I turned to look away from my phone. 

"Bella," I said, surprised. 

She seemed hesitant as she entered my room, looking around cautiously. 

"Is there something... you need?" I asked softly, being careful not to say wrong.

"I..." she trailed off for a moment, and I raised my eyebrows, expecting an answer. "Well, you know my dream?"

Awkward.

For the past few months, each night Bella would wake up screaming. At the beginning, both me and Charlie would rush to her, but these days we knew that no one was attempting a murder, and that was only a nightmare.

But she's never spoken about it before.

"Uh- I guess."

"Well, it's kind of the same every night," she started, looking away. "But tonight a new detail was added," she sat on my bed, and I watched her carefully. "Sam Uley."

"What about Sam?" I asked, confused. I was pretty sure that Bella only saw Sam twice; once at the beach just before he shifted, and the second the night Edward's left her.

"He..." she stopped, intaking a sharp breath, brown eyes turning away from me for a moment before she looked at me again. "He seemed unfriendly... and, whenever I turned away from him... It was like his shape changed."

I silenced, watching her with wide eyes.

"You're... you're his friend, right?"

"Well," I scoffed. "We're buddies. Kind of. Well, Sam is kind of a really serious guy, so I hang out more with Jared, who is a complete idiot, and Paul. Y'know. My boyfriend..." I trailed off. Bella looked at me with those hurt, numb eyes. "Yes, I guess I am friends with Sam."

"Is he..." Bella struggled with her words, eyebrows scrunched. "Dangerous?"

I stayed silent for a short moment, hesitating. He could be dangerous, and Emily's face was a proof of that. "What do you mean dangerous?" I eventually asked, "like a drug dealer or something?"

"No."

"Then I don't quite understand." I played dumb.

"Oh. Okay." Bella spoke softly. "Well, I'm going to the rez, are you coming?"

"Nah, Paul is coming over and we're gonna go to Port Angeles."

"How? I've got the  truck," Bella frowned.

"Sam's letting us borrow his car," I shrugged, before getting out of my bed, showing Bella my outfit. "It's cute, right?"

"Yeah, I guess," Bella said, looking troubled still. 

I wanted to say something, but knew better. I remained silent, choosing to voice out my concerns.

"You're looking for things that aren't there," I assured. "Sam's no vampire."

Bella's lip quivered, and I sighed. "I know you're hurting, because I am too. But you need to raise your head up, look away from the past and just keep going. You're a pretty girl, you'll find another boy-"

"Don't be so shallow." Bella snapped.

"Excuse me?"

"It's not about a boyfriend, it's about..." she seemed to have trouble forcing his name out. "It's about him! I don't see how you managed to move on, how you can kiss another person, how you can look in people's eyes and not have the air knocked out from your lungs when you realize it's not his eyes!" she clutched her chest, tears flowing, her voice cracking at the next statement. "When- when you realize you will never see his eyes again."

"Bella, honestly, we're better without them," I repeated Sam's words. She shook her head, not wanting to listen. "We are! It may not feel like it, but... For them, the human world is a mess. For us, their world is dangerous."

"How can it hurt so much then?" she cried, "if it's right, how can it be so painful?!"

"I'm still looking for the answer."

▶

"Hi mom," I greeted the woman from the other side of the screen, and for a moment she smiled, before a frown decorated her face.

"Ashley, baby, is there something wrong?"

"Why?" I wondered, confused. She looked at me with worry reflecting in her eyes, before she sighed.

"You seem sick."

"I do?" I wondered, pressing a hand to my forehead, wondering if I might b feverish.

"No, I mean... you look unhealthy."

"Which is sick?"

"Not exactly..." she trailed off. "Honey, are you still bothered by the Cullens leaving? Charlie says you're much better than Bella."

"I'm fine," I smiled, but she seemed even less convinced.

"Baby, it's okay to be hurting." she spoke softly, and I shook my head. "It's okay to still be hurt over a boy. I'm still hurting over Charlie, and it's been over eighteen years. It's okay if you're still hurting over Jared and the Cullen."

"Hale," I sighed. "Jasper is a Hale, not a Cullen."

She looked at me in silence for a while. "Do you wanna talk about it?" 

I did. It would be nice to speak freely with someone objective over everything that happened ever since we came to Forks, but, alas, I couldn't. Werewolves, vampires, no one who wasn't one of the two would believe me.

Well, Bella would, but she wasn't supposed to know about the wolves.

And she was too much into vampires, too. 

"Not really," I simply said. "I just... Is it weird I'm still hurting over Jared, even now? Even after Jasper? And is it normal that Jasper is still on my mind every day even when I found someone new?"

"Of course it is, that's what makes you human, the fact you're hurting over something that's gone."

"I want someone to hurt over me, just once," I barely whispered. Jared cheated on me, Jasper walked out on me, Paul will choose his imprint over me.

I'm always the one left behind.

Even by my friends.

"Oh, God," I stood up abruptly. "I can't do it, I can't."

"Ashley? Honey?!" Mom called, stressed.

"Oh, my God, I can't, mom, I can't," I wiped my tears away, "I feel so... fragile and unneeded and I don't want to be here and I haven't got anywhere to go to."

"Ashley, honey, please, listen to me."

I looked at her with puffy eyes, trying to hold myself at place.

"I'm gonna take my antidepressant," I told her, going to turn off the Video Chat, still blinking away tears.

"Okay sweetheart," she told me gently. "I love you."

"Bye mom."

Every time I show someone I love them, they end up leaving me. 

So if I don't show, they won't go.

I just didn't want to be in so much pain ever again, no matter what that meant.