Now You See Me [Jasper Hale story]

XVI. Farewell

"(...) Tessa watched him, paralyzed, every pulse of her heart beating out the words she could not say: Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye." ― Cassandra Clare

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"Alice?" I pronounced into the deadly silence of my bedroom, narrowing my eyes searchingly; for nothing more common than my inability to see anything in the dark. The sneaky little creature must have switched the lamp on my nightstand off. Her specific scent, which hit my nose the moment she decided to come closer to me, however, revealed her.
When I finally managed to palpate the switch, I found out my theory was correct. Except for my not having expected Alice's attempt to escape.
"Why are you standing at the window?" I asked, unable to erase the disappointment in my voice.

Alice sighed, the expression in her face hadn't changed very much though. "I didn't want to wake you up," she announced quietly, and I couldn't stop myself from feeling surprised. Her behavior was so unlike its usual form, that it almost took breath out of my lungs.

"Well, you've obviously failed," grimacing acidly, I started to clutch the soft fabric of the bedsheet nervously. Understandably, my gaze went down to it.

"Gwyn, I am so sorry for what happened in our house," it took her a couple of seconds to start talking to me. She moved to stand next to my bed, in an inhuman speed, "It's all my fault, I should have known what would happen. Yet, I was naïve enough to think that you and Bella might spend a great time with my family, without having a catastrophe taking place."

"Alice," I pronounced her name as gently as I could, before patting the free spot on the bed, next to me, in order to offer her a place to sit down, "I don't blame you of anything; what should have happened tonight, that happened. Actually..." I breathed in deeply, "the only person who should apologize here, is me."

Alice furrowed her eyebrows, "What do you mean?"

Instead of replying immediately, I patted the place on the bed again, "Please, take a seat. Trust me, in the end, you will be grateful for having sat down."

She did as I said, not having protested too much. My eyes lowered back to my hands, as I started clutching the blanket again. Attempting to silently summarize all of the important points I needed to tell her about what happened in the forest, between me and Jasper, I had opened my mouth many times, yet, nothing came out of it. Alice waited patiently, until I finally found the right words.
Then, I told her everything. About my dangerously strong attraction towards both her and Jasper, about the kiss and how Jasper resisted the urge to taste my blood.

The truth was, that after my speech ended, I expected her to do anything - scream, swear, shout, rip my throat, throw me out of the window for her husband's having cheated on her with me. However, none of that happened. A small, knowing smile appeared on Alice's face, when I told her about kissing Jasper; if I hadn't had a rough idea about what each of her smiles meant, I would have thought she was fine with it. There was a slight hint of sadness nevertheless, in the corner of her beautiful eyes, which I couldn't miss.

"I am sorry, Alice," that was the hundreth apology I gave her, in the last five minutes, "For letting my stupid hormones take the best of me. I... I really wish I could turn back the time. I wouldn't have done it again."

"I know you wouldn't," Alice estimated quietly, "I also know Jasper though. And I am sure that if he had gotten another opportunity to do the same thing, he would have taken it without blinking."

I looked up at her, my eyes widened with shock.

For that, Alice added: "Me and Jasper are married, as you know. Nonetheless, our marriage has been uhappy for more than twenty years now. Both of us tried to fix it countless times, but..." she paused, "Nothing worked out. We decided to take a break, before we moved to Forks even, and we left our family for two months."

"Where did you go?" My curiosity changed into a big, hungry Godzilla by then, as it kept taking the best of my brain.

Alice smiled softly, "I went to visit my old friend in Spain. Jasper went to Houston, the city he was born and spent his childhood in."

"Oh," I exhaled, coping with all the newly gained information. If I wasn't mistaken, Houston was in Texas, while Texas was in the South of United States. That meant Jasper's accent wasn't Australian. "You still care about him though. Why don't you... I don't know, try harder to fix the relationship?"

"I cannot force myself into loving him, Gwyn," Ms. Cullen stated resignedly, "Jasper is a good friend of mine - the best of them, actually. However, the only reason for me to stay by his side, as his wife, was his having problems with self-control around humans."
For goodness sake. That meant Alice wasn't making any demands on him. Did it also mean, that she didn't mind our kiss? Was she giving me a permission to... erm... snog her husband officially?

"I may not be an expert in the field, but I can see that he still struggles hard with the self-control issues." I mentioned skeptically.

"Of course he does. As does every one of us, especially around you. However, when he resisted the calling of your blood, I saw a gleam of hope in him. For the very second time ever since I met him."

"You-you saw us?!" Terrified, I pulled my knees under my chin.

"Don't worry, not in person," Alice laughed shortly. Once she noticed my bewildered expression, she continued to talk: "Before I turned into vampire, I had an... extraordinary ability, let's say. I could see things happening, pretty long before they happened in reality..."

"Was that why they closed you into the bedlam?" I interrupted her. The most important question was yet to come nevertheless, "Alice, were you Mary Alice Brandon?"

Afterwards, she sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes darkened for the slightest. My body tensed in alarm automatically, but she looked away from me for a few, absolutely tormenting seconds. When she turned her head back, the melted gold was back, and I got a chance to relax.
"Yes, that was my name." Alice admitted quickly, "and before you ask, I didn't know about the message in my exercise book. I must have left it in there, when... I broke out from the bedlam. Neither I realized I gave you my old notes from English."

Biting onto my lower lip, I looked at her sympathetically. My right hand palpated hers, much colder one, as I gave her a supportive squeez. Alice kept explaining things about vampires to me, refuted erroneous theories about various facts Bram Stoker described in his books. Yet I hadn't asked her any more questions about her previous, human life. It was obvious that she had still feelt very sad about it, as the sharp teeth of time hadn't healed all her wounds yet; so there, I decided not to upset her.
Alice revealed that some of her siblings had extraordinary abilities as well; once she said that Edward was a telepath who could read minds, and that Jasper was able to change moods and feel one's emotions, I wasn't surprised at all. In fact, I felt pretty relieved about my not having been suffering from paranoia, every time Edward laughed at my thought processes and Jasper made me feel calm against my will. Twice a hurray, I wasn't going crazy!

I told her about my life back in Dublin, about friends I had. I hadn't forgotten to mention my parents' death, how unsure I felt about Hayden's reasons to move to the United States, or about my plans for the future. The story of my life wasn't nearly as exciting as hers, nonetheless, Alice proved to be a good listener.
We laughed very much over stories from the beginning of Cullen's family reunion. She told me about how hard it was for Edward to hang around Bella at first, and added that Edward was gifted with a pretty good self-control around humans, unlike Jasper. Once she had gotten to what happened last year to Bella, in the ballet studio in Phoenix, I remembered Angela's words. Alice described the incident with a glimpse of hatred in her eyes, especially when she had been talking about the psycho, hysterical, redheaded vampire, called Victoria. She asked me to pay attention and keep an eye on Bella too, since James' furious ex-whore might come back to Forks, in order to seek for revenge.

I lifted my eyebrow a bit, breathing in to talk: "Honey, wait up. The bitch doesn't have any idea about me, while Bella has seven - alright, six vampires, without Rosalie - standing behind her back, to protect her. Why the hell do ya think we might be in danger?"

Alice then gave me a strange look, which balanced on the edge of guiltiness. She would have looked away, if I hadn't tilted my head to the side suspiciously. "Is something going on?" I added, worried. Alice hadn't answered. "Come on, you know you can tell me." Nothing. "Hell, Alice, I have the right to know! There's no time for secrets, it's my ass that may be at the stake!"

"All right!" the vampire looked at me, apologetically, "We are leaving Forks tomorrow, since Edward thinks Bella will be safer without him. We all agreed to move to Alaska for a while."

"What?!" I gasped, not believing my own ears. "Y-you... you agreed? Why?! And how long will you be staying in there?"

"A couple of years, at least... The point is, that we cannot leave him to deal with it on his own. Edward loves Bella very much, although he's not ready to admit it to himself. He'll be devastated, while we are the only people he has," spoke Alice.

"That's the version he'll tell to Bella, I assume," I grimaced at her, loosing the grip on her hand. For some reason, her well-learned, refined choice of words felt like a stab in the back; especially now, after I had learned so much about her. "Is Jasper leaving as well?" The question of mine was just a rhetorical one, since I liked to think I knew Jasper enough to be aware of his insecurity, regarding myself.

"He is," Alice breathed out softly, "I'm so sorry, Gwyn."

The realization, that the man I was slowly becoming emotionally attached to, sent his wife to announce his departure, hurt even more than the fact that Hale had used me. It lead me to wonder about what the kiss meant to him - if it meant anything at all. Suddenly, a sharp needle of envy stung me. Edward gave at least some chance to his and Bella's relationship. It hadn't worked out well, but still, even the arrogant prat tried to do his best around her. Unlike Jasper, who had given up on "us" before we even became "us".
Perhaps, he wasn't the man I had been looking for. I had wanted to think he was, but, since he hadn't found a way to, at least, tell me goodbye in person...

I nodded once, in acknowledgement. Feeling under the weather - tired, betrayed, and most of all, disappointed - I looked away from Alice, then shifted away from her on the bed and pulled the blanket closer.
"Thank you for stopping by and letting me know, Alice. Have a safe journey to Alaska," I was surprised about how cold my voice sounded.

"You have to understand that-"

"I think I've understood perfectly," this time, it was me who interrupted her, "Now, if you will excuse me, it's two in the morning. I'd like to finally go to sleep."

"Please, Gwyn, don't end this up like that. We can always find a way to..." Alice stopped in the middle of a sentence. In that very moment, I rolled to my side, turning my back to her. I closed my eyes, in order to pretend I was trying to fall asleep.

"Good night, Mary Alice," that was the last thing I told her. Before she left for good, I heard her put something on my nightstand, yet, I hadn't gotten enough courage to look at what it was. She told me to be strong, with an undisguised sadness in her voice. And then, she was gone. Alice Cullen - the best friend of mine - left my life just like that. Before I managed to tell her how much she meant to me.

Fuck, I should really do something about my poor communication skills.