113Day 10: Part 12
The Decision
It was dark when I awoke.
I stayed very still for a long moment, trying to get my bearings.
Jasper. Crying in the kitchen. Edward's porch, freezing snow, nakedness.
"Bella?"
I tried not to stir, wondering if I could pretend like I was still asleep. If it had been Alice's voice, I would have tried. But it was Edward's and that realization and the surge of undiluted joy that came after it, made me slowly turn over. He was sitting in a white wicker chair across the room with his legs spread out and his corresponding elbows on each knee. He had a hazard look to him.
"Edward?"
He jumped up from the chair quickly but then stood awkwardly next to it.
I cleared my throat. "It's okay," I said.
He walked quickly across the room and knelt beside the bed.
"Oh, La Bella," he whispered, pressing his cheek to my forehead. We were still for a moment before he pulled away and looked down at me. "What happened?"
I told him my story.
About the last five days when I didn't see him, about the dungeon, about Tanya's disappearance, about my startling lack of panic attacks, and, ultimately, about the change in Jasper. He let me speak, listening intently, though his eyes moved slow circles around the room, never resting on me for more than a couple of seconds. Perhaps he was letting me concentrate, perhaps the story was too much for him, perhaps what I said filled him with such . . . disgust, that looking at me was like looking at a fire that was slowly burning all the possessions he had spent his life coveting.
When I finished, though, he raised himself from the ground and sat on the bed, letting one of his legs dangle over the edge and tucking the other under him. He gripped my shin and rubbed it for a moment, staring at his hand as it made a soft path up from my knee and down to my ankle.
"May I?" he asked, gesturing towards the other side of the bed.
I smiled. "Sure."
He climbed up the bed and rested himself next to me. I turned over to let him cradle my back. To my surprise, he didn't remove the covers, only lied down and tucked the comforter securely around me. I had that same warm, whooshing cocoon feeling I often got around him.
He pressed his face against the back of my head. I felt his hot breath on my neck and shuddered. But it was a good shudder, like getting goose bumps in a hot shower after having spent all day in the snow.
"We could have been so good," he whispered.
I tried to turn around, to give him an incredulous look, but he tightened his arm around me.
"What?" I said, feeling panicked. "What do you mean?"
"Just rest a minute," he said.
So, I rested. And thought.
I had been fighting it for a while; trying to merge the two separate, unequal sides of Jasper. The one I knew, the one that caused me to keep returning back to him from the safety of Edward's. The one that promised to fix me. But there, in the kitchen, on his knees and crying, was his other side. The side that was so much like Edward, but promised so much less, that would clearly take care of me, but would be no real use to me aside from cooperate commitment. If I wanted that, if I was searching for a mate, it would not be Jasper. It would be Edward. Because despite Edward's reluctance to accept me as a permanent figure in his life, he loved me. And I loved him.
But I did love Jasper. It was a different type of love, an incorrigible, dangerous, destructive love. It was a malicious love that bred cynicism and hate. It was passionate but volatile. Beautiful, but tainted by self-loathing. And in it, everything about me was reflected. I was destructive, self-loathing, and cynical. These were not traits I despised in myself, only traits that other people despised. Despite whatever had happened to turn me into this . . . this person that I was, those definable characteristics were as true to me as the color of my hair or the weirdly shaped mole I had behind my left shoulder. And not only was I okay with them, but they were what Jasper loved about me. And things, only a day ago, that Edward had berated me for.
"Yes," I said. "We could have been."
He pressed his lips to my neck. "Let us have a few more moments to ourselves," he said softly.
I didn't argue with him. Instead, I cried. My sobs were silent, by my body shook and rocked against his. He pulled me tighter to him, maybe trying to stave off the shuddering, maybe trying to comfort me, but I couldn't stop. I tried to concentrate on the back of my neck, trying to feel that weird, electric pulse that had always tied me to Edward. But I only felt his lips. And when he pulled away and his lips were gone, I felt nothing else. I eased one of my hands out from under the cocoon of blankets and pressed my fingertips delicately to my neck. There was nothing there.
"It hurts," I whispered.
He swallowed and I felt him nod. "Yes. It does."
"Then why is this right? Why is this the right thing to do?"
Edward sighed. "Because you're a sub. And I'm not a Dom." He paused. "And I'm a far cry from Jasper."
I nodded slowly because, of course, he was right.
Edward sighed. "And if you ever decide that he's not what you need. Not what you want. I . . . I'll be here. I won't wait for you. But I'll be here. And Alice, she'll forgive you in time. I think she already has. I love you, Bella. I love you."
After an indefinite amount of time, Edward got up from the bed. I watched him move around it to stand before me. He just stared at me, for a long time, with an inscrutable expression.
"I already called Jasper," he said after a moment. His voice broke on Jasper's name and I watched his throat tighten with the effort of swallowing. "He should be here soon."
"Thank you." My words were more of a sob than a statement.
He bent down next to me and placed a delicate kiss on my forehead. "La Bella."
When he left his bedroom, I felt like all the wind had been knocked out of me. But as quickly as it left, I regained my breath and with a determined sort of bravado, I threw the covers off and began walking towards the door. But when I passed the bathroom, I stopped. I vacillated for a moment, trying to decide whether I should look. Whether I had a right to. But the pull was too strong and before I could rationalize my way out of it, I walked into his bathroom and flipped on the light.
It looked the same. The sandy tiles and the brown door that hid the toilet. The random, unlabeled bottles of whatever lined the edges of the tub and the huge glass shower with its ridiculous little bench inside. It was so familiar, that I almost took a step towards the tub, planning to sit inside it.
"Bella."
I turned towards the door.
Jasper was leaning against the frame, one of his palms gripping it and the other falling limply at his side, his fingers running over themselves.
And then, I realized what it was that had bothered me so much about him.
He had, for as long as I'd known him, been unreachable, unobtainable. And it made me crave his attention. But now, standing before me with a wary smile and guarded eyes, I realized he was no different. I was.
Jasper was no longer in the realm of immortals. He was only a man.
A large smile broke over my face. But still, I couldn't move my feet towards him. Wasn't quite ready to leave the bathroom. When I made no motion to come any closer to him, he began looking around the bathroom, perhaps wondering what I'd been doing in here. While he was still looking, a burst of euphoria spread across my body and I ran to him.
And as I crashed into him and as held me, and even as I sobbed and he whispered soothing nothingness into my ear, and even as I breathed in his sweet, odd scent, and despite the countless hours spent inside Edward's house and in his warm bathroom, I sighed in contentment.
Because I had never felt safer and more complete-
My mind stuttered over the words. No, not safer, not more complete.
I pressed my face into Jasper's chest.
I deserved Jasper. That I deserved the snarky comments and sarcastic jibs and the flippant, dismissive way he handled his surroundings. Perhaps, maybe, I might eventually deserve otherwise.
And so, in that moment, surrounded by nothing but Jasper "Not Cullen" Whitlock, I did finally feel complete.
THE END.
A/N: I wrote this over the course of a few years in my early 20s and after a seven-year hiatus, finally have it completely published in my early 30s. I am so humbled anyone has bothered to read this, and in awe that people still do. So, thank you so much. Sincerely.