Catch and Release: Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Lunch on Monday was a tense affair, because none of the friends wanted to air their differences in front of an audience. After school, they met at Edward's house. His parents, Carlisle and Esme, would not interrupt them; everyone else's parents were out during the day, but Esme was home and always made them feel welcome. (Emmett loved that she also fed them well.)
Two by two, they arrived at the house, trailing inside to sit at the round table in Esme's kitchen: first Edward and Bella, then Rosalie and Emmett, and finally Jasper, with Alice bringing up the rear. There was a time when Alice would have preceded them all, leading the fight to keep everyone together. Now she lagged behind, feeling nervous and more than a little resentful.
"What the fuck, Alice?" said Edward even before he sat down, a tiny muscle in his jaw working like a caged animal. He'd been closer to Alice than the rest of them, having been pulled out of class along with her for years to attend lessons for gifted children. He'd noticed Alice's absence earlier than the others, but felt it as a betrayal, because of their shared experience. With Alice around, no one had teased him about being different.
Bella leaned over to nudge his shoulder with her own, giving him a look that made him relent. She turned to Alice with benediction in her eyes, and apologized for losing sight of what was important. Of all of them, Bella knew the most about loss, having been abandoned by her mother at a young age. Because of this, she blamed herself for being so caught up in Edward that she had failed to recognize Alice's loneliness. "I've missed you," she said.
Direct as always, Emmett looked at Alice closely, then asked the question at the top of his mind: "Are you back now?" As the eldest of the group, he felt it was his responsibility to keep them all together. Even as a child, he'd taken charge of them, threatening Edward when he made Rose cry and making Bella stay with the group instead of wandering off by herself. He'd panicked when he saw that he'd failed Alice so spectacularly, and wanted to ensure that she would never leave them again.
Looking bored, Rose picked at her nails, attending to the conversation only when Emmett moved to sweep Alice up into a hug. The odd sight they presented made Rose smile. "Welcome back," she said with a wink, bookending Emmett as always. She had long regarded Alice as a bit weak and silly, but after seeing how Alice had stood up to Jasper, Rose respected her more.
Jasper sat back, watching the others interact as he usually did, assessing the situation before saying anything. Part of him was surprised at how little discussion had actually taken place, but he supposed it was due to the depth of the friends' connection and the fact that they had known one another since before they could speak. Clearing his throat, he leaned over to take one of Alice's hands in his, waving their linked fingers at the others as he smiled at her. "We're together now."
"About damn time," said Emmett, pounding a fist on the table as if to pronounce the matter closed. Five of them laughed in agreement and relief.
But Alice wasn't quite ready for the matter to be finished. Though she knew it had hurt them to see her with other friends, she couldn't move on so quickly from her own feelings. It had taken them months to notice her absence in the first place. And before that, she had months of hurt of her own, watching as they left her behind. Though she had always been the most forgiving friend of all, she could not go back to the way things had been, back to the years when they had regarded her more as their mascot than their equal.
"I care for you all, but I'm mad at you, too," she said, bringing their small celebration to a crashing halt. She swallowed. "It hurts to be forgotten, and I can't go back to the way things were before this happened. You've always treated me as if I were a child, a pet-a pixie, even. If you can't think of me as an equal, tell me now. There are better things I can do with my time than stay here to amuse you."
The friends were just as surprised at this new side of Alice as Jasper had been two nights before. Edward sputtered for a moment, his fire going out when Alice merely raised her brows at him, folding in the face of her unspoken dare. Everyone else sat silent, shamefaced, until Emmett spoke, accepting her challenge. "It might take some time for us to get used to this new Alice," he said.
Her smile was as quick and lively as ever. "Don't worry, Emmett-I won't hurt you… much," she said. "All I ask is that you try."
Having dealt with the immediate threat, the friends spent the rest of their evening eating pizza and talking, just as they had always done. Though things were not yet entirely mended, they were well on their way to being so.
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On a cold, wet evening in November, the friends sat in Edward's family room, watching movies and planning their annual Christmas trip, which this year would be three days of skiing at Snoqualmie. The trip was over five hours long on a clear day, and they could ride the bus, but the friends had decided it would be more fun to stay at the lodge this time. Their parents had agreed, and Esme booked two rooms for them, knowing they would find a way around the boys-in-one-room, girls-in-another plan approved by the adults. The lodge was nice enough-the kids would be too busy to care about the décor-and its proximity to the resort would keep them from driving if they drank.
"Come and get it!" Emmett kept shouting, having seen the tagline on a video for Alpental, his favorite mountain at the resort. "Gonna smoke you all on Adrenaline this year."
Edward rolled his eyes, smirking at Bella, who teased Emmett for both of them. "This from the boy who cried St. Bernard," she said, naming the easiest run on the mountain.
"I'll bring the first-aid kit," laughed Rose, as Emmett lunged for Bella's ankle to drag her from the sofa. Edward held him off for a moment, then drove Emmett away permanently by pretending to kiss the tip of his nose. "Oh, Emmie-you're so big and strong," he cooed. Emmett couldn't get away fast enough. The alarm on his face was priceless.
Jasper sat with Alice tucked into his side, laughing at their friends, but mostly basking in the growing heat of what he felt for her. Alice's sterling qualities were many, but he'd been unprepared for the more passionate aspects of her nature she'd shown only to him. They were taking things slowly, wanting to rebuild their trust in one another, but her responsiveness made it difficult to wait.
He hoped the trip to Snoqualmie would give them a chance to consummate their relationship-the teenage boy in him could think of little else, but the lover in him wanted their first time to mean something. He wished he could ask his friends for help, but it would be too weird, and he knew Emmett would never stop making jokes about it. So he scoured the web for romantic tips and information about how to make a woman feel good, carefully planning the evening like the strategist he was by nature. He hadn't spoken to Alice about his plans yet, or he would have known that her thoughts were traveling on a parallel track.
The weeks passed quickly, occupied as the friends were by final exams and the usual hustle and bustle of the holidays. The eve of their trip arrived almost before they knew it, and Alice and Jasper found themselves suddenly nervous during their nightly phone call. Her parents were out of town again and the house was depressingly silent.
"Alice," he said, at the same time she said, "Jasper."
"Ladies first," he said, wanting to be gallant, but recognizing his own cowardice.
She cleared her throat. "Jasper, I don't really like skiing all that much."
His mind jumped right over the conclusion at hand, landing on alarm. "Do you want to stay home?"
"No-that's not it. I was just thinking that maybe we wouldn't have to spend all day on the slopes."
"There's not much else to do in Snoqualmie during the winter," he said. Her silence was the impetus he needed to bridge the gap between her words and her true meaning. The smile on his face was evident in his response. "But I'm sure we can find something to entertain ourselves with."
"It's important to stay warm. Hypothermia is very dangerous." She mentally cringed at her own inanity. Why couldn't she ever be cool, like Rose?
Jasper played along, enjoying the direction the conversation was taking. "It would be a shame to waste a hotel room during the day, too. What would you think about staying in?"
"Everyone else is going to want to ski," she pointed out helpfully.
Oh yes, he thought. Maybe she wanted this, too.
He decided to find out, once and for all. "Alice, do you want to-"
"Yes," she interrupted, not wanting to hear the words for fear of embarrassment.
"I do, too," he said. "I think we're ready. I love you, and I want to be with you."
Her heart soared at his romantic words, knowing he meant them. She couldn't stop the tears that came, unbidden. If the situation seemed unreal to Jasper, it was exponentially more so to Alice, who had at one time given up on it ever happening. "I love you, too. I just hope I can be enough."
"For me?" he asked. "Alice, you have to know you're my everything. There's no one else for me."
"My head hasn't caught up with my heart yet, I suppose. I keep thinking I'll wake up and this will have been a dream."
"Alice, you have nothing to worry about. This is real, and it's just going to keep getting better."
She sighed. "I'm nervous, Jas. I've never done it before. What if I'm not any good?"
His laugh was soft and full of tenderness. "You know it's my first time, too. If we're bad at it, we'll just be bad together."
She was silent for a moment. "I wish you were here now," she said. "I don't want to wait for the trip."
Jasper had always been sensible, so she expected him to refuse, but the teenage boy in him was down the stairs and out the door with his phone, keys in hand, before rational thought kicked in. When it did, he overrode it-firmly.
"Alice," he said over the noise of his revving engine, "I'm on my way."
Chapter Four
Chapter Two