Flesh Memories – Chapter 1

'The Past Can Be a Terrible Thing'

Jasper POV

Here I was, back to the place where it had all started. No matter how much I tried, Dallas was always a part of me, a part of my history, and a part of my heart. Now no-one had said that the part of my heart was a happy part. Even whilst I sat in this new apartment, with its white walls and few pieces of furniture, I felt like it was still my fault. My fault that I hadn't been good enough, that I'd deserved it all.

Back when we were kids, Rosalie and I, our parents were kind. Back when we were kids, life was good. Back when we were kids, I was happy. Not purged with this hatred, and a slave to my memories, like I found myself now.

Rosalie had always been the star of the show, the apple of my parents eye, the brightest jewel of their crowns, and though I have always been her twin, since that little sperm met the egg, who was I in their eyes? No-one. A shame to the name, a blot of unruly ink on their papers, a drop in their stock markets.

You see, my parents had always been very prim and proper, always wanting the best and not wanting anything below it, and that's where I fell short. Mother was a very firm yet friendly woman, who held herself well and was noted for being a respected lady in Dallas. She was tall for a lady, matching Father's height when she wore high heels to any of their dinner dances or champagne parties. Her hair was always neatly pulled into a twirled bun at the back of her head, held with grips and the most nose-stinging hairspray known to man. She was beautiful, and I was so very proud to be her son. In turn, my Father was a very stern man, brought up to always attend to his duties as the Man of the House and settle concerns to do with money. He had a hard face, with defined lines and there was never a sight of stubble on him, for to him stubble was a sign of tardiness and trace of cleanliness. Every boy should be proud of their Father, and look up to him, but I never felt that type of emotion towards him – it was void.

In school, I definitely wasn't the brightest kid, and though I wasn't dumb it just wasn't good enough for them. Funnily enough, Rosalie got the real brains. As for who was the best looking twin, that certainly wasn't I. Most of the time, people thought that Rosalie was years older than her digits, and that I wasn't even her twin! With my straggly locks and long, thin built frame I was never up to their standards, no matter how hard I tried.

Soon, my parents had given up on me completely, and so my Father, being the man he was, resorted to the one thing he knew would never heal. Day after day he would express his disgust at me, naming my fails and giving extensive detail as to why he wished that I had never been born, and that Rosalie was their only child.

Of course this method proved to work best. My self-esteem hit rock bottom, along with my grades, and people only ever seemed to notice me when it came to Rosalie, gossip, or the teachers concern at my grades. That's when I grew angry. Why did they treat me so, not knowing a thing about me?! They didn't know how life at home was, not even Rosalie or Mother did, for he was most careful about them not hearing his jeers at me, or seeing the snide looks he would throw my way. In this respect, I was alone.

One day, he went too far. I remember that day clearer than the rest, as a deadly yet somehow happy memory. It was the day my life was changed forever.

--------Flashback--------

It was quite late at night and I had been sitting in the kitchen, reading a book on the Confederate Army. At the time I was only 12, yet my passion for the Army was unprecedented. I heard the key rattle in the lock of the front door and instantly tensed. The rattling went on for a while, and I wondered what was taking him so long. Finally managing to unlock the door, he stumbled in, banging the door against the wall. Oh how I had hoped someone had woken from it and came to investigate. My prayer was never answered. I thought about lurking past him and darting up the stairs, but before I could un-freeze my muscles he staggered into the pristine kitchen. With bloodshot eyes he found me, his atmosphere reeking of alcohol and cigars, which were unusual for my Father, he was never a fan of such things, to my recollection.

"Here it is, my good for nothing Son!" he grumbled, his Texan accent stronger than ever. Leering towards me, he grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me out of the chair.

"Wh-what are you d-doing?" I stuttered, having never been this scared in my lifetime.

"I'm just playing with my boy, can't a Father do that anymore, eh?!" his tone demanded an answer, one which I didn't comply to. He shook me fiercely, waiting impatiently for that answer. My brain decided this wasn't the time to act smart, whilst my heart had decided otherwise. I spat in his face.

"No man like you even deserves children, I have no Father!" I yelled at his shocked face. For a moment it was blank, and then it abruptly changed into a snarl as he threw me against the tiled wall. It smashed and shards of porcelain rained onto my body. Volcanoes of red erupted from my skin, and my vision flickered.
"You dare say that to me, boy? I made you. You are me. Does that make you happy?" he asked; his voice full of malice and a sick, twisted humor.

"No. It disgraces me, to be related to such a bastard like you, it makes me feel physically sick…" my sentence was cut short from the punch to the gut I received. With blackened vision I heard him get up, I hoped against hope he was done and I could feel partially safe. How wrong I was. His liqueur-filled breath was clouding my face as he laughed at my winces of his weight on my wounds. I heard him laugh once more before I felt the most immeasurable pain on this Earth. Feeling this, I did the one thing possible. Screaming as loud as I could, I was shocked to hear the blood-curdling plea that my larynx could produce. It was full of horror, pain, and most of all, sadness.

Footsteps thundered on the stairs, and my Father laughed once more, heaving himself off my body. I felt myself slipping into the darkness, and the last thing I hear was Mother's cry of shock.

And yet. How could this pain remain? Lying on the kitchen floor, draped with porcelain and drowning in this fire all I could think was three words.

This is hell.

--------End Flashback--------

Opening my eyes I tried to relax my hands that were now clenching onto the arms of the chair. My cheeks felt wet, and I realized that from re-living this memory tears had actually fallen from my eyes. The memories were that vivid, the pain seemed that real.

--------Flashback--------

The day after that fateful night I had awoke in hospital. There were tubes attached in my skin and clips on my fingers. Next to me I heard the steady beeping of my heart from the machine. My eyes then fell onto Mother, who's usually neat hair was falling out of its bun, creating waves of chestnut to surround her heart-shaped face. Beneath her eyes were puffy pillows of red, sickly complimenting her bloodshot eyes and tear stained face.

"I'm so-" her voice was hoarse and crackly, so she cleared her throat and returned to speaking.

"I'm so sorry. Why didn't I see this Jasper? Why didn't I stop that menace?! I feel so terrible…" she broke into sobs, as it looked like the state she had been most of the night. Seeing her like this, it tore me apart, and so I reached over to her and placed my hand over hers. Her breath hitched.

"Mother, I don't blame you for what he did. Please, don't trouble yourself any longer with these thoughts. How much has he told you, where is he?" my voice was steadier than I thought it may have come out.

"Everything. He told me everything. The police know as well, and he has been put in a temporary prison for the moment. Knowing what he did to you, I can't believe I ever married him. I was stupid." She looked at me, tears still resident in her crystal blue eyes. I had her eyes, and I loved that fact. Actually, it was the one thing of me that I didn't resent. Forcing a smile, I squeezed her hand. I forgave her, yet she wouldn't accept it. I knew it may haunt her forever, knowing that she had let her only son live like this for years. I didn't want her to be unhappy. Staring her straight in the eye I tried to show her that I loved her, that none of this was her fault, and to me she was one of the two things in this world that I cared for most dearly. All this I conveyed with my eyes only. The glitter in her pair seemed to acknowledge this silent bond.

Rosalie may have been a nuisance sometime, and some could think that it was because of her greatness that I had ended in this situation, but I couldn't think of her like that. The only person I blamed was that bastard and him only. It was then that I realized that I didn't actually know what had happened to me. All I could think of was the torture that I felt from it after.

"What did he do to me? My vision had gone black as pitch and the pain is all my entire mind remembers." I watched as Mother flinched, guessing correctly that she would rather not share the details. Her eyes darted to my left thigh and I slowly adjusted my view to it as well. There was a lot of padding on it, and it seared with pain as if fire were being pored onto it if I shifted it. My eyes clenched shut at the fire. However, that was all that I could diagnose. Other than that, I was still clueless.

"Your Father he," Snapping open my eyes I glared at her; it was a deadly glare that could kill on its own.

"I have no Father." My tone was stone cold, quite an oxymoron to the fiery emotions behind the sentence. Yes, I had no Father, but I knew a man who I would rather never see again, or only see him one last time. That would be the time he died. Hesitating, Mother corrected her wording.

"Well when you were lying on the floor, he was on top of you with one of the kitchen knives, a bread knife, and he hacked at your leg around three times before stopping, that was when I ran in. It was horrifying. The doctors say he may have ripped a muscle in your thigh, but it won't cause severe damage." I snorted, and she stopped talking.

Like he hasn't already caused severe damage to me, without needing the stupid bread knife, I thought, which was what caused the snort.

"Where is Rosalie?" I asked aloud, wondering the whereabouts of my twin.

"I dropped her off at Aunt Emilie's, I didn't want her to worry." I was shocked.

"She didn't hear my scream?!" That was impossible. I was surprised the whole street didn't hear it.

"Of course she did, but I decided against telling her the meaning of it and locked the door to her room from the outside. She knows nothing of this."

--------End Flashback--------

To this day my twin sister still did not know the affairs of that night. It pained me for her to not know, but to let her feel this pain would be torture to my body all over again. I know that she hates being clueless as to what happened, but I think that somehow she understands that I prefer her not to know, and so doesn't press the matter. Even so, I hope that one day I will be strong enough to tell her everything.

Whilst I had stayed in hospital social services had got wind of me, and so proceeded to pass laws that said my parents were unfit to take care of me. They were so wrong, yet so right, to take me away. Mother was the best thing for me, that man, however, was not. It broke Mother's heart when they took me away from her, and I felt like a piece of me remained with her. I was never whole after that.

Soon the documents were in order and I was to stay with a family in Washington for a while, see if I liked it and decide whether or not to stay there. It turned out that I quite liked the family, and so yes, my mind saw it fit to stay with them. A few months into my new life I got a letter from the Dallas Courts. They wanted me to testify against the man that had ruined my life. They wanted me to help them prove he was guilty. I was more than happy to do this.

Two weeks later saw me standing in the courtroom, my eyes boring into his steely grey ones, my mouth poring out the story of the emotional abuse I had suffered, and in the end the physical abuse that had wreaked havoc on my body.

The Judge could not deny the anger in my voice, the truth of my words, the fire in my eyes. When I described the pain from the bread knife, half the Jury winced, the other half too frozen in sick shock to move as much. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, which in my eyes was not nearly enough. From being with him, I was scarred for life, and all he had to life through was 25 years in a stone box. I hoped he had terribly vicious inmates, who had sons of their own and missed them desperately and had heard of his cruelty, for they would express their anger in ways which I could not. All I could do was throw a mirror image of his malicious smile back at him as the burly guards shoved him by his shoulders back into the cells, where he would reside for the next 25 years of his life.

Maybe he would even die in them, one could only hope.

I, on the other hand, had a much happier childhood now I was free of that monster. For the next 6 years I could be a new person, with a fresh leaf and another chance. In this life I made friends, was a smarter person and a better person. I created new memories for myself, though could never forget the nightmares I frequently had of his face, his laugh, and most of all, his breath.

Discarding the Whitlock name, over the next 6 years I became Jasper Cullen.