Discliamer: I do not own Twilight

Summary: A short sequel to Let your Dim Light Shine.

Inspiration: "Alone in this Bed" by Framing Hanley

Thank yous: To anyone who has ever asked for more :)

"The Lovers Card"

Time stopped as I caught my breath. Through a mouthful of sobs, an ocean of choked back tears, and a landmine of emotions I tried my best to cope with my empty glass world.

She was gone. Forever erased from the canvas of traffic around me. Never to appear again until I closed my eyes and thought of her of face, her skin, her eyes, taste, lashes, legs. Happily ever after just wasn't in our cards.

Our life was too perfect. We had each other and the forces of nature became unbalanced. Her; a free spirit… me; a boy who played by the rules. I should have seen it coming. A gypsy prediction with a heartache surprise. But, I was blind to the world around me. Like a stubborn toddler who refused to see why the wooden block wouldn't fit through the cracked triangle-shaped hole.

The air around me doesn't taste right. The words I hear in the streets sound as foreign as China Town. The laughter on the subway is enough to make me want to ask for forgiveness.

Will the hurt ever go away? Will it evaporate into the pregnant clouds above?

I put my angel-shine deep into the ground, covered her with a blanket of soil, and reacquainted myself with Mr. Daniels… first name Jack … until I my pores were distilled. Where is my path of bread crumbs? I'm ready to make the wrong turn into the land of what might have been, what could have happened, what should have been the way.

"Alice," I softly spoke to her pillow.

"Where are ya, Doll?"

No answer.

Jasper, get ahold of yourself, man. What were you expecting? For her silvery ghost to rise from the earth and plant your lips with tulip stained caresses?

That's exactly what I was hoping for. I won't lie.

The white cotton still held her scent. Excitement, passion, energy, grace. It was all there. I feared that every time I cradled the softness to my chest, pressed it against my face, it would smell more like a lost memory and less like an afternoon out.

I swear I could taste her on the tip of my tongue if I inhaled deeper and deeper. Enough to make the room flicker but not enough to paint it black. The apartment didn't feel alone if I had her on my mind.

Teardrops sprinkled slowly out of the tight creases of my eyes. I couldn't hold them back much longer. My life, my love, my desire all faded the moment they shut her lacquered lid. Caging a beautiful butterfly to an eternity of darkness? How do they expect such a beautiful creature to fly with her wings pinned back?

Memories flood me like an unannounced tidal wave crashing down on an unbroken beach. The last time I held her, she was so warm, tiny, indescribable. Delicate lips flavored with chaotic splendor. The moonlight playing on her skin like tiny dancers performing on a grand stage. A parade of silk sheets covering us in cocooned lover's arms. I was at peace with my life. I could have stayed like that forever. With my love, my life, my doll. With the wife I never got to kiss.

She would have made a beautiful mother. I've had dreams of what our unborn children would have looked like. Tall girls and short boys. A mixture of caramel honey dipped in chocolate lava cakes. Spike and spunk with crystal ball earrings and unrestrained chain-link belts. A forecast of unlost baby teeth all kept in a little pink jar for luck.

Those dreams get harder and harder to think of with each passing afternoon sky.

"Doll, you made me promise you forever." My eyes burn and my fingers ache. My unplayed acoustic sits collecting dust in the bedroom chair where we made love till the sun rose. A Lovers tarot card is settled between the strings.

She must have put that there. She was always leaving me little surprises to stumble upon.

Slowly, I remove the card. With a shaky hand I hold it to my chest letting it hear the symphony of my heartbeat before I slide it into my upper pocket.

The strings are as cold as forgotten steel.

I pluck. A tune that was only for her. A gentle picture taken not so long ago.

If I could just touch her once more. Feel her sunbathed breath on the back of my neck. Shiver when she called my name in the night's embrace.

A string snaps and I'm left with a crimson line across my thumb.

It tastes like a metallic sunset as I slip it into my mouth, squeezing my eyelids together, remembering her face. Reaching for the card left behind I let out a fragmented sigh.

"Doll, you know it was too soon. Just one more hour, minute, 10 short seconds. I'd give anything to hear you say my name."

The life from my hand stains an eternal fingerprint on the paper, clothing the naked body of the woman in the picture in red clothes.

My vision blurs with saltwater tears. Burning their way down my sunken cheeks, my stubbled chin until…

"Jasper." My neck is bathed in breath and the hairs on the back of neck twitch. "Don't move".

"Doll?"