Hehehehe... hey guys :3 long time no see.. I know, I'm a monster, but hopefully I can actually keep updating cuz I really forgot how much I love writing this story! But, on a side note, I really wanna thank Deltagirl74 for bringing me back into the game, YOU ARE MY HERO! 3

~Selene

There are some things the mind just can't handle, I realize that now.

It was there in the back of my mind, lingering there in the darkness. There was something broken, snapped, dead just behind the veil of shadows. I was too frightened to look upon it for too long, I did not want to see too much of it in case it had a face...Jasper's face.

I rolled over sourly, my body ached from a pain that wasn't entirely physical. I curled deeper into myself under the sheets of my bed and moaned hoarsely into my knees. My breaths were rough, sharp rasps and were quickly followed by a sudden bout of sniffles, then of course the weeping.

I've cried hard before but this was crippling – I could hardly catch my breath enough, could hardly close my eyes tight enough.

"Alice." Edward said softly for the millionth time. I was going to have my locks changed immediately, even if it meant that I would have to do it myself. I wanted no outsiders here, I didn't have the energy to fend them off anymore and Edward was beginning to figure that out.

"Please." He breathed and I flinched when the weight of another body fell down onto my bed. Edward pressed his hand down onto my side through the duvet. "You have to come out...it's been-" He hesitated, I could actually hear the hitch in his throat "-it's been nearly a week since...Jackson's starting to ask questions. He wants to see you, he wants to come home. It's not right to keep him cooped up with Carlisle and Esme, we can't keep lying to him."

I exhaled dryly, struggling to gather up the strength to breathe in again. My chest hurts. Slowly I brought my hand to my heart, gripping a fistful of my t-shirt. When last had I changed clothes?

Edward growled under his breath. He was reaching his limit, if I pushed him a little harder he would leave, and I could go back to...to...

"You're being a terrible parent." Edward had an edge to his voice that was too jagged, it was too obvious that he was forcing the words. Still I whimpered into my legs. "I know you're hurting," He sighed. "I know how you feel, you know I do. I've been here Alice, it's a very dark and dangerous place but...you won't let anyone pull you out. Please, Alice. Let me help?"

I held my breath, well, not really...I simply wasn't breathing. I didn't have any desire to. I closed my eyes, turned my face deep into the mattress and lay there silently.

A minute, perhaps an hour passed before Edward sighed in defeat. The bed shook as he rose to his feet again. "Clean up, I'm bringing Jackson and Pico home tomorrow. Bella will come by later tonight." He said exasperatedly before I heard his elegant footfalls departing my bedroom.

In the back of my mind, I sensed something stirring amongst the shadows. Fear descended upon me in thick, smothering waves.

As if it were that day again, I could see Jasper: his back to me for a moment as he saluted to a large, hard looking man decorated in a series of colourful medals and pins. He turned and introduced Jackson and I, though we barely managed to sputter a semblance of a greeting.

He looked us over with his hard face before he said sternly, "A minute" and strode off with firm, deliberate strides.

Jasper reeled on the heel of his freshly shined shoes, dropping the enormous beige and grey bag he had previously slung over his shoulders. His blond tresses whipped back from the force of his movements. Jasper's hand – rough, meaty, strong hand – knotted so tightly in my hair it hurt, but that was not nearly as painful as the searing kiss he crushed down onto my lips. He nearly pulled me off of my toes by my hair in his desperation, the pain promised that these last months had been real.

I could taste salt on our tongues, I wasn't sure if it was my tears or his.

"You're killing me." I choked, trying to hold onto his uniform coat, my palms were covered in sweat.

Jasper's voice cracked deep in his throat before the words had even risen to his lips. He held our faces together. "Don't." He pleaded.

I felt the warmth of his hand leaving my skin, I felt his being moving away from mine. I was sobbing.

Jasper's face was a ruin, there was so much anguish toiling in his eyes, so much unspoken torment on his trembling lips. Briefly, too briefly he tousled Jackson's hair. "I'll be back kiddo." He struggled to speak, he avoided Jackson's eyes.

Jackson scurried forward just a second too late, his arm outstretched, fingers closing on the air.

Jasper raced himself backward and nearly took a tumble over his bag. As he slung the hefty sack back over his shoulder, I could the horrified glimmer of his blue eyes beneath the mess of his curls. "I love you," He mouthed.

And he was gone.

I rolled entirely over in my bed, onto my elbows and knees and screamed at the top of my lungs into the mattress until there was a popping in my ears.

When next I awoke it was not to Isabella Swan but Rosalie Hale.

"I am real sick of your shit, Mary-Alice Cullen." She snarled, red-painted lips curling furiously. She had ripped the duvet clear off of my bed and left it mangled on my bedroom floor.

In the doorway Bella blubbered. "Give her some time Rosalie, we shouldn't rush her!" Upon receiving Rose's glare however, Bella silenced herself.

Rose turned back to me a frowned fiercely. There wasn't the slightest hint of sympathy in her gaze, though I shouldn't have expected there to be. Her hair was pulled back over her shoulders, hanging in tousled waves down to her lower back. Somehow even the golden tresses seemed to be irritated with me.

I didn't have any fight in me when she pulled me up and into a sitting position. My body was unsurprisingly stiff and sore but seemingly remained limp in her grasp. Rosalie scoffed and commented on my scent under her breath but I didn't notice.

That blonde hair.

Those blue eyes.

A single solid hiccup leapt to my lips and I became instantly aware of the mind-numbing anguish again. Then again, I guess it never left.

"Maybe next time you'll listen to me." Rosalie hissed. I was vaguely aware of her slender fingers combing the knots of hair from my face, wiping the tears from my cheeks. "You look sickly." Her voice was made of unfeeling stone.

Inhaling sharply I wrapped my arms around my torso. My chest felt weak as if it were having a hard time holding itself up – holding me up. "Just...leave me alone." I managed to say. Hearing my own voice, the bitter dryness and unfamiliarity of it was frightening. There was no music to it, no life or beauty.

Rosalie was a force to be reckoned with. Before I knew it she was shouting something. A larger figure entered the room reluctantly and sighed before heeding her call. Emmett kneeled and scooped me over his shoulder gently, his thick arms held me in place. The contact was too warm, too human. In the shadows of my mind I thought of Jasper, of his rough hands slinging me over his shoulder playfully.

I clenched my teeth, beginning to press my knees into Emmett's chest and gouge my elbows into the muscle of his back. Instinctively my body attempted to ball itself up protectively; I made an honest effort to muffle my cries for my brother's sake.

Emmett paused in the doorway of my bathroom. "Rose she can't do this yet, Bella's right." My brother's voice was resolute, if I ignored the pain shaking through my body I could feel the way Emmett stiffened.

What was it that I had to do? Why did I have to do anything?

"Please just leave!" I begged raggedly, searching for my voice, for some semblance of myself in the darkness. Emmett gradually lowered me to my feet, his heavy palms on my shoulders. I looked him in the eye and tried to ignore the horror that lingered within the topaz shades of his irises. He opened his mouth then closed it again, pressing his lips together in concern.

"Can you at least shower Alice?" Emmett whispered, forcing himself to grin and hide the anxiety that would have certainly come through his words otherwise.

I nodded once, hoping that perhaps in doing this they would leave me be. However once Bella got the water running and Rose laid out a fresh pair of clothes and I stood alone in my bathroom I merely crouched down on the floor.

The bathroom terrified me. I had stood beneath the spray of the showerhead interlocked with Jasper not an hour before we departed for the...I breathed in deeply, shaking the memory from my mind. I bit into my bottom lip to keep myself from making too much noise, Rosalie would most definitely check on me if she suspected I was not doing as told.

So I silently cupped my face in my trembling hands and struggled to keep the sobbing beneath the sound of the running water. I rocked absently in my corner of the bathroom, shifting my weight between the balls of my feet as the steam began to cling to the walls around me.

Come on Alice! I told myself, knowing I had no intention of getting up any time soon. Whether it was the realization that I actually smelt of death, or the yearning of the masochist in me could no longer be neglected, I disrobed and crawled into the shower.

The water fell brusquely on my skin, it seemed to take a moment before my brain registered the scalding temperature. I held my head back and shuddered as it poured over my face and through my hair.

There was movement in the shadows again. I held my breath, the feel of Jasper's coarse palms on my wet skin was too fresh. My fingers wrapped around the knob in the shower wall and I cranked it as far into the red as it would go.

There are some things the mind just can't handle...

An hour later I was dressed in a snug pair of black yoga pants, socks and an olive green t-shirt. I'd forgotten how it felt to even have undergarments on.

Bella sat across the table from me. She would smile when I looked at her but anyone could read Bella like a book, the panic she was trying so desperately to hide was horribly obvious. Occasionally she would wipe at her eyes and laugh haphazardly as if she didn't understand why she was crying.

Rosalie had left the room and was standing in the foyer in an attempt to keep from yelling at me. Part of me remembered that she wasn't heartless she simply struggled with seeing weakness. She was angry with me because she loved me. The rest of me just didn't care at all.

"She's lost weight, and in such a short amount of time – it's almost inhuman." Edward snarled quietly to Emmett somewhere behind me, thinking that I would be unable to hear their conversation.

Why were there so many people in my apartment? Why weren't they leaving?

I had eaten the cheese and peppers omelet Bella had made me, I'd even eaten two pieces of toast and drank an entire cup of coffee. None of this had remained in my stomach for more than ten minutes of course. Certainly it was the effort that counted though.

I wanted to be alone, I wanted to go back to my bed and wait. Jackson couldn't see me like this, he was safer with everyone else. He was safer away from me. I swallowed thickly, I never thought that it would come to this.

"I just need some time." I said to Bella, even in this state I was sure that I could persuade her. Bella is incredibly intuitive but with the right sway one could sweep her off on a whisk of false hope. She more than anyone here could understand my predicament, I didn't think it would take much to send her off.

Bella hesitated before she nodded and brushed her long hair back behind her ears. "It's been nearly a week," Bella whispered mostly to herself. Her big, brown eyes flickered away from me and over my shoulder. "You have to at least see Jackson."

I exhaled shakily. Couldn't they see? Couldn't they see that I was barely managing to hold on already? I couldn't face Jackson yet, I couldn't imagine looking into those enormous emerald eyes and explain myself. You have to convince them, I thought, 'fake it till you make it' as Elise would say. I didn't have the strength to put up another facade! Jasper had left me more crippled than Tristan and unlike the latter I did not fear that he would return, but that he wouldn't.

Merely the thought made my stomach heave and I lurched up from my chair to stagger off to the bathroom for the fifth time today.

As I wiped my mouth and dared a peek in the mirror I realized that if Jackson saw me this way he might not even want to come near me ever again. Briefly I mused that that would be the smartest thing he could do. However as I heard Bella's soft knuckles snap timidly on the bathroom door I decided that I would have to scare all of them, I would have to horrify them so that they would leave me.

My back cracked as I straightened and lifted my chin, pushing the black snarls of my hair away from my face. There were bags under my eyes that I had never seen before in my life. Angry purple, exhausted bags beneath and red rims around my bloodshot eyes. I hadn't been sleeping but I was not tired. Edward was right – my face appeared gaunt and as my hands roamed my body the understanding that I was skeletal beneath my clothes set in.

I was pale, not the glamorous porcelain-doll pale I had been, but rather an ailing, transparent white that sickened me. My hair had not lost its vivaciousness and disarrayed around my face in spirited knots. It was so much darker than I remembered and more wild than I had ever thought possible. I looked as though I was a newly admitted asylum patient. Good God Alice, I thought and turned my face from the mirror.

This would require my very best acting skills.

Bella was startled when I whipped open the bathroom door. "What'd you put in those omelets Bells? Are you trying to kill me or get me better?" My voice was a birdsong and never missed a beat. Bella's eyes widened as though they were about to burst before she gave me a toothy grin and threw her arms around me.

I grimaced as she promptly leapt back, hands over her mouth and eyes darkened with disgust. She had really felt me, she had felt my bones.

"It'll be alright." I promised and winked at her, "Nothing a few cheese burgers won't fix!"

Twirling on my toes I pranced to the kitchen and placed a hand on Emmett and Edward's shoulders. Emmett simply gawked, Edward on the other hand looked severely irate rather than in awe of my performance. He would make this difficult.

"Listen, Rosalie is right." I sucked in an audible breath and pretended my chest was not screaming in protest. "I have to get out-" I peered around them to check the time "-I'll go get Jackson from school and pick up Pico from Mom and Dad's. I expect you all to have vacated when I get back, or I'll have the locks changed!" I even threw in a chirpy giggle at the end.

Edward frowned and began to object when Emmett elbowed him hard enough that he fell back a step. "Sure thing pipsqueak, give us a call when you're home though." Emmett was speaking to me but glowering blackly at Edward.

The darkness in my mind was thoroughly pleased as I pulled on my coat and leather Prada thigh-highs. My family would be gone, I could return to my bed and my waiting.

"You won't get off so easily." Rosalie snapped at me once I was out in the hallway, making my way to the elevator. "I see you Alice." She spat her words but I refused to listen, I refused to look into those eyes of hers, I refused to look too closely at the blonde of her hair.

Luckily I managed to slither into the elevator without having to respond. The thick doors closed with a metallic clink and I immediately lowered myself to the floor of the moving box. My breaths came in curt coughs comingled with dribbling tears.

At last the doors parted and I hardly had the power to lift myself up to my feet again. Drew was at the front desk, he waved and smiled at me...he must have heard.

I raced frantically to my car and slammed the door once I was safely inside. Soon the kicking and shrieking consumed me yet again until my fists throbbed from punching my steering wheel. I wept without restraint and roared and wrung my hands in the air. There was a wicked jolt from the shadow in the back of my mind and I jerked back against my seat.

"Careful there!" For a moment I heard a thick Southern accent, felt the reassuring grasp of calloused farmer's hands on my sides.

My heart raced as I was hoisted easily onto my feet. I reeled the minute my balance returned and had to fight every fibre of my being to keep from lunging onto the person behind me.

Disappointment and anguish overtook me quickly however once I realized this man was certainly not Jasper.

His hair was a messy auburn quaff which shot out in every direction it pleased and hung over his eyes in longish strands. His eyes were a pale grey like smooth beach stones and were adorned with wonderfully long lashes. His features were youthful and energetic: a straight nose and a full-lipped quirky mouth that, even now, looked as though it laughed far too often. His jaw that was somehow both boyishly narrow and yet squared off with manhood. Silver studs and small hoops artistically decorated both of his ears from what I could see around the chaos of his hair.

He donned a thick university sweater and jeans, his sneakers were well soaked through from the rain and were splitting from overuse.

"You okay?" He asked me in a sincere, breathtaking voice. It was sensuously raspy and dry in all the right ways and just deep enough to show his maturity. A 'phone sex' voice is what Rosalie would probably call it.

I nodded and apologized quickly, brushing myself off. "Thank you." I murmured. He still had a hand on my shoulder as though he expected I would slip again.

His lips parted to speak before another childlike, feminine voice interrupted. "Mason!"

I blinked and struggled to catch my breath. I was seated in my sleek yellow Porsche, hands clutching the wheel so tightly my knuckles had gone white. There was the quiet drumming of raindrops on the roof of my car. What had just happened? I hadn't gone anywhere at all and yet...

Baffled I started the engine and pulled out of my parking spot before departing for Jackson's school.

I was in no way, shape or form capable of caring for a child at this point. What had happened back there outside my apartment building? Who was that guy? My head was spinning, it was all so vivid – more so than a dream. I had felt his hands lifting me, smelt the rain on the air. That was no daydream. Swallowing thickly I wiped my hand down my face and tried to focus on driving.

My stomach was still tight from heaving, my body was weary and sore as it had been for days only now I had acquired a new headache that was broaching the boundaries of a migraine.

I had been indoors for so long it hurt to breathe the fresh air and the dreary grey overcast stung my brittle eyes. I was far too thankful when I arrived at the familiar parking lot of Jackson's school.

It took me a moment to gather the courage to get out of the car and face him. I had not seen him since the evening Jasper had...I whimpered to myself – no! Concentrate, Alice!

"Mommy!" Came an all too familiar screech, Jackson came bounding full tilt towards me from the school doors. He looked almost half as bad as I did and yet he could speak, he could smile and laugh. But I was afraid that he would run right through me while I was this thin.

Jackson collided with me without a second thought and I nearly collapsed. He hugged me so tightly I thought I would shatter. Tears rose to his eyes. "I missed you, I missed you, I missed you so much!" He howled and dug his fingers into my flesh through my jacket.

I couldn't help but smile. "I missed you too." I answered honestly, gazing upon him now was like the first time I had ever laid my eyes on him. He was so fragile, so perfect. I had to protect him from myself, from what I had become.

"Come Jackie, we'll go get Pico from Grandpa's." I heard the wobbling of my words, stricken with jovial tears. He bolted for the Porsche and I followed slowly behind.

The heel of my boot caught a crack in the cement and I was astonished to realize that I was falling. Never in my life have I ever been even remotely clumsy.

"Careful there!" For a moment I heard a thick Southern accent, felt the reassuring grasp of calloused farmer's hands on my sides.

My heart raced as I was hoisted easily onto my feet. I reeled the minute my balance returned and had to fight every fibre of my being to keep from lunging onto the person behind me.

Disappointment and anguish overtook me quickly however once I realized this man was certainly not Jasper.

His hair was a messy auburn quaff which shot out in every direction it pleased and hung over his eyes in longish strands. His eyes were a pale grey like smooth beach stones and were adorned with wonderfully long lashes. His features were youthful and energetic: a straight nose and a full-lipped quirky mouth that, even now, looked as though it laughed far too often. His jaw that was somehow both boyishly narrow and yet squared off with manhood. Silver studs and small hoops artistically decorated both of his ears from what I could see around the chaos of his hair.

He donned a thick university sweater and jeans, his sneakers were well soaked through from the rain and were splitting from overuse.

"You okay?" He asked me in a sincere, breathtaking voice. It was sensuously raspy and dry in all the right ways and just deep enough to show his maturity. A 'phone sex' voice is what Rosalie would probably call it.

I nodded and apologized quickly, brushing myself off. "Thank you." I murmured. He still had a hand on my shoulder as though he expected I would slip again.

His lips parted to speak before another childlike, feminine voice interrupted. "Mason!"

We turned and Valeria came swaggering towards us, her red hair glowing around her freckled face. She reached out her hand and he gladly accepted it in his own. "I'll see you around." He said to me, his grey eyes lingering on mine much longer than they should have.

I watched as the two headed toward the stream of cars in utter shock. He...I had...I had seen him...it was him!

But how?

Teehee, see what I did there? ;) Alice had visions even when she was human, that's why her family had her locked up ;) I'm so clever lol please let me know what you guys think, I hope that this makes up for my lack of ever writing, I'M SORRY!

R&R

~Selene