Chapter 22 – Decisions

Alice's POV

I just stared at Jasper for a moment.

"You can't seriously be asking me that Jasper. You broke my heart. You took my daughter and ran away with her for eleven years. If it wasn't for Camp Dusk I may never have seen her again," I said as calmly as I could.

"I don't know anything about her really. What food does she like? What does she like to do for fun? When did she start walking? When did she start talking? What was her first word?" I rambled on, asking all the questions that came to my mind. "I don't know any of that because you took her away from me and just vanished without a trace."

Jasper opened his mouth to talk but I spoke before he could get a single word out.

"Don't say anything. This whole mess is your fault. If you had stayed, you would know Avery and you would be able to see your daughter's every day. You would have me. You would have all of us but because you were stupid and left me and shattered my entire world, you won't be seeing any of us again," I said.

"What?" Aaliyah, Avery and Jasper said at the same time.

"You heard me Jasper," I said, turning to grab the suitcases I had packed earlier.

"Alice, please," Jasper said.

"No Jasper. You brought this on yourself," I said. "Girls, pack your bags."

"No. I want to be around Dad too," Avery said.

Aaliyah nodded after Avery spoke, obviously agreeing with her.

"Do as you're told," I said, looking at both of them.

Avery looked at me and then at her sister and dad sadly before going off to pack her stuff.

Aaliyah did the same thing.

"Alice please, you can't do this," Jasper begged.

"You won't change my mind Jasper. You ruined my life by taking Aaliyah. This is your fault," I said, moving away from him so he couldn't touch me.

"Alice... I was stressed and there was so much pressure. It was hard, that's why I left," Jasper said.

"Every new parent has struggles Jasper. We had Carlisle and Esme and everyone else there to help us but you wouldn't listen to me when I tried to talk to you. You're not going to change my mind so you may as well give up now," I said as Avery came back into the main area of our hotel room with her suitcases.

A few minutes later, Aaliyah came in from across the hall with her bags.

"Are we really doing this?" Avery asked, looking between me, Jasper and her sister.

"Yes, we are," I said.

With that, I started walking out the door with Avery and Aaliyah following me, silently telling Edward where we were going.

We made it to the lobby and I checked us out before we went outside and waited for the limo to arrive.

When it did a few minutes later, we climbed in and headed to the airport.

I was heading to another part of England this time – somewhere a lot closer to London.

We had a vacation home on the outskirts of London and that's where I was heading with the girls.

After getting tickets and all, we were finally on the plane back to England and the girls were currently asleep.

I knew that they were upset and it made me feel bad but I just couldn't deal with Jasper at this very moment.

He had left me with only one of my children.

I mean, I understood that parents broke up and one of them would take a child with them – if there were multiple children in the family – but the parents would share custody of the children and all.

That wasn't what happened to us though.

It wasn't meant to happen.

Jasper and I were vampires – now anyway – and we were lucky enough to tell who our soul mates were.

Jasper wasn't meant to leave me but he did.

I soon found myself sitting in the chair with my heart breaking all over again.

The pain I felt when Jasper tore our wedding photo, the pain I felt when he grabbed Aaliyah and disappeared, the pain I felt when he never came back and the pain I felt when I saw his face again in the hotel flooded through me and shattered my heart.

I wrapped my arms around myself and looked over at my daughters.

They were wrapped in each other's embrace – as best they could on the plane anyway – and they were fast asleep.

I turned and stared at the seat in front of me and tried to focus on something else but nothing was working.

Only one thing was on my mind and that was the fact that I had just done the same thing Jasper did eleven years ago only I had left him with nothing.

It was then that I knew I would be crying if I could.

Instead, I just started sobbing quietly.

Before I knew it, the plane had landed and we were now going to find our luggage.

Neither Avery nor Aaliyah were looking at me in the airport but I continued to act as if I didn't care about what had just happened.

Seeing Jasper again had been too much and all the anger and pain that I had been repressing over the past eleven years had surfaced again and I had made the decision to leave while my pain and anger was at its peak.

We continued through the airport and finally reached the limo that was waiting for us.

There was no way our luggage would have fit into a cab.

The girls and I stayed relatively quiet until we reached the vacation house.

We unloaded all the luggage and as we walked through the front door, Avery spoke.

"Mom... did you really want to do that? Did you really want to leave Dad?" she asked.

I looked at my daughters silently for a moment.

"I... I don't know," I said.

A/N: Review Please.