I rode home with Esme, it was obviously an odd thing, a considerate thing. Everyone else had carpooled, I can guess that they wanted me to be, to feel, safe. A suppose being smushed between two men in their fancy cars would put me off a bit. Esme is sweet, she speaks every now and again, about her sons, the house renovations, little sights out the window. Her chatter wasn't forced either, she never spoke as if she expected me to answer her. It's not that I didn't want too, but nothing I could say in return would match.
"Jasper has had a hard life, his interest in you is so innocent and new to him..." What am I supposed to say back? 'I have no idea what that's like and truthfully I'm just looking for a slip up because you simply can't be this good-natured.' No, I couldn't say that, so I just stayed quiet. It's like she is trying to tell me that however brash Jasper seems, he's actually good-intentioned, that he doesn't know how to love properly. Of course, I could just be self-reflecting on my own issues. How should I know what she means by telling me all this stuff? Every smile still feels like a lie I can't prove. I know I'm traumatized by my many captive years, I know that some of my reactions are not portraying the situation at hand but I can't help it. I only know those things because I know those good people do exist...my father was a good man. He may have done bad things, but he was a good man. I want to think that wasn't my childhood memory wrapped by innocence. I want to believe goodness is not defined by one's actions, but how they feel while committing them. My dad sold drugs, but he wasn't proud of it. He was a veteran, a soldier who had come back from war with no job waiting for him. He wasn't worried about it at first, he didn't mind the lower-wage jobs, it was at least an honest living. But then mom got sick and that honest living wasn't enough anymore. He did things he wasn't proud of, turned teens into addicts, got them involved in nasty gangs for cash. He hated it, but he hated my mother's declining health more. He wasn't a bad man. A bad man wouldn't feel remorse, a bad man wouldn't cry at the news of a teen shot dead on the news, A bad man wouldn't anonymously share what little could be spared with the families who needed help. No, my father was not a bad man. He believed there was good in all types of people, I want to believe that too.
I smile at Esme, the first show of acknowledgment I've given since the hospital. "Your family is like nothing I've ever seen."
She momentarily looks shocked but quickly covers it with a loving smile. "Yes, we are different from most of our kind. We walk a fine line between two worlds. It's all thanks to Carlisle, he is the most compassionate soul you'll ever meet. He convinces us all the reach for the most humane parts of ourselves, even if we are always outcasts, we have decently clear closets."
skeletons in the closet, ha that's hilarious actually. I chuckle a bit before coughing. I wasn't used to the feeling of laughter.
"only a few funerals I guess." I meant this as a tasteless joke, something common amongst the slaves I knew. However, this only seemed to place a saddened look upon her face.
"Unfortunately...there have been a few..." Had I offended her? I figured talk of death was easy, I thought it would almost be common ground. I tried to think as to why my words may upset her, death was so common, grieving was never a part of my life. I watch people I knew to get swatted to death like flies. You detach, desensitize, you don't get close so that when they die, you stay composed. In this, I realized how different we were and felt a sudden sickness wash over me. Was I so used to murder that it made more sense to me than grief? Was this vampire woman more naturally humane than I was? This was a shocking discovery, one that came with guilt.
"I am so sorry Esme, that was tactless. I...am a bit to...I am not the most empathetic person. I truly admire that in you. You are more human than I have been for a very long time. I have grown used to death, it is hard for me you see, to relate to you and your family." Esme didn't look away from the road, though she changed her expression to one of ...was is lovingness? no, she was loving by nature but that didn't match her expression.
"You are very strong and a self-aware young woman, I admire your strength to notice such ingrained behaviors in your mind. It is okay now, to grieve people you may have lost."
admiration. The look was admiration, pride in me. I was shocked into silence at this, left to my own thoughts. The people I lost huh? The first people to come in mind was of course, my parents. I had no time at all to grieve them. The second was a girl named Cassedy, my first slave friend. She was someone I could confide in and be afraid with but she didn't last long. She took her last breath in my arms after refusing to comply to an order. I looked up at her expecting murdered and dropped her cooling body to the ground, completing her task without hesitation. From then on I never got close to anyone. I watched people fall and die and refused to think of them as people like me. I always just saw them for what they were- dead. I wouldn't lose my life over a dead one. But every night I would replay the days' murders. Every night, I'd shed exactly one tear for every victim, I could never afford any more than that little gesture though, anything else would set in the panic. The people I lost...I don't even have names to grieve for, just a numbered tear and a familiar face.
When we reach the house, it was silent. Esme had spoken kindly but I couldn't bring myself to play along again. Though her compassion and motherly love feel like a version of home, it also feels undeserved and awkward. She isn't awkward, she is totally comfortable in her nature but I don't know how to react to this level of intimacy, of kindness, of closeness. Additionally, I have never gotten anything good that I did not work hard to earn, there was no good fortune in my world. There were pain and punishment and I had to work for every scrap of food, every breath in my lungs was earned. I've done nothing for this affection. I know that her actions are...relatively normal. I have conflicting lives in my head, life with my family where I loved the world, loved the bad in people, knew what respect and human decency is; and then the life I live, the one whos rules I've lived by for so long now. It's like someone who grew up poor but inherited a geat sum or won the lottery, that someone would grow accustomed to their new life. This someone may discover that he missed his friends or family and that wealth has driven them apart. This person would remember being poor..but those rules/ways of life would fade from his mind. They wouldn't know how to go back to that life of poverty.
The house was beautiful, though I had seen bigger and better. As a slave, though most vampires were nomads, the older or more sentimental of the bunch will keep an old mansion or home to hold their possessions. I have, before and during the 'downtime' of my entertainment years, spent my servitude cleaning such places. This place, however smaller and simpler, was far more open and elegant...it was alive in a way. Everything about it felt welcoming and the sun creates spots along it's side from the exposed spots in the trees. This is like no other place I have ever been. All the places I have served were old and vacant of any life but ourselves. It was dusty and ugly and lonely, despite so many belongings. This home is like the heads of a coin toss.
Inside was even better, light and open and bright. The male Cullens all stayed a good distance away, perhaps still concerned for my comfortability -a kind but currently unrequired gesture. Jasper stayed in the back, leaning motionless on the wall, his eyes never leaving me. He doesn't breath or attempts to act human, it's almost like entering this house transformed him yet somehow while his undead eyes followed the rise and fall of my chest, monitoring every pesky emotion, he was gorgeous. His expression was a deep confusion, a v between his perfect eyebrows and his lips pursed against one another, what about me could make him lose his normally cryptic composure? Although his eyes are fixed on the whole of me, I know he notices every small involuntary move of my wrist or falters in my upturned expression, the heat flooding my face. I know he could see it all and it was both exhilarating and embarrassing to cause such a...reaction from him, to have his eyes look only unto me as if I were precious as if something about me was capturing the gaze of such enamored beauty. This is an unfamiliar feeling, to want him to see me but to also wish to shy away, I've only ever wanted to be invisible while stuck in a place I could never hide.
Apparently Edward and Bella bypassed the house and went to their home, leaving Dr. Cullen, Esme, Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper, and myself in the home. Dr. Cullen and Esme held each other lovingly from across the room, she had glided over to him at some point while I was engulfed in a world of only Jasper. Rosalie wasted no time in silently leaving up the stairs, her head upturned but her steps light- it's as if she isn't sure how she feels about me yet. Emmett follows closely behind, almost like a puppy. He bounds after her with no real motive in leaving -except that she was. Jasper was still behind me on the wall. I should be afraid, vampires on either side of me, but I simply wasn't. For a moment I thought that Esme and dr. Cullen was oblivious to their sons stare but the way Esme looked at me, before controlling her expression, was enough evidence that they did know and it was odd. She was...grateful maybe? I'm not sure but it was an emotion she had sought to hide from me about the way I interact with Jasper. The questions burned inside me, the story he told at the hospital made less and less sense...I mean it made sense but why me specifically? He's existed for a while so why this sudden and singular interest in saving the tormented? There are many forms of slavery, forms they would know about from this world if it were merely a heroic chance to save troubled people, then why am I so special, why look at me in this way? I need to know. There is more to the story than what he's telling me, I can feel it in his stare.
You may also Like
Paragraph comment
Paragraph comment feature is now on the Web! Move mouse over any paragraph and click the icon to add your comment.
Also, you can always turn it off/on in Settings.
GOT IT