Chapter 21- Jasper

As she slept soundly for the first time since she's been here, I recall all our moments, the bet, my insecurities and how much time I've wasted already. I smile because as idiotic as I am, that ignorance has passed and now I can be near Konaka, I can touch her, I can laugh with her, feel her joy, her embaressment, her awkwardness and her lust. I can feel her mirroring ever emotion I have. I can feel the same scars bonding us. She is the only one here who is like me, alone in the cross-hairs of what is good and evil. I have been in this position my whole life with noone to understand the complexity, the moral indecision. Edward has tried to help me, tried to be there for me the way a brother is but he can not help that he does not understand what it is like to survive by being monsterous, by doing things like I have. He could not understand, he has never been trapped in a cycle, in a cage that is your own inability. Konaka...she may not have sinned as much as myself but she is scarred the same, baring the same difference as I do with my family. Natural goodness simply does not come naturally, we work at it and we like it...but it will never be our default. We will never atomatically trust a stranger not to have alterrior motives and we can't find a way to just beleive everything will be alright, we feel this need to force our futures and our fates. We need to protect those who do deserve to exist...I think perhaps that is the only reason we do. Edward, Carlisle, Esme, Bella- even Emmett and Rosalie could not know the types of evil that is out there, the type of pain and loss, there are horrors they ave been spared in life and I will do everything I can to keep it that way. I feel that same protective care in Konaka. She is the first person with which I have felt this inate understanding and comfortability. I hadn't known how awkward I felt in my family until meeting her and know what it felt to be known.

I should buy Emmett and Edward gifts, something to thank them for their bet. Without it, who knows how long I would wollow in my own odd hopeful denial. I wanted this truth so much but I couldn't bring myself to beleive it, that it could be possible, that I wasn't fooling myself. That she could have actually felt the same attraction to me as I to her. I knew how I felt because of my ability, I knew we could have a strong bond but she is human, she is far more hurt than I am and in a situation that I must let her heal through. She had to get to know me, she had to learn the likeness between us and then decide about me as a mere friend, much less as a lover. She did not have the same automatic draw as I did. The moment I felt her, I knew. And at that time, I felt a deep urgency to get her out of there...to make her feel safe. I didn't have an alteror motive then. I knew I connected to her but I hadn't expected anything more than that jarring one sided loneliness. I figured we would help the human and she would leave to continue her life, that was to be expected, I would simply have learned how lonely my mind is. But then she lived with us, she and I laughed together, talked together and I was so so cautious not to get to close, not to frighten her or reminder her of the villains in her past and of the villian I once was. Yet even when that slipped through in my humor, she was never afraid of me. I tried so hard to keep tabs on her emotions but they often were identical to mine and I wouldn't be able to decipher them. Slowly I grew to feel more strongly for her little quirks, it wasn't just shared scars and living in the inbetween that held me. She is funny in the way she evades attention, in her shyness, she is observant and oddly serious in an attractive and strong way. She is beautiful, I never really seen humans as beautiful before now. She is kind though I know it is a strange thing to her, whenever she catches herself worrying over another she blushes a deep pink and I can see her feel amazed at herself, how she enoys to learn and progress. We have spent nights talking about her parents, I can see hw she loved them, I can feel her pain and her loss but she doesn't feel consumed by hatred. Rosalie once was and still is at those who hurt her. It is the one trait I truely understood of hers, when you are trying to survive a time, an endless hurt, sometimes the only way to get through is to hate. I expected hate from Konaka, When we met, it was there. I felt it grow each time we met and thats how I knew above all else that she was trapped with that bastard. Yet now, or since she has arrived, the only time she has felt such venomous hate would be 5 minutes after her nightmares ended. Since she has held no hatred, though I feel perhaps she is strong enough to chose hurt. That is a very difficult thing to do, to chose to not allow yourself to fall. She wants to be the person her parents raised, not the monster cages can create. I realized how I cared for her. But I couldn't be sure it was reciprocated. Technically, I still can't. Edward bet Emmett a 'car of their choice' that she held interest for me. Of course Emmett started the bet, after I spoke to my family about this situation. Esme says the tension between us is electric and that she is overjoyed by this, Rosalie- after all we have been through with Bella- truly has been reserved on the matter. Though I can feel how complex her feelings are, she doesn't want to express them to me, afraid she may someday regret the words. Emmett thinks I am delusion and that it would be far to complex given her past but otherwise approves and hopes to have another Bella- like addition to the family. Edward know what this means to me and shares how love changed his world and how he is happy for me to finally be understood. Carlisle was as supportive as Edward and had these proud fatherly feelings, I've seen him feel them towards Edward and Bella. That is a comforting sign, to think I could possibly have even a fraction of the happiness that Edward and Bella have achieved. Since I was reborn I never imagined being with anyone like Konaka, someone better than me, someone who not only connects to me but makes me feel worthy of existing, of changing. She humanizes me without making me out to be someone I can never be. I decided to settle my brothers bet and decided to become closer than normal with Konaka. Typically I stay a good distance away but today I would get close to her, I would be able to feel the warmth of her body next to mine.I observed her, I didn't and never do want to make her uncomfortable. She has been through so much and I never want to be a source of fear for her. When her heartbeat picked up I thought for sure I had overstepped and any hope I had crumbled within me. It was so odd when I saw her confused face tell me I wasn't making her uncomfortable. I began to wonder if it truly were possible for her heartbeat to be so loud and fast out of a positive reaction to me. I wanted so much to tell her everything, to care for her without hesitation as I have waited for so long for someone like her. However, I couldn't do something so jarring to her. She is still in a very frightening situation, the last thing she needs is to bee weighed down by the confusion of a relationship with me. I want her to be ready, I want her to be safe and secure when she chooses me. I will help her as she needs, I will be there and I will love her in all the ways she could desire love from me but I won't press Konaka, I want to be in her life but I know that she needs to be the center of her world right now. I can't try to share the spotlight of her mind until her emotional wounds have scarred over and there is room for me there.

She shifts in her sleep slightly and I freeze, I don't wish to wake her, she sleeps so poorly most nights. I brush my fingers across her cheek,her skin beautiful in the dark. This action seems to please her as she snuggles in closer to me. I rest my hand on her waist, I don't mean to seem suggestive, there simply was nowhere else to place it. I can't help but remember the lust shooting through her as I touched her last time. It makes me feel almost warm myself though I keep my body in check as she is still atop me and to react with her like this would feel wildly indecent. All I truly know is that she does lust for me and she is comfortable with me...I can't be sure she cares for me romantically, though I hope for such development. I must be careful though. Carlisle reminded me that such experiences can yield different reactions, I don't want to mistake these reactions as much more, at least not yet.

I sit and act as her pillow for hours, this is truly the longest she's slept, its amazing how still she is. Konaka is normally thrashing around and gasping or cowering in her sleep. Her she sleeps peacefully, quiet and deeply. Edward walks in, his arrival is startling for a moment as I was so lost in my thoughts of her I hadn't heard or felt him. He pauses to give me a small smile in congratulations as he glaces down at her peaceful slumber. In a voice so low it would be undetectable for her to hear, much less wake from, he says, "Looks like I'm getting a second Volvo." I smile widely at this, though it not proven, this little encounter will satisfy their bet and I am happy to play along. I was going to ask what he was doing when I noticed the sound of bats returning to their homes and morning creatures beginning their routines. I look down at Konaka and swiftly move out from under her, I tuck the covers under her body and for the briefest moment I feel a memory on the surface of my brain of my human life. I used to do this for my siblings, I would tuck them in like this, I did so the night before leaving for the military. It was the last I saw of them. I don't even recall their names. This memory feels odd as I don't have many memories before my new life began. Yet I can't seem to mourn the lost memories either as I don't actually know any of the characters within them. It is almost like watching the scene of a movie, nothing more and nothing less.

Edward spent some time after meeting Bella learning to cook, although I may not be the best I would like to show that I can provide for Konaka in some small way. I had texted Edward when she fell asleep about assisting me in cooking breakfast. Though all human food truly looks like garbage to me, I want to make something she may enjoy. I know she has not had many meals cooked for her and she respectfully has refused to allow Esme to cook anything special for her. Since coming her she has survived primarily on cereal and PB & J sandwiches. Until now I didn't feel I had much say in the matter, as long as she eats I figured anything was fine. Bella, the youngest of us all, remembers her human life well and when Renesmee wishes to eat human food, though rare, Bella or Edward cook her much more food and of different varieties. Bella and Edward would both know much more than I about human nutrition and taste. I glance at her once more, for a moment I wish to lean down and press my lips to her forehead- an unexplainable urge I force myself to ignore. I follow Edward to the kitchen and begin with lessons in nutrition and a few test try's.