Long Live | Jasper Hale [Completed]

|33| Porcelain

Chapter Thirty-Three: Porcelain

Alina smiled to herself as she continued to paint her landscape of the farm she grew up on. She had spent months working on this prior to the incident and she had thought this was the best way to distract herself from the thoughts creeping back in.

If one thing was apparent to the girl, it was that Jasper was different. He no longer held the gentle look in his eye when talking to her: he was distant, cold even. Alina felt like it was all her fault. If only she had chosen different that day, maybe then Jasper would treat her the same as he did before.

The rest of the family talked in low whispers whenever she was home in hopes that she wouldn't hear and going so far as to stop talking all together when she entered the room. She felt more lonely than ever even though she was always surrounded by people.

She was so angered by this she didn't notice the brush had snapped into splinters in her hand. Quickly, she binned the brush before storming out of the house. She felt like she couldn't spend any more time there without imploding.

Esme saw her leave and a pit grew in the bottom of her stomach. She hated seeing her daughter so pained, especially when she didn't know exactly what the problem was. Esme had thought that Alina would be happy to be home with her family but that didn't seem the case.

Saying a quick goodbye to Carlisle, Esme followed Alina into the woods, staying behind her a bit to give the girl some space in case she just wanted to be alone. But when Alina collapsed to the ground, sobs crashing through her body like a wave, she stepped forwards to pull her daughter into a hug.

"What's wrong? What's happened?" Esme said, trying to soothe her daughter.

Alina looked up at her adoptive mother, seeing the concern lacing her face. "I think I need to leave. I've caused so many problems."

"What do you mean, Sweetie?"

"Isn't it obvious," Alina asked, leaning into Esme more, "nobody wants me here."

"That isn't true."

"Isn't it? I've seen the glances; how you all recoil away from me when I say something; how you all whisper behind my back and don't talk to me. If you wanted me gone, you should've just said."

Esme was shocked. Yes, she knew that the family had been different since Alina returned but she put it down to not knowing how to approach the topic of her return to life. She didn't realise how awful she and the rest of the family were being.

"Alina. I'm so sorry, I didn't realise how awful we've been. It isn't fair." Esme squeezed the girls arm before continuing. "But leaving. Nobody wants that. Jasper was so broken without you; he loves you so much. That's the last thing he wants. Or anyone. We all love you. And I'm sorry about how we've been treating you, you're not made of porcelain and we should start treating you like we used too."

"Esme. Don't worry about it. I'm just being sensitive."

"No. I do worry about it. And I do worry about you." Esme stood up and grabbed Alina's hand before starting to walk back into the direction of the house. "Now come on, 'The Great British Bake Off' is about to start."