Major's Queen {J. Hale} SLOW UPDATES

Chapter V

Over the next few days of Edward's absence, life at Forks High shifted into a strange new rhythm. Talia found herself drawn deeper into the Cullen orbit with every passing hour, and somehow Jasper became the center of it. He was the one she gravitated toward first, the one whose quiet presence steadied something restless inside her. It had not been long—barely enough time for ordinary trust to take root—but nothing about Talia's life had ever moved at an ordinary pace. The more time she spent with him, the harder it became to keep the truth locked behind her teeth. She wanted to tell him everything. She wanted him to know who she really was.

By Saturday, the decision had settled into her bones. There was no school to hide behind, no crowded hallway to interrupt, no bell to cut the moment short. Talia sat with her phone in hand, staring at Jasper's name for a few seconds before finally typing the message. She asked him to come to her house. She told him she needed to talk to him about something.

His reply came faster than she expected. He would come over. Talia let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding and headed downstairs to wait. Charlie was at work, and Bella was upstairs in her room, which meant the house was as close to private as it was going to get. Still, unease crawled beneath Talia's skin. If Bella came down before they made it to the attic, this conversation could fall apart before it began—and Talia refused to let that happen.

Ten minutes later, a knock sounded at the door. It was soft, controlled, unmistakably him. Talia's pulse kicked once before she crossed the room and opened it, a small smile already pulling at her lips. "Hi, come on in."

Jasper nodded as she stepped aside, his golden eyes sweeping briefly over the house before settling back on her. "Hey, so what's up?" He crossed the threshold, quiet and composed, and Talia closed the door behind him, sealing out the damp gray afternoon.

Talia shook her head, her voice dropping lower as caution took over. "Not now... I don't want Bella being able to overhear this, so I will start once we're in my room." Jasper nodded without pushing, and she led him upstairs. Each step toward the attic tightened the knot in her chest. Once they were through the door, she shut it behind them, waited until Jasper moved up the small steps into her room, and then lifted her hand. Scarlet energy flickered silently from her fingertips, spreading across the closed door in a veil of invisible force. The barrier settled into place like a lock turning. Bella would not be walking in on this conversation.

Talia followed him up into the attic room, the quiet space suddenly feeling much smaller with the weight of what she was about to say. Jasper glanced around, taking in the slanted ceiling, the tucked-away privacy, the pieces of the room that had become hers in this strange borrowed life. "Nice room you've got here."

"Thanks, I love it." Talia sat on the edge of her bed, but there was nothing casual in the way her fingers tightened briefly against the blanket. She looked at him, trying to steady herself before the truth finally left her mouth. "You might want to sit down for this; it's gonna be a lot to take in."

"Okay?" Jasper sat down in front of her on the bed, careful and attentive. Whatever confusion crossed his face, he kept his voice calm, grounding the room in a patience Talia desperately needed.

Talia drew in a slow breath, the kind taken at the edge of a cliff before the leap. When she met Jasper's eyes, there was nowhere left to hide. "Okay, so I'll just get right to it; there's no use in beating around the bush, even though this is going to sound insane. I'm not from here and I don't just mean Forks, I mean I'm not from this universe if you will, and I'm not sure how I got here, to be honest, I remember dying, I got stabbed, and I felt numb and then, I saw flashes of red surrounding me and then everything went black but I don't really want to get more into the details of that right now I'll explain that later but the next thing I knew I woke up here... and I was very confused at first I didn't know where I was and then I started seeing memories that weren't mine and at first I thought that I had taken over somebody's life it was really weird but now I think that whatever brought me here in the first place fabricated memories and everyone who was supposed to have known me had them placed in their heads to make it seem like I had been here the whole time, that part I really don't know how to explain because I don't know how it happened. And that is only just the tip of the iceberg here; there is so much more to this story, but I thought that was a good place to start." The confession spilled out in one breathless stream, too impossible and too honest to take back. Talia held his gaze, her teeth catching nervously against her lower lip as silence pressed in around them. "So do you have any questions before we get into the next part?"