Friends - Jasper Hale

friends

The next day on the car ride to school, Bella had told me that she had accepted Edward as her mate and they were now dating. I was literally speechless and a little jealous over the fact that she didn't over complicate things like I had done. She also told me about the powers that the Cullens had and how Edward could read minds and Jasper could feel and control everyone's emotions. However, she also told me that their powers didn't seem to work on us. I was kinda relieved to learn this because it would've been extremely embarrassing if they knew all of the fucked up shit that went on in my head.
          When we arrived at school Bella completely ditched me for Edward, which I had to admit hurt my feelings a teeny bit. I felt a little empty now that I had to walk to class by myself. However, before I could make it to history, I saw Jasper putting things away in his locker and I decided to impulsively grab him and drag him into the empty art room. I was determined to come to some sort of agreement with him, especially after how he left me last night.
            "What do you want Camila?" Jasper spat at me. "Have you decided to pity me now that your cousins dating Edward?" My heart was in pieces having to look at the hateful expression on his face. I didn't want him to stay mad at me. I wanted him to call me darling in his stupid southern accent and I wanted him to tease me over my obsessions with fictional characters from my favorite books and tv shows. I wanted things to go back to how they were between us. I wanted my Jasper back.
             "Stop it Jasper!" I exclaimed, "you're acting like an unreasonable little child right now and I fucking hate it. Don't you realize everything you unloaded on me yesterday?!?!? You introduced me to a whole new world so you can't exactly be mad at me for acting how I did. I also never fucking told you that I didn't want to be with you dumbass. I was just upset because I felt as if my whole world had been flip turned upside down, which, technically, it has so I'm sorry if I had a completely normal reaction you idiot!" I took a deep breath trying to contain all of my strong emotions in that moment as I saw Jasper bashfully stare at the ground.
            "I'm sorry for how I left things with you last night darlin," my heart basically did a cartwheel in my chest out of happiness over hearing him call me that name again. "I was just frustrated and honestly also a little heartbroken because I thought that you were rejecting me," Jasper mumbled, clearly embarrassed with his actions.
           "If you would've stayed in my truck a little longer, you would've realized that rejecting you clearly wasn't my intention," I retorted.
             "So what I'm hearing is that you want to be with me?" He asked with a confident smirk on his face. It almost made me want to say yes, but I knew that I wasn't emotionally ready for a relationship yet. Plus, as much as I really liked Jasper, I knew that it'd be stupid of me to trust him enough to get into a serious relationship.
          "Well not exactly," I said as the lies started spilling uncontrollably from my mouth, "it wouldn't be fair to either of us if we started dating. I mean i really like you Jasper, but not in the way that you want me to. So I'd like for us to be just be friends for right now?" Jaspers smirk dropped from his face and I could see his eyes dim a bit, which honestly made my heart hurt. However, he didn't let the disappointed expression linger for very long and quickly gave me a gentle smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"As long as we're together I'm fine with being whatever you want me to be," Jasper confirmed as he took ahold of both of my hands, "whether that be your lover or your friend. I don't care. I just want to be with you Darlin, it doesn't matter to me how." I swore that I would've kissed him in that moment if I hadn't just friendzoned him. His confession truly made me feel like I was important to him. It's like nothing else mattered to him as long as he was allowed to hold my hand.
"You're so dramatic Jas," i said giving him a playful shove and trying to ignore the growing blush on my face, "let's go to class before we're marked absent."
         The rest of school seemed to go by pretty smoothly now that Jasper and I were back on speaking terms again. However, it was a little annoying having to hear Jessica and, even Angela's, jealous rant about how unfair it was that Edward was dating Bella. It was even more annoying to have to endure these rants completely by myself since Bella had decided to sit with the Cullens today. I probably could've sat with them too, but I didn't want to give our gossip obsessed high school more to talk about. I mean you couldn't really blame me for wanting to keep the peace for myself and stay away from rumors for the last few months of my senior year. For this reason I made sure to make it clear to everyone that Jasper and I were just friends and were only ever going to be friends as far as they were concerned. They didn't need to know that my heart belonged strictly to Jasper Hale now. Jasper didn't need to know that either...at least not yet.
          "Are you sure there's nothing going on between you and Jasper?" Tyler asked as he came to stand beside me where I was waiting for Bella leaning against my rusty truck. "Because I would really hate to be taking his girl to prom." I ignored how my heart fluttered when Tyler referred to me as 'Jasper's girl' and mentally scolded myself for thinking about not denying his accusations.
          "I'm not 'his girl' man," I replied with a forced smile. Oh how I prayed that someone would come and save me from this conversation. "Trust me that i wouldn't have said yes to going to prom with you if I were in a relationship with someone else." I actually shouldn't have said yes to him regardless of me not being in a relationship. I was honestly a little frustrated with myself and the fact that I couldn't say what I wanted to say to anyone apart from Jasper. I assumed that it was all due to him being my mate. I guess it was true what people said about not being able to hide anything from your soulmate.
            "Yeah, I figured that you weren't the type of girl to do that type of shit," he laughed looking a little relieved. I gave him yet another forced smile, not quite sure of what he wanted me to say in that moment so I stayed uncomfortably silent. I actually hoped that my lack of response would've been the end of the conversation but, unfortunately to my surprise, he gave me a flirty smile and proceeded to open his mouth. "Sooo now that I know you're available," oh dear god no, "do you have any plans right now? We could maybe go to the movies" I wanted to die.
         "Well actually," I said as I was quickly trying to come up with a way to reject him. However, I was thankfully interrupted before I had the chance to give Tyler an actual answer.
        "Camila and I actually have plans to work on our project right now," Jasper said as he walked up to us put an arm around my shoulders. I gave Tyler an apologetic look and literally swore that Jasper was my saving grace in that moment.
       "Sorry," I said trying to look as sorry as I could, "maybe next time." Tyler gave me a tight lipped smile and nodded as he finally walked away.
       "I could literally kiss you right now," I exclaimed happily as me and Jasper climbed into my truck.
        "Don't get my hopes up now darlin," Jasper teased as he gave me one of his forever dazzling smirks. I tried to control the heat rushing to my face and playfully rolled my eyes.
         "Oh shut up you dumbass," I laughed, "now since you're in my truck right now I assume that Bella will be riding home with Edward today?"
          "Yep," Jasper grinned at me. "She's actually going out to play baseball with him and the rest of my family today."
          "Bella Swan is playing baseball?!?" I asked him unable to believe that he was being serious right now, "and in this fucking weather?!?!? It's literally supposed to downpour in the next twenty minutes?!?"
          "Hey I guess love is making your sister more adventurous," He replied smuggly, "and the weather is what makes it so us vampires are able to play baseball without making any of the locals suspicious."
          "I don't even wanna know what you mean by that, so I'm not going to ask anymore questions," I stated feeling a little giddy after Jasper laughed at my reply. "However, I won't be able to work on our project today cowboy. I have to cook dinner tonight for Charlie and I since Bella won't be home. I also just got the notification that my new pastels arrived and I'm literally DYING to try them out."
       "Well, if you're okay with it, I'd still like to hang out with you today and I'm not completely against the idea of watching you draw," Jasper told me honestly. I refused to acknowledge the butterflies that I felt in my stomach in that moment.
        "I'm going to ignore how creepy that sounded and, I guess, let you come over," I replied with a cheeky smile, ignoring how excited I was at the fact that Jasper liked spending time with me. "I pulled my phone out of my coat pocket and handed it to him. "Hurry and connect my bluetooth so I don't have to suffer having a conversation with you on the ride to my house." Jasper scoffed and pretended to be offended.
          "Don't act like you don't love talking to me," he smirked as Noah Kahan started playing in the background, "because I can basically hear your heart skip a few beats whenever I'm around you."
I didn't have to look at myself in that moment to know that my cheeks were completely bright red.
         "Whatever you have to tell yourself cowboy," I joked, trying to play off how absolutely right he was about his affect on me.