Hurricane ► Jasper Hale [1]

[24]

SHE COULDN'T FATHOM why she thought this would have been a good idea; but, she did it anyway. Allison had decided to go into the back of her closet, and pull out the shoebox from the very back corner, where it had remained hidden by clothes thrown carelessly onto the ground. The shoebox's contents were not actually a pair of shoes, but instead stacks of photos and various trinkets.

Before the Cullen family left Forks, Allison had taken several photos, both of and with, the family. She had also managed to collect several nifty trinkets that held value to her. The girl, looking back, wondered why her previous self would have felt the need to collect such memories. She supposed that maybe, her previous self knew that something was going to happen that would alter her relationship with the family.

And still, even as Allison folded her legs under her on the hardwood floor of her bedroom and slid the lid off of the box, she couldn't understand why she was doing so. Maybe, the girl reasoned, she just wanted to reassure herself that they were real. Allison knew that her memories of the family were real, and she knew that the pain they brought her had to be real, for she had never felt a pain so deep.

The first photo she saw was one of herself and Rosalie. Allison stuttered over her breathing, closing her eyes briefly as a sudden pain threatened to overtake her. Yes, surely the Cullen's were real. Surely, because if they were not, Allison would not feel like screaming just to release her pain as she saw the blonde again. Opening her eyes, she glanced down to see the photo clutched within her fingertips. Upon closer inspection, Allison realized that the photo was one that had been taken toward the early stages of the girls' friendship. In the photo, Allison was perched on Rosalie's back, with her arms and legs wrapped around her. Both of the girls in the photograph were smiling joyously, looking as if they didn't have a care in the world.

Allison stared down at the photo, willing herself not to cry. You will not cry over a girl who didn't love you as much as you loved her, the sad girl told herself. She forced herself to exhale deeply as she felt her eyes become hot.

Placing that photo on the ground, Allison picked up the next photo. Immediately, she felt her breath leave her lungs. The throbbing agony began at her heart, and then traveled to her head. She realized she was crying when she saw a tear fall onto the photograph. Allison continued to stare at the photo, her fingers gripping it tightly as she struggled to calm down. In the photo, a boy and girl were holding each other. The boy had his arms around the girl's waist, and the girl had her face pressed against the boy's chest as her own hands wrapped around his waist as well.

Allison remembered with perfect clarity when this photo was taken. It had been taken right before Bella's birthday party, and Alice had snapped the photo before grinning and giggling at the photo. Looking toward the photo still, Allison could see the way Jasper gazed down at her with a goofy smile on his face. Vaguely, Allison recalled asking him why he was staring at her like that, to which he had replied, "because I love you."

A small, sad smile crossed her lips as she remembered that day. The day that everything went wrong. Allison knew that, without a doubt, she would never get over Jasper. She knew that she would be alright—she was alright, now—but she also knew that she would always compare everyone that she ever dated to Jasper. She knew that, in her eyes, they would never hold a candle to the boy who had stolen her heart for the first time.

Allison knew that her mother had promised that she would fall in love again, and at the time, Allison had believed her. But now, looking at how happy the girl and the boy in the photo were, she knew that Jasper Hale had been the one for her. She knew that she would never love another again, because she had already experienced her one true, epic, love. The thought saddened her, because she knew that she never had the chance of marrying and having children now. Albeit, Allison knew that she couldn't have had children with Jasper, but she would have been happy no matter what. She would have been perfectly pleased just being with Jasper.