Charm Speak || Jasper Hale [Twilight]

One

❝Once you cared about a person, it was impossible to be logical about them anymore.❞

ONE

The last time I saw my mother, she was standing on a beach in Brazil, waiting for me. It was the perfect day to spend at the beach. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the ocean glistened like diamonds against white sand.

She was alone – no paparazzi, photographers, or screaming fans. The company she was acting for rented out the entire beach and secured the perimeters for filming, and by some miracle, she convinced them to fly me in and let me spend the afternoon there. She was wearing a bathing suit, and her auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail, revealing her natural face and all of its imperfections.

When she heard the car pulling up the path towards the beach, she turned and smiled. She looked human, without the expensive gowns and made up face. She wasn't her superstar alias that I usually knew, glowing charisma and radiating sex. Right now, she was just Mom – goofy, sarcastic, and a blast to hang out with.

"I can't do this," I whispered, feeling the rush of panic cause my hands to shake. The entire way here, I had been rehearsing in my head how to break it to her, quick, easy, and painless –

Hey, Mom, I stole a Lamborghini the other day and crashed it. I got expelled from the fifth school in a year. Yeah, that's basically it – nothing you aren't used to. Let's eat.

But now I knew there was no good way to say it, and I knew I would just have to prepare myself for the look of disappointment and hurt on her face. I couldn't do it, not when she looked so happy to see me.

"You're going to have to," Melinda, Mom's assistant, said from besides me. She looked down at the police report with my name in a big, ugly font. "Or I will."

Shakily, I dragged myself out of the car, and I didn't have time to get my bearings before Mom wrapped her arms around me. She smelled like the ocean and suntan lotion, and her skin was hot from the sun.

"Dorothy! It's so good to see you!" No matter how much I asked her to call me Tory, Mom would only ever call me Dorothy, and I eternally cringed. I've always hated my name. It's a name a grandmother should have – not a 17 year old girl.

"You too, Mom." I swallowed the lump in my throat.

"Come here, let me look at you." She pulled back, grinning. Other than the blue eyes and slim build, Mom doesn't look like me, and people comment on it all the time. She's on the fair side with curly auburn hair. I have olive colored skin and dark hair – all inherited from my Hispanic father. She's skinner than me, anyways has been. She's thin to the extreme, but she still has all of her curves, a combination that's only achieved from constant, disciplined dieting and an unhealthy dose of plastic surgery. "You look...healthy." That's her way of saying I look fat.