Life ✶ Jasper Hale

Chapter Twenty Six: Discussions

Jasper

Lana finally falls asleep after two days of hovering around Bella. Since we have been allowed into the room, she's hardly left Bella's side, except to eat and go to the restroom. She wouldn't leave the hospital and go back to the hotel room for sleep, like I suggested. She is very stubborn and how she managed to stay awake that long is beyond me. Edward and I are sitting on the small sofa in Bella's hospital room, Lana is laying across our laps. Her head is in mine while her legs are on Edward's.

Bella has been unconscious since her arrival. She needed blood transfusions—I made sure I wasn't in the room while that was happening—the whole process was troubling for both Lana and Edward. She is now covered in a web of tubes; tubes for breathing, tubes for nutrition, tubes for waste, tubes for medication, and a wire attached to a clip on her index finger to monitor her heartbeat.

It's one of those nights that I wish I could sleep. I would like to avoid hashing and rehashing the disaster of the previous few days and to escape the temptation of this place. But I couldn't sleep and I wasn't going anywhere. Lana wasn't going to leave, and I'm definitely not going to be separated from her anytime soon.

When we first arrived Tuesday afternoon, they took Bella into the emergency room and the rest of us had to have a seat in the waiting room for a couple of hours. Alice distracted us by relating the contents of James' video, since Edward and I couldn't bear to watch it ourselves. Even secondhand through Lana and Alice's words and emotions is horrifying. I've never felt so helpless in my life. The easy death we granted James was far too good for him.We should have made it more painful for him.

James had filmed the entire hideous ordeal—from Bella and Lana's courageous entry into the studio, to his taunting Edward on tape, to him hurting them, even to Lana's dismemberment of him. The events from that day will torment me for the remainder of my existence.

Alice, was wistful. The revelation of her origins is as hurtful to her as it was heartbreaking to the rest of us. A family, blessed with an extraordinary child who could see into the future, regarded her gift as a curse of evil and condoned her to an asylum for the rest of her life. Who knows what had happened to her there?

Her lack of human memories suggests that she may have been incarcerated in that dreadful, dark cell as a mere child, in which case she'd been too young to retain memories. Or perhaps more likely, and equally horrifying, she may have been given a long course of electroshock—common in those days—which erased whatever memories she had.

Our parents have made up for a lot of what Alice missed as a human and she's been a treasured part of our family since we found them. By now, she has at least four times more lifespan as a vampire than as a human and, among all of us, seemed uniquely suited to it. She isn't bogged down by human memories. I am certain she would overcome this sad knowledge.

Lana had phoned Charlie to inform him of Bella's "terrible fall at the hotel" on the drive to the hospital—Emmett drove us and Alice in the Mercedes. She told him that Carlisle, Alice, and I accompanied Edward to Phoenix so he could convince Bella to return to Forks. When they came to meet us at our hotel, Bella tumbled down two flights of stairs and went through a window. She explained that Carlisle was with her immediately and stopped the bleeding. That she has a broken leg and some broken ribs and a cut on her head.

Charlie was beside himself. He was worried and upset that he wouldn't be able to make it out here to see Bella for himself. Lana apologized for not being able to protect Bella but he didn't blame her. He blamed Edward. Lana didn't like that, her tone turned hard when she told Charlie it wasn't Edward's fault.