The Shadow and The Seer (Jasper x Alice fanfic)

16. Parties

   I am back already?! It's exciting to be writing during school :)
Writing has gotten a lot easier because I got a new phone with slide to type 🤗

Chapter song- Close by Nick Jonas and Tove Lo

WARNING: this chapter gets sad
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   Jasper couldn't help the smile quirking his lips as he cheerfully followed the girls through the department store. Mary could hardly be seen from the tall racks of clothing, Rosalie was up in the fray right with her, and Bella hung back with him. It was a little sweet that Rose stuck with them on these trips since she often went on extravagant trips to other countries when she shopped alone.

   His sister sorely stuck out among the clientele, although Jasper was sure that he wasn't doing much better. People were staring at him, either horny or curious or fearful, but it hardly touched his mood.

   The dance was approaching and his girls were getting ramped up for it. Mary had spent an extra five hours at the school yesterday decorating the gym with one of her committees while Rose had handed her an entire DJ studio stand preloaded with almost every song imaginable. Now, two days before the big event, the girls had the critical mission of finally picking the dresses out.

The only one extremely underwhelmed by the entire process was Bells. She'd been excited when she'd still liked Angela, but Jasper wasn't sure if the girl had even realized that her feelings had changed yet. He himself wasn't sure how the drastic change had occurred, but now his friend radiated depression and boredom.

She was leaning against his arm, face uptilted towards the artificial lights as though they could revive her. Her scent was causing him to drool venom a little bit, but he was so used to the instinctive reaction that he thought nothing of it. "Are you still going to that party?"

Lauren Mallory's after party to the dance, the one that Angela had begged Bella to take her to. Although they weren't openly gay, apparently it wasn't uncommon for same sex friends to go to dances together nowadays. Angela's father had been so thrilled that he wouldn't have to worry about a boy that he was missing the bigger picture.

Bella was starting to get annoyed by the need for secrecy, but once again Jasper knew that she was trying desperately to ignore it.

   "Yeah, even though you and Mary aren't invited so I'm not even entirely sure why Ange wants to go so bad."

   "Don't sweat it, we don't care. Mary's practically gitty that you are going somewhere without her forcing you to." Jasper did the best to keep his voice neutral even when Mary's beautiful face peeked out of the sea of dresses to smile at him. His undead heart stuttered.

The gesture didn't go unnoticed by Bella and it cheered her up slightly. "You've made her so happy. I never thought I'd see it."

"Wasn't she always happy before, anyway?" He couldn't help but be surprised because in his mind, she was the constant source of happiness and vibrancy that he had become thoroughly addicted to.

"Yeah," She watched her younger sister with eyes that seemed to see more than even Jasper could, "she's always been relatively cheerful, but our world has always just been the two of us. It made her, a natural social butterfly, feel a little stifled. Now she has it all."

   They both fell into silence and Jasper couldn't help but to think of a future where they'd keep aging and he'd stay the same. It was a conundrum that Edward, if he hadn't run off somewhere, would be gleeful to remind all of the Cullens.

   He resolved to only worry about it once it started effecting Mary. Borrowing trouble hardly seemed worth the heartbreak.

   The rest of the week passed in a slow drum towards the dance on Saturday. The only break from the ordinary was when Mary insisted on a 'dress rehearsal' for the two of them since she was still angry that he hadn't let her pick out his tux. It'd been kind of cute to make her angry so he saw no harm in playing dress up for her.