I Never Meant to Start a War
War
When faced with a tense silence, people always remark the cliché metaphor that they could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed. I begged to differ—the only thing that I could hear was the whoosh, whoosh of my breath. It seemed too loud, but I didn’t think I was hyperventilating. I was too surprised that I was even breathing.
I glanced over, and Paul was smirking.
He moved as if he was going to stand, and I put my hand on his shoulder, pointlessly trying to force him to stay down. I looked between him and Sam, my eyes feeling as wide as dinner plates. “No.”
There were so many things I could have been saying no to in that moment, but I never exactly knew why. It could have been my denial that Jasper was at the line waiting to start a war, or it could have been the realization in my heart that Paul was a gleeful participant in said war to make sure he would have me forever. Maybe it was because I couldn’t believe, wouldn’t let myself believe, that Jasper actually knew.
He knew.
Paul reached up to move my hand from his shoulder, but I managed to clamp onto his wrist instead.
He still was smirking, a fierce glow in his eyes as he looked to his alpha, reading Sam’s approval as well as his thirst for the kill and taking it as positive feedback. He tried to pull away, to stand, but my hand was there, holding him back as I tried to breathe, to see, to comprehend.
It was over.
Jasper knew.
How?
Who?
Why?
I wanted to burst into tears right there, but I knew that I had to control myself. I couldn’t let myself be weak. Because this wasn’t just some stupid love triangle, it was a love triangle of opposing forces by nature, waiting for the opportunity to get what they want—to rip out the throat of the man that stole their love’s heart.
“Don’t go,” I heard my voice whisper past my lips. I turned my eyes to Paul, begging. “Don’t, please.”
He smiled at me, like it was something trivial, like it was just a game. “Marie,” he started, “it’s okay, I’m not a child.”
“But he’ll kill you!”
“I’d love to see him try,” the werewolf that imprinted on me growled, very animalistic, scowling at my lack of faith in him. My hands started to shake as the panic turned to adrenaline, and I moved so that I could see Sam, who was still hovering over the scene, waiting.
“You can’t let him do this!” I cried. “You don’t know what will happen! This isn’t some stupid fight in a clearing under a white flag! This isn’t going to end peacefully, and you know it!”
Sam looked to me. “I can’t order him to stay,” he told me simply.
“Why not?!” I looked to him, astonished. How much did this wolf pack despise of me? “You can’t let him do this!”
“This isn’t about me. It’s about a pack member and his imprint,” Sam Uley said slowly. “I won’t issue an order when he should be able to fight for himself.”
As we spoke, Paul had managed to push himself up with the wall, dragging me with him because of my grip on his wrist. He pulled me closer by that anchor and moved an arm around me, burying his head in my hair. “Calm down, sweetheart,” he coaxed of me lowly. In panic, I realized that the bruise that had been so painful only a half hour before was beginning to turn to a yellow color, healing before my eyes. My eyes widened and I looked up at him, into the brown eyes I was always so captivated with, even if I would never admit it.
“I’ll go!” I announced.
“No way,” Paul immediately answered, shooting me a venomous glare, and I was surprised by the heat behind it. I would have taken a step back if it had been from anyone other than Paul, because I knew he would never hurt me. I felt myself started to glare back, red hot anger flowing through my veins like molten lava in an active volcano, ready to blow.
“If I go,” I hissed, “he won’t hurt me, and he won’t attack. This war is not something in the intention of anyone here.”
“It’s too dangerous! He could and he would hurt you!” He turned desperately to Sam, seeking his opinion. Sam looked at us, lips pulled into a frown as his eyes showed the calculation in his eyes as he weighed the options. My anxiety and Paul’s eagerness didn’t seem to touch him as he quickly and cautiously considered the consequences of everything that could ensue. For a moment, no one moved.
And then, I had enough.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and flipped it open, pounding the number I had long since memorized onto the keypad before putting it to my ear. The two wolves turned to watch me as I gripped Paul’s wrist, biting my lip, the hand holding the phone shaking wildly. I tried to breathe, but it came out too breathy.
She picked up on the third ring. “Marie?”
“Is Edward there?” I demanded to Bella, and if Sam and Paul weren’t paying attention before, they were now.
She didn’t respond for a moment.
“Marie,” came the silky voice of the copper-haired Cullen. He didn’t sound hospitable, but nor did he sound hostile. I skipped the pleasantries.
“How could you?” I heard myself say slowly, dragging out the phrase. The heat in my bones flashed. “I understand how you could ruin my life, but how could you have hurt him like that? Do you have any idea how much you’ve killed him, just because you wanted to get some sick sort of petty revenge against me? If you wanted to spite me, you should have just stuck with me, because now you’ve managed to destroy him.”
I knew my words hit home only because he didn’t reply immediately. Slowly, slowly, he sighed.
“I know,” he said, but he didn’t know. He really didn’t. I might have learned what it felt like to be betrayed, but I would never be able to explain the feeling of knowing that it was all over. Hiding and pretending and lying, it was over, and now the only thing going for me would be the truth and an empty field where my possibilities should be. There were two sides. I would have to pick one.
I couldn’t stand in the middle forever. Eventually, one of them would make me chose.
I felt myself begin to cry, and I felt Paul stiffen.
Now I had an idea of what Bella went through on a daily basis. Now I understood why she hated feeling so helpless, in even the smallest of things—the initial feeling of knowing that nothing you can do will help is enough to destroy someone.
As I wiped my tears away, I said in a flat, emotionless voice, “He’s at the border. If you want to keep him from starting a war, I suggest you bring backup.”
I hung up with a sense of finality, hardly noticing as Paul’s hand slipped into mine. I hadn’t even bothered to keep a hold on his wrist, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to stop him. Helpless. So, so helpless . . .
Hopeless.
I was hopeless, too.
I managed to control myself long enough to look up into the near-black eyes of Sam Uley. “I can’t stop it,” I whispered, “but I can try to reason with him, for all that it’s worth. For all that I’m worth, now.”
Paul pulled me into a soft, friendly, loving embrace, holding me close and refusing to let go when I tried to inch away. He looked down at me with a fire in his eyes and a reassuring smile on his lips as he told me, “Everything will be okay.”
I wanted desperately to believe him. But I was done with lies.
~*~
Paul didn’t want me to leave. He didn’t hide the fact that he didn’t want me within proximity of Jasper—in fact, that was his soul argument for me to stay. He told me that he didn’t know what he would do now that he knew, and he told me that he couldn’t protect me over that treaty line. But I knew I couldn’t hide forever. I would eventually have to face everything that I had ruined.
When I arrived, my parents were home, lounging downstairs in the living room on the coach, news on and conversation open to discussion. They looked to me as I slipped inside, and my mother smiled widely.
“Hey sweetie,” she greeted heartily. “Were you in La Push again?”
I wanted to tell her not to speak, because I was sure that Jasper was up in my room, waiting for me, wanting to demand to know the truth of what had happened. I felt a slight flush of fury, subtle but very there, and my heart pounded against my ribs. Somehow, I managed a smile and a response that I was at the beach with Emily and Kim, another lie, and dismissed myself reluctantly. The tears were streaming down my face before I made it to my bedroom.
He was waiting.
Jasper stood leaning against the wall beside my window, his face twisted into a scowl and his dark golden eyes ablaze with a fire I knew I had started. The moment I slipped through the door and caught sight of him standing in that position, his eyes moved to glare into mine. The sleeve of his shirt was torn and there was dirt and mud smeared over his pants. He had put up a fight against his own family, too intent on revenge . . .
I looked away and took a deep breath, closing my eyes for a long moment. When I opened them, he was still looking at me with the shine of hostility and a slight spice of hatred.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked me, his tone even and controlled. He let nothing show.
I flinched as if he had hit me, and looked away in shame. “I didn’t think it mattered,” I whispered to him. I heard him growl.
“Of course it matters, Marie. That mutt is stealing you away from me.”
I should have told him that it was a lie, that I loved him and that I always would. It was true. But I couldn’t, because I loved Paul, too, and that seemed completely unfair to make a promise I didn’t know if I could keep. I didn’t know if I would end up with Jasper anyway.
My stomach plunged as I looked up at Jasper with that realization fresh in my mind, and there must have been something in my expression that he easily misinterpreted. He straightened up suddenly, like he had been shocked, and he stood as tall he could stand, as straight as a soldier. His lips parted in surprise, but no words came, not at first.
He eventually hissed, “You’re cheating on me.”
“No,” I said, sighing, reaching up to rub my face. Jasper watched my exhaustion, emotions blazing across his face like a rampant fire. I exhaled loudly before looking at him, tired. “I’m not. It might seem like I am, but I’m not. I didn’t ask for this to happen, Jazz. I hope you realize that. I didn’t go to La Push looking for a werewolf to imprint on me, it was just what happened, and we have to accept that. I love you. I really do. But I love him too.”
Jasper snarled.
I continued nonetheless: “Again, I didn’t mean for it happen, and I didn’t necessarily want it to happen. But it did. And I can’t do this with you trying to rip out throats, Jasper. That’s not the way this needs to happen. I need to know that you’ll do this maturely and rationally.”
“Are you breaking up with me?” His tone was measured, trying not to let anything show. My heart seared with heat.
“This is your meeting,” I reminded him warily, looking at him with a grimace and a slight shine in my eyes I knew would show my understanding, were he to walk away. I closed my eyes, feeling the tears coming, and I heard a sound at the window. I wondered if he had left. But when I opened my eyes, he was just standing next to it, watching me carefully, casually.
He shook his head. “I’m not going to share you.”
“I know. And I understand.” I swallowed. “I love you. But I love Paul too, Jasper. I don’t want you to make me choose.”
“I’m not going to share you,” Jasper repeated.
Before I knew what had happened, he had disappeared out the open window, the only evidence that he was here being those whispered words. I closed my eyes again, but I knew that, this time, when I opened them, Jasper wouldn’t be there.
I glanced over, and Paul was smirking.
He moved as if he was going to stand, and I put my hand on his shoulder, pointlessly trying to force him to stay down. I looked between him and Sam, my eyes feeling as wide as dinner plates. “No.”
There were so many things I could have been saying no to in that moment, but I never exactly knew why. It could have been my denial that Jasper was at the line waiting to start a war, or it could have been the realization in my heart that Paul was a gleeful participant in said war to make sure he would have me forever. Maybe it was because I couldn’t believe, wouldn’t let myself believe, that Jasper actually knew.
He knew.
Paul reached up to move my hand from his shoulder, but I managed to clamp onto his wrist instead.
He still was smirking, a fierce glow in his eyes as he looked to his alpha, reading Sam’s approval as well as his thirst for the kill and taking it as positive feedback. He tried to pull away, to stand, but my hand was there, holding him back as I tried to breathe, to see, to comprehend.
It was over.
Jasper knew.
How?
Who?
Why?
I wanted to burst into tears right there, but I knew that I had to control myself. I couldn’t let myself be weak. Because this wasn’t just some stupid love triangle, it was a love triangle of opposing forces by nature, waiting for the opportunity to get what they want—to rip out the throat of the man that stole their love’s heart.
“Don’t go,” I heard my voice whisper past my lips. I turned my eyes to Paul, begging. “Don’t, please.”
He smiled at me, like it was something trivial, like it was just a game. “Marie,” he started, “it’s okay, I’m not a child.”
“But he’ll kill you!”
“I’d love to see him try,” the werewolf that imprinted on me growled, very animalistic, scowling at my lack of faith in him. My hands started to shake as the panic turned to adrenaline, and I moved so that I could see Sam, who was still hovering over the scene, waiting.
“You can’t let him do this!” I cried. “You don’t know what will happen! This isn’t some stupid fight in a clearing under a white flag! This isn’t going to end peacefully, and you know it!”
Sam looked to me. “I can’t order him to stay,” he told me simply.
“Why not?!” I looked to him, astonished. How much did this wolf pack despise of me? “You can’t let him do this!”
“This isn’t about me. It’s about a pack member and his imprint,” Sam Uley said slowly. “I won’t issue an order when he should be able to fight for himself.”
As we spoke, Paul had managed to push himself up with the wall, dragging me with him because of my grip on his wrist. He pulled me closer by that anchor and moved an arm around me, burying his head in my hair. “Calm down, sweetheart,” he coaxed of me lowly. In panic, I realized that the bruise that had been so painful only a half hour before was beginning to turn to a yellow color, healing before my eyes. My eyes widened and I looked up at him, into the brown eyes I was always so captivated with, even if I would never admit it.
“I’ll go!” I announced.
“No way,” Paul immediately answered, shooting me a venomous glare, and I was surprised by the heat behind it. I would have taken a step back if it had been from anyone other than Paul, because I knew he would never hurt me. I felt myself started to glare back, red hot anger flowing through my veins like molten lava in an active volcano, ready to blow.
“If I go,” I hissed, “he won’t hurt me, and he won’t attack. This war is not something in the intention of anyone here.”
“It’s too dangerous! He could and he would hurt you!” He turned desperately to Sam, seeking his opinion. Sam looked at us, lips pulled into a frown as his eyes showed the calculation in his eyes as he weighed the options. My anxiety and Paul’s eagerness didn’t seem to touch him as he quickly and cautiously considered the consequences of everything that could ensue. For a moment, no one moved.
And then, I had enough.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and flipped it open, pounding the number I had long since memorized onto the keypad before putting it to my ear. The two wolves turned to watch me as I gripped Paul’s wrist, biting my lip, the hand holding the phone shaking wildly. I tried to breathe, but it came out too breathy.
She picked up on the third ring. “Marie?”
“Is Edward there?” I demanded to Bella, and if Sam and Paul weren’t paying attention before, they were now.
She didn’t respond for a moment.
“Marie,” came the silky voice of the copper-haired Cullen. He didn’t sound hospitable, but nor did he sound hostile. I skipped the pleasantries.
“How could you?” I heard myself say slowly, dragging out the phrase. The heat in my bones flashed. “I understand how you could ruin my life, but how could you have hurt him like that? Do you have any idea how much you’ve killed him, just because you wanted to get some sick sort of petty revenge against me? If you wanted to spite me, you should have just stuck with me, because now you’ve managed to destroy him.”
I knew my words hit home only because he didn’t reply immediately. Slowly, slowly, he sighed.
“I know,” he said, but he didn’t know. He really didn’t. I might have learned what it felt like to be betrayed, but I would never be able to explain the feeling of knowing that it was all over. Hiding and pretending and lying, it was over, and now the only thing going for me would be the truth and an empty field where my possibilities should be. There were two sides. I would have to pick one.
I couldn’t stand in the middle forever. Eventually, one of them would make me chose.
I felt myself begin to cry, and I felt Paul stiffen.
Now I had an idea of what Bella went through on a daily basis. Now I understood why she hated feeling so helpless, in even the smallest of things—the initial feeling of knowing that nothing you can do will help is enough to destroy someone.
As I wiped my tears away, I said in a flat, emotionless voice, “He’s at the border. If you want to keep him from starting a war, I suggest you bring backup.”
I hung up with a sense of finality, hardly noticing as Paul’s hand slipped into mine. I hadn’t even bothered to keep a hold on his wrist, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to stop him. Helpless. So, so helpless . . .
Hopeless.
I was hopeless, too.
I managed to control myself long enough to look up into the near-black eyes of Sam Uley. “I can’t stop it,” I whispered, “but I can try to reason with him, for all that it’s worth. For all that I’m worth, now.”
Paul pulled me into a soft, friendly, loving embrace, holding me close and refusing to let go when I tried to inch away. He looked down at me with a fire in his eyes and a reassuring smile on his lips as he told me, “Everything will be okay.”
I wanted desperately to believe him. But I was done with lies.
~*~
Paul didn’t want me to leave. He didn’t hide the fact that he didn’t want me within proximity of Jasper—in fact, that was his soul argument for me to stay. He told me that he didn’t know what he would do now that he knew, and he told me that he couldn’t protect me over that treaty line. But I knew I couldn’t hide forever. I would eventually have to face everything that I had ruined.
When I arrived, my parents were home, lounging downstairs in the living room on the coach, news on and conversation open to discussion. They looked to me as I slipped inside, and my mother smiled widely.
“Hey sweetie,” she greeted heartily. “Were you in La Push again?”
I wanted to tell her not to speak, because I was sure that Jasper was up in my room, waiting for me, wanting to demand to know the truth of what had happened. I felt a slight flush of fury, subtle but very there, and my heart pounded against my ribs. Somehow, I managed a smile and a response that I was at the beach with Emily and Kim, another lie, and dismissed myself reluctantly. The tears were streaming down my face before I made it to my bedroom.
He was waiting.
Jasper stood leaning against the wall beside my window, his face twisted into a scowl and his dark golden eyes ablaze with a fire I knew I had started. The moment I slipped through the door and caught sight of him standing in that position, his eyes moved to glare into mine. The sleeve of his shirt was torn and there was dirt and mud smeared over his pants. He had put up a fight against his own family, too intent on revenge . . .
I looked away and took a deep breath, closing my eyes for a long moment. When I opened them, he was still looking at me with the shine of hostility and a slight spice of hatred.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked me, his tone even and controlled. He let nothing show.
I flinched as if he had hit me, and looked away in shame. “I didn’t think it mattered,” I whispered to him. I heard him growl.
“Of course it matters, Marie. That mutt is stealing you away from me.”
I should have told him that it was a lie, that I loved him and that I always would. It was true. But I couldn’t, because I loved Paul, too, and that seemed completely unfair to make a promise I didn’t know if I could keep. I didn’t know if I would end up with Jasper anyway.
My stomach plunged as I looked up at Jasper with that realization fresh in my mind, and there must have been something in my expression that he easily misinterpreted. He straightened up suddenly, like he had been shocked, and he stood as tall he could stand, as straight as a soldier. His lips parted in surprise, but no words came, not at first.
He eventually hissed, “You’re cheating on me.”
“No,” I said, sighing, reaching up to rub my face. Jasper watched my exhaustion, emotions blazing across his face like a rampant fire. I exhaled loudly before looking at him, tired. “I’m not. It might seem like I am, but I’m not. I didn’t ask for this to happen, Jazz. I hope you realize that. I didn’t go to La Push looking for a werewolf to imprint on me, it was just what happened, and we have to accept that. I love you. I really do. But I love him too.”
Jasper snarled.
I continued nonetheless: “Again, I didn’t mean for it happen, and I didn’t necessarily want it to happen. But it did. And I can’t do this with you trying to rip out throats, Jasper. That’s not the way this needs to happen. I need to know that you’ll do this maturely and rationally.”
“Are you breaking up with me?” His tone was measured, trying not to let anything show. My heart seared with heat.
“This is your meeting,” I reminded him warily, looking at him with a grimace and a slight shine in my eyes I knew would show my understanding, were he to walk away. I closed my eyes, feeling the tears coming, and I heard a sound at the window. I wondered if he had left. But when I opened my eyes, he was just standing next to it, watching me carefully, casually.
He shook his head. “I’m not going to share you.”
“I know. And I understand.” I swallowed. “I love you. But I love Paul too, Jasper. I don’t want you to make me choose.”
“I’m not going to share you,” Jasper repeated.
Before I knew what had happened, he had disappeared out the open window, the only evidence that he was here being those whispered words. I closed my eyes again, but I knew that, this time, when I opened them, Jasper wouldn’t be there.
♠ ♠ ♠
:)© The Surrealist, 2011