ATYPICAL | Jasper Hale

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Authors Note: Hello Everyone. It never made much sense to me why Jasper was in Junior year at the start of Twilight considering he and Rosalie are depicted as twins but, for the sake of this story-- we will follow through with that assumption. Rose and Emmett are in their Senior year, the others in Junior. Enjoy.

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It had taken Harlow Alden less than a week in Forks Washington to realise that it very well never stopped raining. Retrospectively, Harlow was not entirely sure where she had garnered the assumption that it would. Before they moved there, her aunt had told her that Forks was the one place where nobody had good hair purely because the rain flattened and frazzled any attempts to make it so. Harlow had never had good hair anyway, least not since she died.

Pulling into the parking lot of the high school in a sleek black SUV with a second driving behind surely was not a brilliant first impression for a place where everybody's cars seemed to be at least ten years old but they had arrived early, thankfully so considering Harlow had taken one for the team and hopped into her father's car to keep him company. Starting a new school was always a harrowing experience and it surely was not made any easier when your father was a teacher. But Harlow knew that her father was as nervous as Asher was-- he too, had a desire to befriend every single person in Forks Washington.

Harlow glanced downward at her outfit and decided that she regretted her choice to dress as a living shadow. It was the colour that came naturally to her and she had falsely convinced herself it would blend her into the background. It most definitely would not. With expensive leather boots clinging to her legs, tight black jeans and a fitted, tailored coat with shiny silver buttons-- she looked nothing like a modern teen and she instantly wished to turn around and go home. She would have, if not for all her siblings and her father wearing very similar attire. It was a safety blanket to them all, to dress like shadows.

"Are you nervous?" her father spoke seemingly out of nowhere and she turned from where she had been watching Harriet pull faces at her in the back seat-- her sister would stay with her throughout the day, there were places she could go, far away in the shadow realm from her sister, to spend time with other relatives but she preferred the company of the girl she had been born into the world with and Harriet could be seen by only Harlow in this state. Harlow had no desire to banish her sisters ghost.

"Everything will be okay, Harry," he promised her, looking right out the front window and not turning to her as he assessed their new surroundings, seeming equally grateful that the parking lot was reasonably empty at this early hour. "No matter what, you will always have us. You do not need anybody else as long as you have a solid family," he flashed his shimmering blue eyes to her, the eyes that all his children had inherited and she smiled, leaning her head on his shoulder in a side hug for half a second. He kissed her hair and she was glad for it, glad for her father who made it worth being alive.

Her door opened a moment later and Hector appeared, tugging his beanie further down his head as though hoping it would swallow him. Beneath his equally black coat, he wore an emerald green sweater. He always made an effort to try and wear colour-- it just did not always give the desired effect. Harlow was his security charm, whenever he was anxious-- she was there and vice versa. She smiled to their father before hopping down, feeling the spiral of mist swirl around and kiss the hollow cavities beneath her protruding cheekbones. She must have made quite the haunting image through the darkness.

"We, as a family, make up half the student body," Arlo noted as he glanced around the area and their father chuckled throatily as he rounded the car and handed Harlow her bag, his own briefcase in hand. He had put in an extreme effort in his appearance that day, going so far as to carefully comb every strand of his hair into perfect place and it warmed Harlow's heart to see how eager he was to make a good impression on his new colleagues... she could only hope that his four living children did not mess it up for him. She knew that even if they did, he would love them all the same.

"Come along, rabble, we were expected at the reception five minutes ago," he waved and they sighed and huffed in unruly harmony as they moved to follow him like ducklings to their mother across the parking lot, avidly avoiding making eye contact with the dozens of eyes trained in their direction. Maverick held up his arm, stopping them from moving as a silver Volvo swept into the lot, slick as he turned and entered a spot without difficulty. Only when it had moved from their path did they continue again. The car did not strike Harlow as being particularly odd, given some of the larger towns they had visited though it seemed to stand out among the rusted and inherited cars surrounding them-- still, the town and its occupants had a certain charm.

Harlow Alden hated herself for even thinking such a thing.

"This year's our year, Harry, you just wait and see," Asher declared and dropped his arm around her shoulder, she just laughed softly and shoved him-- it did not stop him from recovering and doing the same thing all over again. As they made their way to the reception, Harlow found herself wanting it to be true, if not for her miserable triplet brother or for her mentally unstable oldest brother, then for Arlo who had never had a true friend before this had all started or their father who always hoped so desperately that the next town would be their final town.