Cliff Diver || Paul Lahote•Jacob Black/Twilight Fanfiction

Chapter 21

"I'll leave now but will be back tomorrow after school, try the meditations I told you about. Remember, focus on your breath and nothing else, you hear me?" Renata told Leah as she left the house at noon.

She would be arriving to school during History with Jasper if she was fast enough. Leah had lent her a light blue sweatshirt so she didn't go to school with the same clothing as the day before. Renata ran to the hospital to Carlisle to get an absence note for the first half of the day, and then ran to school. Before entering, she checked herself in a window to make sure she didn't look like a complete mess. She went to the main office, and smiled at the lady in the front desk.

"Renata, right?" She asked.

"Yeah, hi"

"What can I do for you, dear?" The lady asked kindly.

"Well, I was absent to the first half of the day, I have a note from the hospital" Renata told her and gave her the note.

"Oh? Are you well?" The lady asked worriedly.

"Yeah, it must have been something I ate, I got sick at night and very dehydrated so Carlisle took me to the hospital for a saline solution, but I'm okay, thank you" Renata told her with a smile.

"Very well, dear, if you feel down, you can always come here and I'll call Dr. Cullen or Mrs. Cullen for you" she said and waved at Renata when she left the office.

"How's everything?" Jasper asked as she entered the room.

"Chaos all over" Renata huffed and flopped herself at Jasper. He chuckled and patted her head.

Class went by slowly, the teacher told them they would have to do a project on the American Civil War for the next week in partners. Renata chuckled and looked at Jasper, who groaned and rolled his eyes. Renata immediately paired with Jasper who conveniently had majored several times in History.

"You'll get through it, I know it" Jasper told her truthfully.

It was not Renata's blood that made it hard for Jasper to be around, but the fact that a part of him felt guilty of what happened to her brothers. If he had only killed Maria, she would still be home with her family. During his time with Maria in Mexico, she helped her claim many territories, he helped create many vampires, most of them who had been killed within a year from their birth but after he left, many remained. He knew of the Itzá people far before Renata's grandparents were even born, Maria spoke of them, they should avoid their territory at all costs, the House of the Jaguar was a place to be feared by vampires, since mighty creatures protected it with the strength of gods. They protected humans from the Zotzil Uinic, which translated to "bat men", and they had always protected humans, even since pre-Colombian times the warriors had learned to fight them. Jasper had been truly afraid of them, even if he had never met one, just by the thought of jaguar people destroying his body with their fangs was quite enough to make him stay away. He remembered asking Maria once how they would get rid of the Itzá and she answered "We wait. Mexicans don't always value their culture, it won't be long before their lands are expropriated by the government or they are forgotten", she had said it with a tint of regret. Yes, she was a vampire, but she was Mexican and it saddened her to see how her own people made less of their roots. After that, Jasper didn't think much of it, he met Peter and helped him get away with Charlotte, and then he left. After that, Jasper met Alice and they joined the Cullen's, Jasper didn't think about the Itzá people again.

Years and years later, to their door in Alaska arrived Carlos García, a newly made vampire that heard of them, and wanted to become like them, he didn't want to hurt his family. That's when Jasper knew, the Itzá people weren't some militarized clan made for killing vampires, they were just people trying to protect their own. Carlos had been turned by a woman that wanted to use him to destroy the Itzá from the inside, but even with blood thirst and a frenzy going through him, Carlos would never hurt his family. He told them "If I had been a Balam-Cahob, the vampire venom wouldn't have turned me, but we thought our town was safe... they had not come for two decades, boys stopped phasing... until last week... she turned me and some others, my wife had mercy on me, she let me live and escape, others that hadn't escape, they didn't get any mercy". Carlisle taught Carlos how to resist the thirst, how to resist the temptation of the blood, and then he returned home, showed them how vampires could be different.

About two years later, the Cullen's decided to visit their Mexican friend and went all the way to Mexico to do it. They were received cautiously but kindly by Karina Moctezuma, Carlos' wife, and by their eldest son, Daniel, who was 19 at the time and was already the head of the prowl. The Cullen's stayed with Carlos' family, and they met their other four children, Claudio, who was 12, and the triplets that were 5. Jasper remembered Renata, she was a bubbly child that saw nothing wrong with her father, she loved him the same. That's when Jasper realised why Carlos had sought for their help, that little happy girl was worth it, she was why he knew he wouldn't become a monster. Renata took interest in Jasper that time, she looked intently at his arms, where he had all of his scars, even if they were almost invisible to the human eye, Renata had looked at them and said "ouch" before going to her room and returning with rainbow bandaids and putting them over Jasper's scars. Renata surely didn't remember any of that, but Jasper did, he remembered thinking that if that child trusted him enough and cared for him, he must not have been the monster he thought he was.  Seeing Renata sitting next to him, twelve years after they met, seeing her grow into who she was now, a brave, strong and kindly spirited girl that saw nothing wrong in him and that cared for him, it was enough proof for Jasper that he was, indeed, not a monster as he had thought.

"Hey, Jasper" Renata waved her hand in front of his face, "are you with me?"

"Yeah, what is it?" Jasper asked confused.

"Class is over, c'mon" Renata told him and stood up, she had already put all of her things away, "if I didn't know better, I would have said you fell asleep" Renata and Jasper laughed.

"Some thing like that, I got absorbed in my own thoughts, poppet" Jasper said and he too put all of his things away.

"Hey, I don't know about you but I, for one, am starving" Renata told the blonde guy, who she considered a brother.

"When are you not starving?" Jasper asked and they laughed, going to the cafeteria to buy Renata something to eat.

"I think I might actually be craving for pie"