CHAPTER EIGHT

To Jasper Hale, Eleanora Hadley was a mystery, an enigma that despite his increasing time spent with the brunette, he still couldn't quite work her out. Everything about her from the condition she refused to let define her,  her aversion to people asking if she was alright convinced that they always had better things to do rather than ask her, the way her smile would light up a room, or how her sarcastic, joking personality never failed to make someone's day better and of course those crosswords she was always seemed to be doing. There were a million perfect, little things that made up Eleanora Hadley and Jasper wanted, no needed to know them all. The only thing standing in his way, the fact that he just didn't know how to do so without accidentally hurting her when he was least expecting it. 

Alice had told him a million times that he wouldn't hurt her, that he had more control than he gave himself credit for, the rest of his family offering similar statements. But why did that matter when at the end of the day, Jasper knew exactly who he was. A monster. He wouldn't allow Eleanora to get caught up with him, only to have it all thrown back in his face with a brief lapse of control, that would only mean another loss of a life. 

He was going to do it. He was going to tell her that they simply couldn't be friends anymore or whatever they were, acquaintances maybe. After all, despite their history project as well as his tendency to watch her complete her crosswords, they couldn't quite be considered friends, right? However, as soon as he passed her, where Eleanora was leaning against her locker and laughing at something with her best friend, Sydney Taylor, she looked up at him and sent him a bright, dazzling smile, Jasper immediately lost any conviction to strip himself of her company, the sudden urge to speak to her overwhelming him instead. 

"I think the word you were looking for was 'monochrome'," Jasper said, his sharpened eyesight picking up the missing word, from a good few metres away, on the crossword Eleanora was working on while trying to say involved in the conversation at the time. Her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth in concentration as always. 

As he drew closer, her scent, the scent of her blood filled his nose. The sound of it pulsing through his ears. He knew the pained expression that so many Forks High School students had attributed with his character was slowly creeping its way onto his face, but the second she looked at him it retreated away once more. 

"Thanks! It was just the one I was looking for" Eleanora smiled brightly, as Jasper breezed past her once more, Sydney letting out a small shriek of surprise that rang loudly in his ears at his sudden appearance then disappearance. 

Jasper looked over his shoulder at her, the pencil delicately placing curving letters into the squares. Eleanora looked up, meeting his gaze as the two of them stared at each other for a few moments, a habit that Jasper had easily and willingly fallen into before Sydney grabbed her attention once more. Jasper was once more left with nothing but his own thoughts to accompany him as he walked out of the school. 

Eleanora Hadley sat in the kitchen as she watched her mum frantically pull together a dinner before she would once more leave the house and her only daughter alone for the majority of the night. 

"Elijah called me this afternoon," Allison informed, her eyes skimming past her daughter's. 

"Yeah, and what did the troll want this time? Another paint job on his car? Hopefully, he'll take on my suggestion of vomit green, it would perfectly suit his personality after all." Ellie chuckled. "Although I'm sure a poop brown would have the same effect."

"Not quite, El. But he'll be coming down next week, so please be on your best behaviour."

"My best behaviour?" Ellie repeated. "Great parenting advice there, Mum. If only it applied to both children."

"Eleanora." Allison reprimanded.

"Fine, fine." Ellie returned, swivelling in her seat before going to leave the room, her laughter loudly reverbrating against the walls along the way. Abstract art, replacing the typical family photos that you would usually find in a family house, shaking with each movement. "I'll be on my best behaviour as always!" 

"Ellie!" Allison returned, desperately trying to bring something to her daughter's attention. 

However, Ellie was too busy caught up in her laughter to notice the danger being laid out in front of her. 

"What?" Ellie asked, whipping a hand over her shoulder, only to thud to the ground. 

The loud thud echoed through to the kitchen, Allison Hadley frantically checking in on her daughter. "Ellie, are you okay?"

She had been nearly thirteen when it had first happened. Reaching an almost six-month struggle with Narcolepsy, both herself, her Mum and her doctors were all praying for the exact opposite of what had happened. It was bad enough that the nearly thirteen-year-old had to suffer from Narcolepsy on an everyday basis, but considering her symptoms weren't as severe as some, all parties involved were confident that maybe this one thing didn't apply to Eleanora Hadley, that she had finally gotten lucky in the year from hell. But, they couldn't have been more wrong. 

It had happened to a completely unexpecting Eleanora Hadley and Sydney Taylor, on a completely normal Saturday afternoon. The two friends still in the beginning stages of their friendship, but already with an inkling that it was a great friendship to come. 

Ellie had been warned that it could potentially happen, just another symptom but one much more severely damaging in a million different ways. Cataplexy, that's what the doctors called it, a word that had intrigued Ellie since the moment she heard it. She just hadn't thought it would happen to her. 

It was the children's television show that was the main culprit, the giggly nature of the two preteens the other cause. It had only taken a split-second. A simple rambunctious bout of laughter like the two of them had been doing all afternoon was all it took. 

All it took for Eleanora Hadley to end up on the floor, completely losing control of her body altogether, her eyes fluttering. She was conscious but with her muscles completely limp, she was at a complete loss to move. 

A few seconds had passed when 12-year-old Sydney realised that her friend wasn't playing a game anymore and something was seriously wrong, shouting for her parents who immediately came running, rushing the brunette to Forks Hospital, frantically calling a working Allison Hadley who immediately dropped everything to hurry to her daughter's side. That had been the first time that Ellie had been to Forks Hospital in a emergency and it certainly wouldn't be the last. 

"Ellie, honey. Please tell me that you are okay!" Allison Hadley shouted once more from the kitchen, panic rapidly rising in her throat. 

"I'm okay!" Ellie shouted back, steeling herself with a hand on the bannister. "I just tripped."

"You sure?" Allison continued, her dark curly head of hair popping around the wall, only sighing with relief when seeing her daughter completely fine. 

"Positively positive."