Winter Winds (Jasper Hale Love Story)

I walked out of my house carrying my pair of ice-skates and wrapped my scarf around my neck. I trudged through the snow, while putting on my gloves too, and stopped a couple of feet away where there was a picnic table near a lake.

I set my stuff down and took off my boots.I tied the laces on my ice skates and shoved my boots inside my bag. Warming up with a series of stretches, I opened up my bottle of water and prepared myself for the exercise I was going to get this morning.

I went to Palmer High School: Home of the Ravens. It was a pretty decent school and my older siblings had gone to it and said they had "the best years" of their lives. There isn't really anything to do in Palmer and that's the way I like it.

My summer was spent indoors a majority of the time, ice-skating, or going out with friends. While skating across the lake, I noticed that a few acres near by, there was a moving truck. Not being able to concentrate properly, I skidded to a halt and stared at the house.

It wasn't occupied during the summer, and from what I heard -- it wasn't a good place to live either. If you were to hike or drive through the woods near that house, it would lead you right dab smack in the middle of the Denali Wild Park. A couple,not to long ago, moved out the house after noticing that sometimes grizzly bears would arrive at their house and make a mess out of everything and one even killed their poor dog. Luckily for me, we never encountered any of those problems.

I wanted to stay longer because my curiosity was getting the best of me, but when I checked the time on my cell phone, I nearly fell back. I was almost late for school and had wasted about 20 minutes just gawking at the house, so I skated rapidly across the lake.

C'mon hurry up, I thought to myself. I pushed myself to skate faster. I managed to skate about a mile in less than 10 minutes -- a new skating record for me.

I didn't have enough time to take off my skates and put on my boots again, so I jogged over to my school. I waited at the stop sign, on the corner of my school, for a nice shiny Volvo to keep on driving. When it turned and entered the school's parking lot, I ran across the street with my things and felt absolutely ridiculous. I barely made it inside the school's front gates and sighed tiredly. Fortunately, my class wasn't that far and my Art teacher usually came late to class.

I opened the door to the classroom, and saw that my teacher wasn't here yet. I walked over to my seat in the back of the classroom and saw a group of girls crowding my table. There were about 12 of them and I didn't like any of them.

"Excuse me," I said shoving them out of my way and "accidently" hitting them with my bag.

They all stared at me in a menacing way and I just glared at them. I noticed a boy sitting in my seat and I was getting a bit angry. "You're in my seat," I said feeling pissed off. His back was turned to me and I unwrapped my scarf from my neck and took off my gloves, not really paying attention to the person, as I stored them in my bag.

He turned around and I looked at him. It was a boy with strange topaz-looking eyes. He had a lean body and I could see some faint crescent-looking scars on his face and neck.

"I'm sorry," he said standing up, "I didn't mean to upset you."

I wasn't feeling angry anymore and instead felt a wave of serenity coming over me. "I'm not upset. It's just that we're assigned seats and if I'm not sitting there before the teacher comes, I'll get kicked out of class." I plastered a smile on my face and swayed on my feet a bit.

The girls had left by then and were sitting in their seats -- staring at him and at me.

He grabbed his things and was going to walk away, when I said,"You don't have to leave you know. I'm the only one sitting here by myself. The other tables are full." I motioned with my chin at the other tables and every seat seemed to be full.

He walked back to my table and sat down across from me. "I'm Jasper by the way," he said in a polite tone.

"Marla," I said offering my hand. He faltered a bit and was hesitating on shaking it. He eventually stuck his hand out and shook it. His hands still a felt a bit cold, most likely because of the snow and I let go. "So you're new here, right?" I took off my skates and then got out my boots.

He nodded his head. "I just got here this morning. My aunt and uncle live in that abandoned house over by the lake, with my cousins."

I remembered the people moving in the new house and raised my eyebrows surprised. I was putting on my boots and I looked at him.

" Oh... you're the new people. I live close by there.The people who used to live their moved out because of the animals near the Denali Wild Park. You and your family should really be careful," I said informatively. Most of my friends lived in town and I was the only one who lived by the forest and wildlife. I was kind of excited at the thought of having someone I know, live by me.

"I appreciate your concern, but I suppose you can say my family... likes animals," he said curtly.

Something about that statement sounded odd and chilling.I was going to say something in regards to his quote, when my teacher came in.

"Good morning," she said looking bright.

She was very artsy and wasn't afraid to experiment with colors. The tips of her hair were pink and she wore a variety of colored bangles on her wrists.

"So I hear we have a couple of new students here..." She was looking at some paperwork in her hand and and squinted her eyes a bit. "Do we have a Mr...Hale here?"

Jasper raised his hand and every head turned in his direction. The girls seemed to be gawking over him and the guys seemed a bit envious.

"Nice to meet you Mr.Hale. I see you've met Miss Rossen and you're not the only new student here, am I correct?"

Jasper cleared his throat and spoke aloud. "No ma'am. They should be here soon."

"Well they're certainly late. I hope Miss Rossen has informed you on my strongest policy in class."

"She has," he said.

"I'm going to let this slide then, but be sure to tell your relatives that they have to arrive at school at an earlier time. There don't seem to be any more seats here, so from now on your permanent seat will be at the table with Miss Rossen and your relatives will be seated there as well. Okay, let's get to work class!" She sat down at her desk and was working on some painting of hers.

I twisted my brown hair up in a bun and secured it with a pencil. I got up and went over to the back where I grabbed some pencils, charcoal and sketching paper. I placed the supplies in the middle of the table and slid a piece of paper on Jasper's desk. "Get to work," I said.

He sat there for a couple of seconds, then picked up a piece of charcoal and drew.

We sat in silence for a duration of the period. I was engrossed with my work and didn't like to talk. He had his back hunched over his work as well and would occasionally look across in my direction.

A few minutes later the door opened and 2 new people walked in.

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So one of my current obsessions on the web is this site called "Polyvore" which I adore! You can basically create little outfits put together and it's hard to explain, so I think you should see it for yourself.

Anyways, on this site, I put together a little "set" on what Marla wore the day she first met Jasper (just copy & paste the urls onto your search bars) :

http://www.polyvore.com/winter_winds_ch/set?id=31800445

This is what Jasper wore:

http://www.polyvore.com/winter_winds_jasper_hale_love/set?id=32131493