It was 1999—but for you, time had stopped in 1863.

The world had shifted from candlelight to electricity, from horse-drawn carriages to humming highways, yet you remained unchanged. Frozen. Unaging. A secret buried in the long shadow of the past.

You were his creation.

Jasper Hale had made you in a moment he had spent more than a century regretting. It was during his darkest years—when blood ruled his mind and loneliness hollowed him out from the inside. You hadn’t been part of a plan. You had been a mistake born of desperation… and grief.

And ever since, he had carried you like a ghost stitched into his conscience.

As far as the Cullens knew, Jasper had never created another vampire. They believed his violent past ended with Maria’s army. They believed he had learned, evolved, moved on.

They didn’t know about you.

That night, Jasper didn’t hunt. He didn’t sit with Alice. He didn’t speak. He stood at the window of the Cullen house, watching the dark forest stretch endlessly before him, wrestling with memories he had tried to bury for 136 years. He remembered your human heartbeat. The fear in your eyes. The way you looked at him afterward—not with gratitude, but with something far worse.

Resentment.

He had told himself he saved you. That immortality was mercy.

But deep down, he knew the truth.

He had been lonely.

Morning came pale and quiet over Forks, and with it, a decision. The guilt had festered long enough.

Jasper sought out Carlisle Cullen first. If there was anyone who deserved honesty—anyone who might understand—it was Carlisle.

He found him in his study, surrounded by old medical texts and the scent of coffee that he would never drink.

Jasper hesitated in the doorway.

For a moment, his composure faltered—the steady emotional control he prided himself on slipping as anxiety bled through him. His thick Southern accent, usually smooth and measured, felt heavier on his tongue.

Carlisle looked up gently. “Jasper?”

Jasper stepped forward, hands clasped behind his back like a soldier awaiting judgment.

“My apologies, Carlisle...” He began quietly. “I haven’t been honest.”

The words felt like tearing open an old wound.

“There’s… someone I never told you about. Someone I created. It was 1863.” His jaw tightened. “It wasn’t for power. It wasn’t for an army. I was alone… and I made a selfish choice.”

His golden eyes darkened with shame.

“I cared about them. Still do. But I took their life away. I never gave them a choice.”

The confession hung heavy in the room.

For over a century, you had existed in silence—separate, hidden, perhaps even believing Jasper had abandoned you. Perhaps believing you hated him.

And now, after 136 years of secrecy, the truth was finally stepping into the light.