AN: This is my first shot at writing fic for the public eye. :) So please, feedback, anyone? I'm also hoping to get enough feedback and words of encouragement to keep me going and writing the rest of this story. I think they need to explain themselves further...at least I feel like they're nagging me for leaving this so open..

Disclaimer: I do not own anything Twilight-related, the characters are all owned by SM. The words are mine.


Listen To Your Heart, Chapter 1

Love Falls Apart

I know there's something in the wake of your smile.
I get a notion from the look in your eyes, yea.
You've built a love but that love falls apart.
Your little piece of heaven turns too dark.

-Listen To Your Heart by Roxette-

JPOV

I wasn't a kid anymore. I was a grown man. Going steadily towards my 25th birthday. It wasn't easy, being the adult when you were with someone who could act like a child when things got rough... And gods could Edward do that... As smart, as intelligent and educated as he was I couldn't believe the naive things he could say or do to get to my nerves. So we had been together for years now, two days after my birthday it would be six whole years of being Us instead of two Mes. Yet it didn't come naturally to him, it did to me because I was more of a couple-type of person. I was happiest when I was a part of a couple and I knew that was sad and pathetic but also true.

He...well he was and is more independent. Edward gets lost in his work a lot. He gets lost in the way other men look at him when we go to party. He doesn't actually cheat on me, not after the one time when I caught him red handed, kissing someone else... No, the other man wasn't anyone special, maybe that was why it hurt me so. I would get it, almost, if he would cheat on me with someone he had real feelings for but it's never been like that. "I have eyes for only you, Jasper, you know that." That is what he always says. And I belive him, most of the time.

But when you've known someone since your early teens and been with them since you were nineteen it pretty much made you know the person inside and out. I knew what kind of a man Edward Masen was. I knew he was passionate and loving and loyal to me. Hardworking professionally and a good friend to the few true friends he had. But I also knew he was fickle. He loved attention, there was a slight vanity behind his dark green eyes that I hated sometimes. So maybe I was the pretty one, so to speak, he was the ruggedly handsome one now that he was older and usually had a bit of stubble on his chin. I was the one with the more soft features and the dirty blonde curls which he called my halo.

Sadly I knew, I fretted, that the day would come when I wouldn't be enough. That was why I had saved money on a secret bank account. I needed to have a nest egg if he cheated on me or kicked me out of our home. I needed security. I needed a back up plan. I knew the day would come, no matter how hard I tried to deny it...one day he'd get tired of me, the less intelligent, less manly, less everything Jasper. And I'd be prepared. Or so I thought...

EPOV

We'd been together for five years, our six year anniversary was just around the corner. I still remember the day we were finally officially a couple. It had been after Jasper's nineteenth birthday, the party of which had been the first time we had kissed for real instead of the stolen kisses when nobody was looking and we were both drunk to boot or pretending to be. Our friends were the same, our families had lived in the same neighborhood since we were kids...it wasn't easy to fall for someone who had been just another mate for most of your life.

But we did, fall for each other. It was at his birthday party in the garden of his parents' house where we finally gave in to the desire for real. We had been dancing and drinking a bit, the whole group of friends we had that were close to us. Bella was there, and Emmett, Alice, Rosalie, Jacob...all the people important to use who were from the same neighborhood. Truth or dare...so classic it still makes me laugh when I think about it. It was the kind old friends play, people who know about everything about each other. A kissing game. There were loud hoots when the girls had to kiss each other, but then I spun the bottle and it pointed to Jasper.

We kissed, to the surprise of everyone else. It was nothing compared the surprisement when the kiss didn't end after a second or two. Finally my sister Alice coughed and we returned to earth and to the blood pooling to our cheeks and to our groins. Two nights later I gathered enough courage to ask him to be mine. From that night on it was me and Jasper. Our friends and families just wanted us to be happy so if you didn't count the teasing we got from the guys everything was just fine.

I loved him. I love him. He's my everything. But that tends to slip my mind when someone looks at me in a certain way in a bar or a club. I can't help it. Some say that if you love your partner he or she is all you need. That's true, but it's in my nature to have wandering eyes and if someone's eyes wander to mine... It's no excuse, to be like this. I never cheat on Jasper, I never can, but the looks hurt him too. Maybe even worse than any actions could. He knows part of me wants to, he knows I'm not going to do anything. At least I hope he knows that...

JPOV

My birthday party, the old gang was with us, we went to a gay club which was a hoot because the straight guys we had with us were extremely uncomfortable about it until they had a few drinks in. Even Emmett was dancing after a few shots of tequila. We were having fun, I had gotten presents I wouldn't have accepted if I didn't have to like a trip to England from Edward and out parents, of course the tickets were for both of us but it still made me feel slightly uncomfortable when someone invested so much money in me.

The others had gotten me things they knew I'd like that just showed how well our friends knew me. They also knew Edward, so when we were dancing and he excused himself to go to the restroom, I saw Alice watching after her brother a bit worriedly. I decided not to care. Jake asked me to dance with him when some stranger tried to snatch me when he saw Edward leave my side and I was relieved. Besides I liked Jake, he was a good mate who wanted what was best for us.

When Edward didn't return in the suitable time I decided to go after him. Emmett was right after me when he saw what I was doing. He was my oldest friend and he knew Edward as well...even Emmett was worried. It hurt and it felt good at the same time. To know they were thinking about the same thing I was and that they knew how I'd react, what would ensue, if he'd do something stupid on my birthday.

EPOV

We were clubbing for Jasper's birthday. Drinking a bit, not too much. I was planning on getting home remotely early and fucking my lover silly for his birthday. I was prepared to do things we didn't do anymore, things that I knew would drive him wild and I'd do them for him because it was a special occasion. No, our sexlife was not boring or had our passion for each other faded over time but it was still not the same than it had been in the first few years. That happens in every long relationship and us being the age we were, him 25 and me 27, it was pretty long time we had been together.

I excused myself to go to the mensroom and I could feel at least one set of eyes on my back. I was drunk but not that drunk and I have never cheated on Jasper, so why would I do that now, on his birthday of all days of our six years together?? It made me mad, to have so little faith from my friends and my loved ones... It hurt as well. Maybe that was why my guards were down that moment..

I walked through the club, running my fingers through my already tousled bronze hair and shook my head while I walked. I had to stop at the edge of the crowd because some bigger group of people were just entering the club and trying to circle the crowd to get to the other side instead of going through like I just had. That was when someone tapped on my shoulder. I turned around and a huge grin spread to my face. It was Paul! My first crush, a friend of Jake's as well and I hadn't seen him in years. "Edward!" he exclaimed and hugged me tightly and I hugged him back. He was drunk, more than I was, I could tell. "Paul, oh my god, I didn't know you were back in town!" I spoke to his ear and he explained it to me, he was on holiday and visiting his folks and so on. "Hey I was going to the restroom, need to take a leak. Don't go anywhere!" I told him and he nodded.

I was in the surprisingly empty mensroom, washing my hands when I heard the door. There were multiple mensrooms around the sides of the club so that explained why it was quietin this one. I looked through the mirror and saw Paul enter the room. I knew that look... Before I could react other than to turn around, he hadn't asked me if I was still with Jasper nor did he seem to care, he was kissing me. He was my first crush. That's my only excuse. Maybe if this had happened years before, when we were still teenagers, maybe I wouldn't be with Jasper now but with Paul, who knew. But I was with Jasper and that fact was wiped away from my mind when the gorgeous, muscular body was suddenly pressed against mine, his lips against mine, his tongue in my mouth I had opened for him to kiss... Then suddenly there was a wail, that's the best way I could describe it, and my eyes flew open and I realised what I was doing, what Paul was doing, what we were doing and pushed him away only to see familiar green eyes staring at me in horror from the mensroom door.

JPOV

I entered the mensroom with Emmett on my flank when my worst nightmare was suddenly unfolding in front my shocked eyes. There was a sound coming from my slightly open mouth suddenly. That seemed to shake him in to reality, what he was doing, I would have known the tattoo on the other guy's neck anywhere. It was Paul, Edward's first crush whom I knew he never had the change to get to know intimately. Maybe this was the chance he had been waiting for? Maybe they had planned this? Who knew how long this had been going on? Edward, with his tongue in Paul's mouth...the image was burned to the back of my mind and Emmett moved so I could get past him. The last thing I registered was Emmett growling. "Don't you dare go near him again!!" as he was holding Edward back so that he couldn't come after me.

The rest of the gang was there now too, outside the mensroom and they saw something was wrong. It was easy, tears were running through my face. Alice looked like she had seen a ghost of betraying brother's past or something. She ran in to the mensroom, not caring about who was there and I could hear her chiming voice "What did you do?? What the hell did you do??" even over the music. It was Bella who took me home. The home I had built for myself and Edward. The home we had built for years.

I collapsed to bed, a crying mess of a man. Everything I had believed in was true. I was never enough. It had always been Paul, hadn't it? I was just a substitute that devoted himself to Edward when he couldn't have the man he really wanted. Bella stayed with me until I fell in to a restless sleep holding the last pieces of my broken heart.

EPOV

I tried to storm after Jasper but Emmett held me back. I'm not a small man or weak, but Em is a brick wall...and then my sister was there, her high chiming voice saying words I knew were coming eventually. I wanted to go home, to explain the unexplainable, to salvage what there was to salvage... I had built a relationship with him for six years and now I had ruined it. I should have known better, I should have pushed Paul away...

Why was it all ruined so easily? Surely gay men were doing this stuff and worse more or less openly all the time? Why did I know we were finished? Because it was my second strike. Jasper gave people one free pass for everything. The second time they crossed him, betrayed his trust, it was over. What ever sort of relationship it had been, it was over. I had seen it happening over and over again, I knew we were through. We also had a rule. Look but don't touch. The rule was there for me. Jasper didn't need it, I knew that. He truly had eyes for only me. In this situation it just made me feel worse to be saying that myself and then doing something like this... I felt like shit, which I deserved. Alice took me to her place. Emmett told me to not go home until invited or else... The others, they just looked totally and utterly disappointed in me.

It didn't truly hit me until the next morning. I woke up, startled because my body had realised I wasn't in my own bed. I reached blindly to my left and instead of Jasper my had touched a wall. It made me open my eyes and realise three things: firstly, I had a splitting headache because I has hung over, secondly, I was at Alice's, sleeping in her den in her spare bed and thirdly, I had done something irreversible. I had ruined everything. I darted up from the bed, managed to get to the bathroom just in time. I spent half an hour hugging the toilet. Very little of my dry heaving in the end had to do with the alcohol from the previous night.

JPOV

I woke up, I felt drained. No hangover, just quiet determination. I got out of bed, already shutting the parts of myself that had anything to do with Edw..him, off. I showered, packed my things including most of my autumn clothing (I would get more warm clothes for the winter and then go from there), my favorite books (I settled for five books and that was absolutely the maximum amount I would be able to carry), the photos of my family (leaving all that had him in them, including my favorite picture from our 5 year anniversary, it had me and him, our gang of friends and both our parents in it), a few cds and my laptop. Everything else I left.

Bella watched me move around, I must have looked like a robot. She never spoke or asked a thing, just stood there, somehow strangely keeping me going with her friendship. I appreciated her silent support. She seemed like an anchor to reality. "Would you drive me to a hotel?" I asked in a raspy voice and she nodded. She waited for me to check in to the hotel and told me to call her if I needed her and I promised to do so, mechanically, not with real emotion and I hated the worry in her eyes but she knew better than to mention it.

I had plans. I could do this. When I got to my room and place my suitcases down, I stood in the middle of the little room for a moment. Then my body began to sway gradually. When the tears began to mess with my vision I gave up and collapsed to the floor and stayed down.

EPOV

That afternoon I got a text message form Jasper. "You're free to go home. I won't be there." It floored me. Something about the message froze something in me. Like someone poured liquid nitrogen over me. Even when we were fighting he was wordy. He needed to explain things with words. This message was short, to the point. Scary. Instantly I knew he wasn't coming back. I also knew he had had a plan, if this would happen. My Jasper wasn't an organizer, he was the one who hurried to get things done and never had a long term plan. He couldn't pull up something like this unless he had planned it as back up. When this would happen. When this would happen. It made me feel even more like the scumbag I was. My love, my reason for living, the light of my life...my green eyed angel...he had felt like he needed to have a back up plan when I would end up doing something stupid?

How do you go on from that? You don't, especially when you go home and realise they really are gone with no trace of you with them... I went to our bed and closed my eyes, hoping I'd never wake up again.