Yes, I know, it's been a long time. But here's something new! Shout out to Eimear and Jen, who I miss, a lot :( this is your birthday story Eimear! ya, the one I promised aaages ago... lol

What Hurts The Most

Chapter One

With what a deep devotedness of woe,

I wept thy absence o'er and o'er again,

Thinking of thee, still thee, till thought grew pain

And memory, like a drop that, night and day,

Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away!

-Thomas Moore

"Bella. Bella. Are you listening to me? Bella!"

"What, Alice?" I sighed into the pillow. I was trying extremely hard to block out her voice, but I knew there wasn't any point. Alice was persistent, and all resistance was futile. I just didn't want to hear what she was telling me until I was ready to accept it.

"You need to get out of bed, Bella. You need to get up and leave the flat and do things again. All this moping isn't doing you any good. You look like shit."

"Thank you ever so much," I said sarcastically.

Did she seriously expect me to look like Hayden Panettiere when my heart was broken? I wasn't not Wonder Woman, or any other type of strong and brave hero. I knew I was a mess, but I didn't want to be fixed just yet. I just wanted to wallow in my own misery until it all hurt a little bit less.

"I am trying to help, you know," Alice said heavily, and I heard the exasperation in her tone. She was sick of me. They were all sick of me.

Alice annoyed me every day with pep talks and shopping plans and things designed to cheer me up and get me motivated, all of which failed. Her boyfriend, Jasper, whenever he was around, spent some time with me talking in a relaxing and soothing voice, trying to convince me that I would be OK once I started living again. Rosalie gave out to me and told me to stop being such a baby. And Emmett just kept texting me random things, either trying to bug me to death or make me laugh, achieving both. Though as much as I liked Emmett, it was hard to see him or speak to him.

He reminded me too much of Edward.

Fourteen days. Fourteen days without him. It felt like fourteen years, and I couldn't see myself getting out of bed and taking off my pyjamas any time soon. It just hurt too much.

I didn't want to get up and go out and pretend I was OK and start living again. I just wanted to wallow. Wallow and wallow and wallow until all this pain went away.

"I know," I sighed, appreciating her efforts, despite the fact they weren't helping me. I stared at the wall blankly and waited. She'd leave soon, and then I could go back to reminiscing and fantasising and daydreaming and crying and watching romantic comedies and eating chocolate.

"I have to go to work," Alice said, checking her watch. "Something else you really need to think about doing too, Bella. You'll get fired if you take any more time off."

"OK," I said loudly, impatient now for her to go. Work was the last thing on my mind. I had gone in last week, after the break up, when I was still numb and disbelieving and trying to act like it didn't bother me. Ever since it really hit me, for the very first time, I had rarely left my bedroom. With no immediate plans to, either.

"I'll see you later, Bella," Alice said, frustration and worry colouring her tone, and then she left. I listened to her leave our apartment. I lived with her and Rosalie, both of which were in stable and happy relationships, and had jobs and lives and reasons to wake up smiling, and my life had just collapsed all around me. They didn't understand. They just wanted me to smile and be their clumsy and silly and fun best friend again, and fit perfectly back into their perfect lives.

Well, I wasn't in the mood right now for that.

I was too busy trying to breathe without Edward.

I didn't think I could. I wasn't even sure if I could go back to the old Bella. At the moment I wasn't even sure if I could leave my bedroom or not.

Once I was left alone again, there was nothing but a deafening silence, the silence I had grown to hate. I got up and quickly put a DVD on, just so there could be noise. I wasn't sure why I felt so inclined to watch the romantic comedies, where it was all mushy and cute and the protagonists both got together in the end. I was just torturing myself. It didn't work like that in real life. Yet I was so addicted to watching others getting their fairytale ending, and eating lots of chocolate while doing it.

And so I slipped back into my now daily routine, my Surviving Without Edward routine.

Keep myself distracted - check. The DVDs took my mind off everything, even if only briefly. Not think about him - check. Well, maybe that was only half checked. OK, so it wasn't checked at all. I couldn't not think about him. I still loved him, and I hadn't wanted us to end, but I couldn't go back and change the past, and so what I had to do was stop thinking about him, and move on. But I couldn't.

I still couldn't believe it had been two weeks already. I didn't know where the time had gone. How had I even lived, breathed, through a second of it?

Two weeks since the break up, and my heart was still broken.

Of course it was. Edward was the love of my life, my soul mate. Soul mates don't just break up. They stay together forever, until they're old and wrinkly and grey and walk at a leisurely pace. That should have been Edward and I. We were made for each other, and we both knew it. I was so stupid to have let something so ridiculous and idiotic ruin what we had.

But we couldn't stay together, not when he didn't trust me.

Jacob worked in the same building as me. I sold advertising space in the local Forks newspaper. Jacob worked on the floor below mine, and he wrote the sports news. I didn't know him at all until he accidentally spilt coffee all over me one morning in the canteen, and apologised profusely for days afterwards. We just continued talking, and eventually became great buddies.

Edward took against him immediately, when I introduced them both after bumping into each other in the pub one night.

"I don't like the way he looks at you," he told me, his brow furrowed. "I don't trust him."

"I'm sure you're imagining things," I said, rolling my eyes at my overprotective boyfriend.

"I'm not," he insisted. "He stares at you like he owns you, and he was always finding little excuses to touch your arm… you may not have noticed it, but I did."

I shook my head at him. "We're just friends, Edward."

"Does he know that?"

I rolled my eyes again, and ignored him until he apologised.

But it just got worse.

Edward and I began fighting almost every day. He just kept questioning me about Jacob, and I was getting sick of repeating myself over and over.

"Even if he did have feelings for me, it doesn't mean I'm going to do anything about it!" I yelled one evening, pushed over my limit. "Why don't you trust me when I say that?"

"I do trust you!" Edward said loudly. "It's him I don't trust!"

"Take it up with him, then!" I shrieked. "I'm tired of having this same fight with you, Edward. I love you, not Jacob. I don't know why you don't just believe me when I say that, and let it go!"

He never let it go. We continued to fight, until eventually, we snapped.

"Edward, please just stop," I begged, after being subjected to another rant of what Edward believed Jacob was up to. "I don't want to do this anymore."

I just meant the fighting.

But Edward sighed.

"Maybe you're right. We should take a break… from each other… for a while…" he trailed off at the look on my face.

"What?" I asked shakily, not sure if I had heard him correctly.

"It's probably for the best," Edward said, more to himself than to me, glaring at the wall. I stared at him for the longest time, but he wouldn't look at me. He wouldn't take back what he had just said.

The room span around me, and I struggled with myself not to collapse.

"OK," I managed to say, and even to myself, I sounded empty, like I wasn't even there anymore.

Edward turned his head but I was already leaving his apartment. I didn't want him to see my face. I didn't want him to know how much this was hurting me. I also didn't want to look into his beautiful green eyes and realise just how much I had lost.

I was angry, for about an hour. How had I let this happen? How could I let a stupid insecurity of his get so bad that it eventually tore us apart?

How did we get here? When did everything start falling apart? How did I not see this coming? I could have stopped this from happening.

But why didn't Edward trust me? Believe me? Love me enough to want to work this out with me?

I couldn't be apart from him, I couldn't. At what point had I lost him?

I ignored the questions at first, but they were stuck in my head, swirling around, torturing me. Everything hit me so hard one night, and so began the week of crying and moping, depression and despair, lying in bed eating chocolates and watching romantic comedies, torturing myself with the notion that the couples who were meant to be always stayed together in the end.

I thought Edward had been my forever, and I couldn't believe how I had let it all slip through my fingers.

My heart jumped violently, as my cell phone began to vibrate on the bedside table. I frowned, reaching for it. I wished I could just turn it off altogether, or at least put it on silent, but a pathetic little part of me was stopping me. I was still holding on to the hope that Edward might call or text, and say this was all a big mistake. That hadn't happened yet. It had been two weeks, and I hadn't heard a word from him.

And it hurt.

I recognised the number flashing up on screen; it was Jacob. I winced. Despite being good friends with Jacob, I just couldn't bring myself to confide in him about this. I knew I was worrying him. I hadn't spoken to him since the break up. I really wanted to blame him for it, shout and scream and tell him to stay away from me for life, because he was the reason Edward didn't love me anymore… but it wasn't his fault. He did nothing.

It was all down to me. Edward was insecure, but I accused him of not trusting me. This was my fault. Instead of doing everything I could to prove to Edward there was nothing for him to fear by my being friends with Jacob, I ignored the fissure. And it just got bigger and bigger, until the crack between us was too big to ignore anymore.

I didn't answer the phone. I couldn't hear Jake's cheerful tones and pretend to him that everything was fine, when nothing was. I just needed some time, and then I might be able to face him.

The phone stopped vibrating after a while, and then I just listened to the silence. I realised the DVD had stopped playing, and the silence was deafening, suffocating. I just lay there in a miserable stupor, refusing to think of anything, suspended in depression.

I don't know how long I stayed there like that, but the sound of the front door slamming snapped me out of it. As I heard Emmett's booming voice and Rosalie's tinkling laugh, my heart sank. I knew they were going to come in, and be frank and honest and say stuff I didn't want to hear, just like they always did.

"Bella!" Emmett exploded into my room, as tall and as muscly as ever, Rosalie close behind him, looking effortlessly stunning, as always. Emmett threw himself on my bed, much to my irritation, while Rosalie eyed the chocolate wrappers and opened DVD boxes with disapproval.

"Ever heard of knocking?" I muttered grumpily.

"So, Bells, are you still moping?" Emmett asked, ignoring my disgruntled expression.

"I am not moping." Emmett made a sound of disagreement, and I sighed at him. "I'm just sad, is all."

I had to look away from him, because he looked too much like his brother. He had the same handsome features, only he had dimples whereas Edward didn't, and he left his hair wild and curly, while Edward gelled it into careful disarray. I used to love the concentration on his face when he focussed on getting it exactly right, frowning into the mirror with a tub of gel in one hand. That memory stung, and I had to stop thinking about it immediately.

I really wanted to ask about Edward, find out if he was as miserable as I was, but I really didn't want to hear the answer, whichever one it was. It would just hurt, and I was sick of hurting.

"It looks like moping to me," Emmett continued, breaking me out of my troublesome thoughts.

I sighed heavily.

"This is getting ridiculous now, Bella," Rosalie began, and from her tone I knew she was about to embark on one of her rants. "We're taking you out clubbing tonight -"

"My idea of hell," I interrupted, horror-struck at the thought.

"- because enough is enough!" Rosalie continued, ignoring me. "You need to start living again. Relationships end, people move on. Fact."

Her blunt words were stabbing me like little knives on my skin. I didn't want to move on. But I knew she was right. I wondered was Edward clubbing, moving on? I decided not to think about that, either.

"Dust off all those whorey clothes for tonight, so," Emmett joked.

"Oh, go away," I mumbled.

"Make me."

"I will."

"Go on and try."

"Just watch me."

"I'm waiting."

"I'm gearing up for it."

"C'mon then Bella, I'm growing a beard here."

I smiled. Damn Emmett, and his ability for cheering me up, even when I was desperate to be miserable.

Rosalie sniffed, reminding us she was there, looking annoyed at our childishness.

"Right," she said. "So, Bella, are you getting up?"

"No."

"Bella," she said threateningly.

"Rose," I whined, "I don't want to get up or do anything. I really don't feel like it."

Rosalie sat on the edge of my bed, sighing. I eyed her suspiciously, feeling trapped by her on one side and Emmett on the other.

"Bells," she began gently, "we know you're hurting. We get it. It hurts, it sucks… but you need to distract yourself, because lying here thinking about it makes it worse. It's like picking at a wound - it won't heal if you keep doing it. So please get out of bed? Shower. Alice and I will make you gorgeous. And then come out clubbing with us, and dance and drink and have fun. You remember fun? Having a laugh? Enjoying yourself?"

I just gazed at her despondently.

She gazed back, her expression a mixture of concern and frustration, almost mirroring Alice's this morning. I looked away from her, because it made me feel guilty, and my eyes landed on Emmett. He looked hopeful, earnest, waiting on my response. Emmett was always up for anything. He never turned down an excuse to have fun. Or drink.

I remembered when I used to be like that.

Now I was just… boring. Depressed. Useless. My friends were despairing of me. I felt guilty, and wanted them to stop worrying about me, but the lure of wallowing in the comfort of my bed was too strong.

But I knew that I couldn't do it forever.

I took a deep breath.

"OK," I agreed. "But I'm not promising much."

"Yes!" Emmett exclaimed, raising his hand for a high five, which I gave him reluctantly. Rosalie smiled encouragingly at me, looking relieved.

Emmett rolled off the bed enthusiastically. "Right," he boomed. "Rose, you pick the dress. I'll pick the underwear in case she gets lucky tonight!"

"Emmett!" Rosalie scolded. "Remember that conversation we had about tact and when to use it?"

"It's OK," I said, shrugging it off, climbing out of bed. "I'm going for a shower. Emmett, stay out of my underwear drawer."

I left the room, unable to help hearing Rosalie hissing at her boyfriend.

"You're such a spastic sometimes! The reason she's been moping is because her and Edward broke up! The last thing she wants to do is get with anyone else, you dumbass, at least not this soon anyway!"

"Chill, Rose, it was just a joke!" Emmett defended himself.

"It wasn't funny! We're going to help Bella through this if it's the last thing we do, because your equally as stupid brother hurt her, and I -"

I blocked out the rest of their conversation abruptly, not wanting to hear anymore. I didn't need help to get through this. I could do it on my own. Like Rosalie said, people broke up all the time. My heart would heal eventually.

As I stood under the hot jet of water five minutes later, I wondered dully if I didn't have my friends around me forcing me to do things, how long it would have taken for me to get out of bed and stop wallowing over Edward.