As always, thank you all for reading and for leaving reviews, you know how much I love them :o) Hope you enjoy the latest installment as Edward tries to keep a promise he makes to Jacob.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Edward's POV

When I opened my eyes, for a moment I didn't know where I was. I was lying on my back staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, a red comforter wrapped around me and I was still wearing my clothes. Then I remembered everything and I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling my face begin to burn with embarrassment as I saw myself pouring everything out to Jacob and then crying all over him like a baby. Oh God, what must he think of me? I lay there cringing for perhaps five minutes before I came to the conclusion that Jacob probably wasn't very surprised by most of what I said, having been there himself. He was the one person who did understand, better even than Mom or her shrink colleagues. That had been the whole point of me coming to talk to him after all. Mom had made me go to an appointment with a guy she worked with ten days before and I had never felt more ill at ease in my life. I had refused to say a word and later shut myself away in my room for the rest of the day. My family hadn't a clue what to do with me and I had begged them to just give me some space to get my head straight. They had reluctantly done that, so had I achieved anything by putting myself through the agony of telling Jacob everything?

I lay thinking for perhaps thirty minutes. I did feel different; not enormously, it wasn't like I'd suddenly found a miracle cure or anything, but I felt lighter, as if a big black cloud hanging over me had started to break up in the wind or something. I was surprised to feel myself smile at the cliched metaphor and I sat up slowly and looked around me. An open door indicated an en suite and I got up and went to use the toilet and freshen up. I was still embarrassed about having to face Jacob. I couldn't hear any sounds that indicated he was awake and part of me wanted to creep out of the house before he saw me, but there was no way I would do that after he'd been so good to me.

I dampened my hair and made a vain attempt to flatten it. One of these days I would have the damned mop cut off so I didn't look quite so much like a mad scientist. I hesitated for another few minutes and then heard sounds from another part of the house. Well, he was up. I put my shoes on and left the room, my heart thumping nervously.

Jacob was in the kitchen making coffee and I avoided looking at him as I walked in. He treated me as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

"Hey, Edward, did you sleep ok?"

"Yes, I did, thanks."

"Coffee?"

"Please."

"White with one, right?"

"How do you know that?" I asked in surprise.

"That's how you drank it in the restaurant," he grinned, pouring coffee from a percolator into a large mug with a picture of a Corvette on it. He added sugar and milk and passed it to me. "I called Emmett last night to let him know where you were."

"Oh! Well, thanks, I didn't think about that, I guess they must have been worried."

"Yeah, a bit," he smiled. "I didn't say much, just that you came to talk to me."

"I...um..." I felt like I should thank him or apologise for everything, but he interrupted me.

"You don't have to say anything. Leave it behind you and start afresh from today."

"Ok. Yes, I'll do that." I sipped my coffee and we stood in silence for a few minutes until Jacob asked if I wanted breakfast. "No, thank you, I better get home."

"Sure. Your phone and keys are in the lounge." He put his mug down and waited while I fetched the items, then walked with me to the door. "Edward, will you promise me something?"

"Yes?"

"Start taking care of yourself. Be in control of that."

"I will, I promise," I said at once. For the first time in a long time, I was beginning to feel I did actually have hope. I opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. "Thank you for being here for me."

"Hey, wait a minute." Barefoot, Jacob came outside towards me. "Come here."

I was surprised when he suddenly wrapped his arms around me and I found myself hugging him back. I pressed my face into his neck and held onto him for a long moment before he let go of me. He felt so good holding me, his strong arms around me and warm hands on my back. I couldn't help wishing things were different, wishing that I was further along the road to recovery.

"Will you call me or text or something and let me know how you are?" he asked now.

I nodded at once and a moment later I was walking back to my car. Jacob was still standing on the porch watching as I drove away and as I headed for home I wondered what I should say to everybody. I was pretty sure Emmett would have told the others whatever Jacob said to him and I expected I would have to face Mom and Dad's scrutiny when I got in. However, the only sign of life was music, if you could call it that, coming from the gym. I headed that way and found Emmett lifting weights and listening to one of his awful heavy metal CDs. He was shirtless and glistening with sweat. He put the large dumbbells down when he saw me and went to turn the music off.

"Where's everyone else?" I asked, noticing that it was still only eight-thirty. Usually Mom would be cooking breakfast about now on a Sunday.

"There was an explosion at the steel factory a couple of hours ago, multiple casualties. Dad got called into the hospital and Mom went along to see if she could be of help to some of the families. Jasper's still in bed, lazy little bastard," he grinned. "Are you ok?"

"Yes, thanks."

"So, you talked to Jacob about Bella?"

"Yes. Don't ask me to go over all that again," I sighed.

"I wasn't going to. So long as it helped, that's the main thing."

"Yes, it did." I took a deep breath. 'Start afresh from today. Start taking care of yourself,' Jacob had said. I had promised I would do as he asked.

"Emmett, will you help me with something?"

"Sure, what?"

"I need to sort myself out; get healthy and look better. Can you help me do that?"

"Seriously?" Emmett said in surprise.

"Yes, whatever you think necessary, I'll do, just train me like you do your clients." I was aware that I was basically telling Emmett to control me, but this time it was my choice to change myself and I doubted I would succeed at it on my own.

Emmett beamed. "I could kiss Jacob Black right now."

I coughed and felt my cheeks warming up as I immediately remembered him kissing me in Finley's. I didn't think that would ever happen again, but I could hope.

"You ready to start now?" Emmett asked.

"Yes."

"Ok, so we need to establish exactly what you want out of this. I mean, how do you imagine yourself looking by the end of it?"

"Um...I don't know...better than I do now," I said. I wouldn't know where to start. Everyone looked better than I did. I glanced at Emmett's bare chest, thinking I would never look like that if I worked out every day for ten years - he was huge.

"Never mind me, I take everything to extremes," he snorted. "You don't have the build to get like this anyway. Jasper!" he shouted suddenly. "Get down here!"

"What the fuck do you want?" Jasper yelled back from upstairs. "I'm asleep!"

"Just get in here!"

Jasper sauntered in a few minutes later, wearing the boxers and t-shirt he slept in, his hair tousled and a mug of coffee in his hand that he had grabbed from the machine in the kitchen on the way.

"What?" he yawned. "Hey, Edward, are you ok?"

"Yes, thanks."

"Get your shirt off," Emmett ordered.

Jasper smirked and balanced his mug on the control panel of the nearby cycling machine. "Emmett, I know you're jealous of my body, but isn't it a little early?"

"Fuck off, just do it."

Shrugging, Jasper peeled off his t-shirt and proceeded to pose like a model, shoving one hip out with his hand resting on it, thrusting his chest forward and pouting before turning around and doing the same thing facing the other way. I bit my lip to suppress a snigger.

"Jas, stop being such a dick," Emmett grimaced. "Have you any idea how camp you are?"

"I am not camp, I'm putting it on, you jerk." He spun around again and grabbed his coffee. "What did you want me for, anyway?"

"Shut up." Emmett pointed at him and looked at me. "You could look like him in, say, three or four months if you work hard. Still slim, but toned - pecs, abs, arms and legs, defined but not bulging."

Jasper rolled his eyes and picked up his t-shirt. "Can I go now?"

"Yes."

"What would I have to do?" I asked. I knew Jasper looked good. If I could look even half as good I would be much happier than I was currently.

"Everything I tell you," Emmett said.

"Ok."

"Did you eat anything yet today?"

"No, I just had coffee."

"Ok, then, let's get started." Emmett turned on his heel and charged towards the kitchen, glancing back once to check I was following. "You're going to need something to give you some energy first. Carbs."

I watched in horror as Emmett poured a large quantity of oatmeal into a bowl, added milk and sugar and stuck it into the microwave. Oatmeal was a great source of carbohydrates and released energy slowly, he informed me. Perfect for a good workout.

"I'll never eat all that, I'm half your size," I protested.

"And that's about half the amount I normally eat," he grinned, pulling a pack of assorted red fruits out of the refrigerator. When the oatmeal finished cooking, he dumped a handful of fruit on top and stuck a spoon into it. "Get that down you."

I sat down at the kitchen counter with a sigh and began to eat. The size of the portion was daunting and I did my best to think about other things to distract myself from it, but I didn't really need to as Emmett started talking, outlining a plan of what would work best to get me in shape.

"CV is the last thing you want to be doing unless it's just a gentle warm-up," he was saying. "We're going to work your muscles, starting with chest and biceps today, back and triceps on Tuesday, shoulders and legs on Thursday. That's what I do with everyone I book in who's starting from scratch. Also abs at the beginning of every session."

"What about the other days?" I asked.

"Rest."

"I'd rather do it every day and get things moving," I told him, putting my spoon down.

"That's not the right way to do it. Keep eating. When you work a muscle hard, you're actually breaking it. Then you rest and feed it protein and it re-grows bigger."

"You're in here practically every day," I reminded him, digging into the oatmeal again.

"I've been doing this for years. I didn't start out this way. Three days a week and a lot of food and rest in between for months before I increased the frequency."

"Oh. So how long is this going to take?"

"You'll see some difference in maybe a month. It's not a race, Edward, you need to do this the right way."

"Ok."

Somehow I managed to eat about three-quarters of the oatmeal before my stomach simply would not take another bite. Emmett sent me off to do what I wanted for a while and instructed me to come back to the gym at eleven o'clock in shorts and t-shirt. I went to my room and spent the time online, reading up about working out. A lot of it seemed so technical and I had never realised how involved it was, despite living with a personal trainer for years. I supposed I had never really taken much notice. To my mind, Emmett just ate a lot, worked out a lot and ended up enormous.

The first workout took only an hour. Somehow I had expected to be in the gym for half the day, but I quickly realised I wouldn't have lasted any longer; in fact I struggled after the first twenty minutes, despite my initial protest that Emmett giving me such light weights to work with was embarrassing. The abs work hadn't been too bad, with an assortment of different types of crunches although I could certainly feel it in my stomach muscles. Next I started the chest exercises - chest presses on a cable machine, then something Emmett called a 'pec deck', then bench presses with a barbell and front raises with five pound dumbbells. Each set of exercises comprised ten repetitions and of these, I worked three sets. I was quickly panting for breath and sweating out every ounce of fluid in my body, feeling slightly sick with the effort. I gritted my teeth and ploughed on, determined not to make myself look any weaker than I already did.

With the chest exercises done, biceps followed, five different exercises with various pieces of equipment or dumbbells until my arms were shaking with the effort and I was groaning with each lift. The last one involved pull-ups using a bar above my head and I knew there was no way in hell I would manage even one of them. I gave it a try regardless and did manage one set, lifting myself just a few inches each time before I had to admit defeat. My chest and arms were on fire and I wanted to sink into a cold bath and stay there for the rest of the day.

"What's next?" I gasped.

"That's it," Emmett grinned. "You did great. You just need to do some stretching." He showed me some simple exercises to stretch out the muscles I'd been working and then led me back into the kitchen and began mixing up one of his protein shakes with powder from a huge tin and milk in the blender. It was a chocolate flavoured one and he poured it out into two glasses and pushed one towards me. "Have that, get a shower and then come back down; I'll give you a massage."

I smiled despite my discomfort. "Is that special treatment because I'm your brother?"

"No, I offer it to all my clients. Half of them just won't pay the extra for it," he winked.

I drank the shake, which tasted reasonably good, but made my stomach feel as if it would explode. I was so unused to filling it up regularly that my slight sick feeling increased rapidly and by the time I got up to my room, I felt pretty terrible. I stripped off my sodden clothes and went into the bathroom, quickly finding myself on my knees in front of the toilet, vomiting violently. When it was over I pulled the toilet seat down and rested my head on it, shivering and groaning, doubts immediately beginning to fill me again. I couldn't do this; how the hell was I going to get through even a week of it, let alone three or four months?

"Edward?" My bedroom door opened and I pushed the bathroom door half closed with my foot at the sound of Jasper.

"Leave me alone," I muttered.

"I heard you puking. Shit, Edward, you're not doing this on purpose, are you?"

"No!" I exclaimed. "I couldn't help it, I feel sick! Get out, Jasper!"

"I'm going to tell Emmett."

"Well, go on and do it then!" I snapped at him. "Close the door on your way out!" I got to my feet and slammed the bathroom door, then switched on the shower. Fuck him. Fuck everybody. I would do it if it killed me, I thought. I'd prove them all wrong and I'd keep my promise to Jacob. 'Start taking care of yourself.' I wasn't going to let him down, whatever else I failed at.

I showered quickly, dried off and put on a pair of shorts and my bathrobe before heading back down to the gym. Emmett had also taken a shower and was wearing a clean t-shirt and sweats.

"Are you ok? Jasper said you were sick," he said at once.

"I'm fine. My stomach was just over-loaded and I'm not used to exercise," I said. "If he said I was making myself sick on purpose..."

"It's alright, don't worry about it," Emmett said. "I puked myself enough times when I started working out hard."

The rest of the day seemed to be a constant intake of food to me. I had never eaten so much in my life, even before I met Bella. After my massage I watched some television and relaxed for a while until Emmett appeared with lunch for us both, which consisted of pasta with tuna. He had taken pity on me and given me a portion I might have a hope of finishing, which I did manage to do. When I got another protein shake about three hours later and then rice, chicken and vegetables for dinner, once again I had to force down every bite.

"I'm going to get fat," I sighed.

"Edward, you're not going to get fat. I'm not feeding you pizza and icecream. You need all this stuff, firstly to put some flesh on your bones, which you need a lot of, believe me, and secondly to give you energy and feed the muscles. I know what I'm doing."

"Yes, I know, sorry."

I shoved another forkful of rice into my mouth just as Mom and Dad came in to find the three of us eating together. Jasper was eating the same food under protest, because he would rather have had something that 'had some taste to it', but was too idle to actually make himself anything.

"Sorry I worried you," I told Mom as she came over and gave me a kiss.

"It's ok, sweetheart. How are you feeling?"

"Not bad."

"Emmett's turning him into a minime," Jasper smirked.

I kicked him under the table. "I just asked him to help me get better. I needed some time to sort my head out and I know what I want now."

"Well, that's good. It's nice to see you all enjoying a meal together."

"I think the word 'enjoying' is a bit strong," grimaced Jasper. "Some kind of sauce might have been nice, Emmett."

"You want sauce, go make some."

I spent the rest of the evening in my room reading some more fitness information on the laptop and glancing at my phone every few minutes. I wondered if Jacob was thinking about me. I wanted to let him know what I was doing and that I was determined to make things better for myself, but I didn't really know what to say. He asked me to let him know, but it hadn't even been one full day; I didn't want to be a nuisance. What the hell. I picked the phone up and began to tap out a message.

'I just wanted to say thanks again for helping me. Emmett is going to help me get fit and eat properly. I will be ok. Edward.'

I received an answer within minutes as if he had been waiting to hear from me. 'Thanks for letting me know, I'm glad you feel able to make a start moving forward. Good luck and keep in touch. J. x.'

Stupidly my heart fluttered as I read the message. I didn't miss the kiss at the end of it and although I tried to tell myself he probably ended a lot of his texts to people like that, it still put a smile on my face.

When I woke on Monday, I felt as if I were being pinned to the bed by an invisible force. My arms, chest and shoulders ached fiercely and when I reached out to pick up my phone to see if I had any more messages, I almost dropped it.

"Shit," I muttered. "Emmett, you're killing me." I sat up slowly, grimacing at the ache in my stomach muscles, and rubbed at my biceps, almost expecting to see they had doubled in size. The amount of discomfort I was feeling indicated they should at least be swollen from over-use, but they looked the same as always - virtually invisible. I sighed heavily and got to my feet. Thank God I didn't have to do anything today; I doubted I would have been able to lift a mug of coffee.

I showered and went downstairs to find Mom in the kitchen making breakfast for everyone. Usually she made two variations of every meal so that Emmett could stick to his eating plan with the exception of the weekends. I knew he had treats on Saturday nights and Mom always made a roast on Sundays if she was home. Today, she was cooking pancakes for herself, Dad and Jasper and making a pan of oatmeal for Emmett and me, so I guessed he must have asked her to feed me the same things he ate.

I spent the rest of the day working on my computer. I had a website to build that I had been fooling about with for the past two weeks, unable to get myself to focus on it properly. The client had emailed me twice to ask how things were going and I had fobbed them off with excuses. Now I put some effort in and made a decent amount of progress during the eight or so hours I worked at it, interrupted only by Emmett bringing me food and hanging around to make sure I finished it.

Tuesday was pretty much the same as Sunday - an hour workout at eleven involving crunches, which were agony to do this time, then back and triceps exercises, all of which I made incredibly hard work of given that my entire upper body felt as if it had been trampled. Wednesday, rest again and Thursday abs, shoulders and legs. That was it for me for the week and I was relieved beyond belief. I was still throwing up after the workouts and it was a struggle to move myself at all. Everything hurt and my stomach felt like it would burst if it was forced to take any more food. I wavered more than once and wondered if it would be better for me to stop trying to be something I wasn't and stick with my computers. It was Saturday afternoon and I was just lying on my bed, aching and miserable, trying to convince myself that failure wasn't an option...and failing. The only thing I hadn't failed at was putting weight on. I didn't look any different, but the scales told me I had gained two pounds. It was probably all in my stomach.

My phone rang and I ignored it while I counted five rings, but it continued persistently and I snatched it up. Jacob's name was flashing on the screen and I fumbled to press the answer button, my heart leaping into my mouth.

"Hey, Jacob," I said, sounding breathless to my own ears.

"Edward. How are you?" He sounded like he was smiling.

"Um...I'm..." I contemplated lying for a few seconds. "Not great," I admitted.

"What's wrong?"

"Uh...nothing really, I'm just being a jerk," I said. "I guess I didn't realise how tough this would be."

"What are you doing exactly?" he asked me and I told him about the excessive amount of food I wasn't used to and the workouts from which I was now as stiff as a board.

"It gets easier," he said. "You're just not used to using your muscles that way. This time next week it'll be a whole lot better."

"God, I hope so, because I feel like I've been run over by a truck!" I exclaimed.

He talked to me for maybe ten minutes, telling me that Dad had sent his Mercedes to him for a service and he had looked at everything while he was at it and found so many things wrong that it was going to take him three days to fix after he got hold of the parts. I knew that car was pretty old, but it was one of Dad's favourites and he would rather fork out thousands of dollars to keep it going than get rid of it.

When I hung up the phone, I felt better. It was almost like he had known to call me at that exact moment when I was floundering and I pulled myself together. It wasn't going to be this tough forever, I just needed to persevere until I could actually see the difference in myself, however hard it might be.

It was another week before I actually saw any change and then it was only the fact that my ribs and shoulders no longer looked as if they were about to tear through my skin. In fact I had filled out all over, but despite pinching and pulling at myself, I couldn't actually find any fat anywhere. I was five pounds heavier than when I started and still aching like hell from head to foot, but I felt better in general. I wasn't puking any more and by Thursday I had got out of bed hungry for the first time in as long as I could remember. I was in the kitchen before anybody else, making the oatmeal myself, much to Mom and Jasper's amazement. Emmett just gave a rather self-satisfied smirk as if he thought he had succeeded at something, which I guessed he had in a way.

I still couldn't really see any appearance of muscle, despite standing in front of my much-hated bathroom mirror practically every day during that second week, flexing my arms and trying to convince myself there was a difference. Emmett had told me enough times it would be a month before it showed, but I was impatient that I still looked puny.

I talked to Jacob again on Saturday and told him I was getting on much better. I wished I could see him, but I wanted to look the best I could look first and despite my hope that he might still want me, a big part of me feared that he was only being my friend and that it wouldn't matter how I looked; he wouldn't want to kiss me or go out with me again. Why would he when he had seen me at such an all-time low?

Two more weeks passed and I had stopped looking at myself in the mirror and trying to will myself to grow. I was consistently gaining weight, but other than that nothing seemed to be happening and my suggestion to Emmett that I use bigger weights hadn't gone down well.

"Form is more important than weight, Edward, you need to use the muscles the right way, not over-work them or compensate with others. It's not a race, you need to give it time."

I threw myself onto my bed and stretched out on my back, hands behind my head. It was Sunday and I had just come back up from the gym after my massage and was still only wearing my shorts. I hadn't even talked to Jacob for eight days, not wanting him to hear me sound disheartened. My door opened and Jasper wandered in.

"What are you doing up here? Mom's making pot roast," he said. "It'll be on the table in twenty minutes. Fuck me, are those abs, Edward?"

"Huh? What?"

"Yeah, definitely abs," he nodded. "Your arms are bigger too. Don't you ever look at yourself?"

"I haven't for a while." I sat up quickly. "Are you messing with me, Jasper?"

"No, go look in the mirror. It's been a month, you should be seeing a difference by now." He propelled me into the bathroom and pulled the towel off the mirror. "What is this shit? No wonder you don't know how you look."

I stared at my reflection and my eyebrows rose. I did look different. Not that much really, but it was certainly a far cry from the way I had been. I was ten pounds heavier and everything was beginning to look toned. My arms and legs no longer looked they would snap and everything else had just - filled out. Jasper was right, I did have abs. If anything they were more obvious than anything else. Feeling foolish, I flexed an arm and noted the shape of my bicep and tricep. Jasper grinned.

"So are you going to let on who you're making yourself hot for?"

"I don't know what you mean." I went back into my room and grabbed a sweater, feeling my face heating up vividly. I wished I didn't have to blush so much.

"Come on, Edward, I was just joking really, but judging by the colour of your face, I hit the nail on the head. I know I take the piss, but you can tell me stuff if you want."

"You have a big mouth, Jasper," I grumbled.

"I can keep it shut when I need to."

"I'm probably just wasting my time anyway," I said.

"Why?"

"Because...I think I blew my chance already. I went on a date about a month ago and messed up."

"You had a date? When was this?" Jasper's mouth fell open.

"It was when Mom thought I was meeting up with Mike and Tyler. I didn't say anything because I thought you'd all say it was way too soon; which it was, by the way."

"So are you going to tell me who it is?" he prompted.

"Jasper! Edward! Get down here, dinner's on the table!" Emmett bellowed suddenly and I heaved a sigh of relief as I grabbed a pair of jeans. I wasn't so sure I wanted to tell Jasper, or anyone, that I liked Jacob just yet. If he really only wanted to be my friend, I would only look stupid after all.