My little earthworm heart is breaking. (To understand more fully what I mean by that, read my Author's Note for "College Rescue," Chapter 3, posting this weekend.)

So here's my emotional pain-management tip of the day for you (beyond identifying as an earthworm, because apparently, even as a spineless, segmented creature able to regenerate when cut in half, rejection hurts): when your heart can't take any more pain (and yes, saying you "can't take" any more pain is definitely a neon flashing light to the universe announcing you need more pain), you can move some to your elbows. Or your hips. Fingers. Toes. Knees (although I avoid those, because they cause me problems already without hurting for my heart too).

Maybe it's the distraction from the root cause of the current hurting; maybe it's truly the result of stimulating from within rather than without enough of a simultaneous neural pain-message input that what you're initially feeling from your solar plexus is necessarily reduced due to limitations in the human capacity for electrical current (although I hesitate to believe there is any limitation at all to human suffering—in addition to the damn neon sign effect, poor Job and others like him who've managed less well remind us that human capacities can be overrun, maxed out, used up, thwarted).

Maybe imagining emotional pain redirected to your body causes no actual reduction in pain sensation at all, but merely increases pain tolerance. Increased tolerance could come from a stronger sense of positivity about oneself and the future as a result of claiming the ability to manage any pain received, whether real or imagined (the pain or the management of it). Or, maybe it's not a belief in pain management that helps, but an acceptance of the reality of the suffering, implicitly acknowledging the end of any expectation that one will not hurt in this life. And since so much of disappointment, and especially bitterness and regret, comes from expectations mismatched with reality, release from unsustainable expectations can be a great relief.

Whatever the explanation, this little trick has helped me a lot the past few weeks, and is helping me this morning. I'm careful, though, to try not to overuse it, as I have no problem believing that if I made it into a subconscious habit, I'd end up with inflammation or arthritis in whatever joints were drafted most regularly. So when the intensity of the current hurting moment is over, I try to breathe the pain out, not just from my chest and mind and brain, but from my whole body, focusing especially on the parts where I displaced some of the hurting that just felt like too much.

And in describing this, I'm thinking of another reason why this coping technique works for me: it reminds me of the physical reality of life. No matter how much I hurt in any moment, or have hurt, or will hurt, I am a temporary phenomenon on the face of the earth. My life will hurtle to its little climax (not orgasmic, I'm reasonably sure at this point), and poof! I'll be gone (or maybe pooooo-ooooo-ooooo-oooooof with lots of suffering thrown in for good effect, hard to say). So not only will my suffering, like anyone's suffering, necessarily end (I don't believe in Hell, except for Hell on Earth, because I refuse to believe that any God would be that cruel. If I turn out to be wrong on this point, I suppose all my coping techniques will be relevant to me for eternity. In a way, that's what acceptance is anyway though. God, I acknowledge I may suffer for eternity if that is what, for some reason, you desire, but please, let me be a loving person while I suffer, so that the suffering becomes just another exercise in sensation and the pain becomes transformed into the whole point of human existence as I see it: to help others live as we die.), but meanwhile, I have some very real, very prosaic tasks to do no matter how much my heart hurts right now.

Like laundry. And dishes. And making breakfast. And nudging my children out into the world to be whatever flora or fauna they will be today, and tomorrow, and in their future.

So, fellow creatures of the animal kingdom (and whatever ferns, daisies, oak trees and mosses may be reading this as well), here is my humble offering to you: two canon story skeletons in which I change only what is necessary for (in chapter 1) Bella to be less strong in repelling unwanted emotion (her superpower changing from a steel wall to a sponge, requiring more subtlety in distinguishing her from Jasper but I think it can be done), and (in chapter 2) giving Rosalie the much-deserved chance to love Bella for Bella's own self, and Bella the gorgeous opportunity to find safety, love and comfort in Rosalie (without having to introduce Renesmee).

As you will see, there really are only the bare bones of stories here, but I offer them to you as thought exercises in alternate realities both for the Twilight world and for our own. I hope something in them helps you today, even if it's in having a good belly laugh at how dramatically needy one little earthworm can be. (I've said that before, and I really mean it; just please, don't TELL me you're laughing. Thank you for that.)

Much love,

liza

p.s. One more aspect of Twilight's brilliance: using dramatic and emotionally-needy immortal creatures to validate the drama and emotional neediness of us. Watching New Moon was so cathartic, as I saw Bella act out my own high school experience, minus the dating a vampire who will love her eternally part. The pain though, the suffering, that was the same. It's nice to see the same suffering, even if it's given a much more logical reason for existing than I had in my own life.

And that is why SM had to introduce vampires: not just to give us the vicarious safety of being loved forever, with no question of loss (once Bella gets past her self-shame and Edward gets past his anger at God), but in order to provide an explanation, albeit an impossible one, for the extremity of human suffering Bella experiences. For those of us high-feelers without the rational cover of falling in love with a vampire and his coven then being left behind to face the supernatural alone, the shame of suffering to the extreme we experience as a natural result of our great sensitivity and extreme emotionality is overwhelming, and makes the suffering that much more painful, and that much more almost-impossible to escape from.

So even though we know Bella is no more a high-feeler (case in point: she did not, despite feeling strongly drawn to then afraid of Edward's reaction to her, either jump in his lap or run away in shame—not fear—from him and get sucked dry within the first 5 minutes of their meeting) than Edward is in our dating pool, seeing her grieve just like we do, for days or weeks or months at a time, for specific losses or simply the ambient pain in the universe, is profoundly validating at a visceral level. And seeing her healed by love is an unspeakable relief, even knowing—absolutely knowing—that we will never experience the impossible solution she is given.

We know we won't get vampires to save us, but thank you, Stephenie Meyer, for giving us someone to hurt the same way as we do, at least for a while. We wouldn't want her to hurt like this forever, anyway. We're glad she has Edward. I hope you, dear reader, get an Edward (or some beautiful assemblage of people and circumstance to simulate an Edward—oops! We need another new term…SE? Simulated Edward? Maybe a more mathematical twist: an A2IVL, or an Asymptotic Approach to Infinite Vampire Love. This takes some thinking.) too.

Take good care, and remember: "You are a precious object, deserving of tender care."

Even—no, especially!-if you are an earthworm. xo liza

Disclaimer: All things Twilight are the property of the marvelous Ms. Meyer. My gratitude to her for letting us experiment this way. May it all be to the good, whatever that means in your life!

xxxxxx

Story genesis: shocked Edward standing immobile when Bella comes to his house to apologize/enquire after his health a few days after his disappearance post-first day in Biology. She has the same intuitive understanding of Edward and his reactions to her that canon Bella had, but unlike canon Bella, this Bella embraces the guilt and shame of it, and doesn't get angry at Edward. Instead, she inwardly writhes in shame as Edward's absences build, and finally, on the Sunday afternoon after her first week of school, she can't take the shame and uncertainty anymore and tells Charlie she needs to drive out to the Cullens to borrow a textbook from Alice, getting directions from him.

Alice sees her visit coming, has been seeing it for months it is so predictable given Bella's nature—and Edward's—and because Renee had made the decision to try and get Bella to live with Charlie instead of with her long before she actually suggested it to Bella (who of course follows through on her mother's wishes, though desperately not wanting to have to transfer schools). So Alice has had plenty of time to make sure Edward returns in time from Alaska, and to be certain that everyone else (except Carlisle) is there to help control Edward. But she's managed to block it all from Edward so that he doesn't know Bella's coming until he hears her truck and smells her.

Jasper is blown away by the strength of Bella's emotions as she arrives: intense shame as she's driving up the driveway (after searching for it for half-an-hour, despite Alice having cut the opening wider earlier that day); layered with more specific self-loathing when she gets to the house, parks the truck, and approaches the front door, before deciding she's being too embarrassingly foolish and tries to sneak away.

But Alice bursts to the front door and opens it before Bella is off the porch. Bella whirls around towards the house as she hears her name being called, both shame and fear (not for her life, but for humiliating herself) spiking and causing Jasper pain, the feelings are so intense. Although, as Jasper will try to explain later, it's more than just emotion he senses with Bella; it's spiritual experience as well.

"I'm so, so sorry," Bella says to Edward's feet, being held rigidly in place just inside the doorway, as she wrings her hands. Edward snaps out of his shock at the sound of her voice and is instantly at Bella's side, wedging himself in front of Alice on the porch.

"Why? Why are you so sorry?" he asks with great intensity, desperate to know, and undone out of any pretense of normal social behavior by her surprise appearance.

Bella stares at him as he stares at her, relieved that he is speaking to her, that he is standing next to her, that he is home; then she whispers, "To come here tonight, um, without an invitation? And to have smelled so… badly… before," now flushing with shame again at the reminder of her, in her mind, horrible faux pas. (She has since completely changed her personal hygiene routine, buying new products and washing her hair twice every shower, not to mention applying three different kinds of anti-perspirant.)

Poor Jasper had previously been inundated with Bella and Edward's combined desire for each other, Edward's lust of both kinds being especially strong, so when Bella falls back unexpectedly into overwhelming shame, he falls back with her, not having encountered a human who feels as strongly as this small girl does ever before in his vampire life.

"Do something, Edward," Jasper gasps, and Edward reaches out and strokes down Bella's trembling cheek, so carefully, not really believing she's here, lost in a trance of hope and uncertainty and his own fear and shame. But he hasn't completely blocked out Jasper's mind, and eventually registering all the pain Bella is in, Edward shakes his head to clear it, and to disagree with Bella's understanding of what has happened, and her role in it. Finally, he says so intensely to her, "I'm glad you came here, and you smelled the opposite of bad…before," then leans a little closer to her, closing his eyes and inhaling.

Bella looks up at him, his face just above hers, and Bella so trusting; so surprised. "You are? I did?" she asks, relief warring with incredulity in her tone.

Edward keeps his own eyes closed and murmurs a barely detectable "Mm-hmm," in agreement, while allowing himself to move in ever so slightly closer towards her again. By now he is definitely closer than politeness would dictate, or even remote convention.

Then, without warning to anyone, Bella throws her arms around Edward's waist and buries her head in his chest. Jasper is overwhelmed with Bella's joy at her closeness to Edward, before awareness breaks on her of how socially-inappropriate her uninvited embrace is and the shame returns, in even greater intensity.

At the rapid switch in intense emotion, from elated joy to plunging despair, Jasper blurts out "God in heaven, she's going to kill me," before retreating to another room, trying to put some distance between Bella's extreme emotions and himself. Meanwhile, Edward has frozen, fearful of hurting Bella and shocked—in a good way—by her behavior once again, and especially by her trust in him.

After a few seconds Bella starts to pull away, tears flowing. She's humiliated; not understanding her own behavior; and of course, so ashamed.

But Edward doesn't let her go, finally reacting and gathering her to him, holding her against his cold, hard chest. Bella's relief at Edward's return of her embrace is so intense Jasper groans, and is then able to reenter the living room cautiously, trying to continue reflecting her feelings towards Edward. Jasper had promised Alice he would do this, project Bella's feelings to Edward in addition to what Edward could pick up from his mind, so that Edward could have the protective benefit of them in his fight to control his bloodlust, and so that he could better understand this human whose mind he can't read.

Edward doesn't let go of Bella again.

Instead, in a vampire move so fast it would have been a blur to Bella if her eyes had been open, he scoops her up and races up the stairs with her in his arms. Attaining the relative privacy of his room, Edward carefully sits down with her in his arms in one corner of the black leather sofa.

Vaguely aware of movement, Bella opens her eyes and turns her head slightly, surprised to find herself in a darkened room, music lining the walls and playing softly from a stereo in the corner, surround speakers suspended on the walls. The music is soothing, as is the darkness, but neither is as soothing as the presence of Edward Cullen against her, under her, around her, as he oh-so-carefully holds her to himself.

Bella exhales loudly, sighing her relief, and sits up a little bit, gathering the courage to peek from under her eyelashes up at the face staring down at her with such intense concentration she immediately looks away again. He reaches up to tuck some hair behind her ear, then lets his hand linger there, stroking the backs of two fingers gently down her cheek again. She shudders, not with the cold of it but with desire and need and relief; he misinterprets though and withdraws his hand, pulling his torso away ever so slightly, and gently asks, "Are you cold?"

Bella panics at his withdrawal, as slight as it is, and stiffens, bracing herself for rejection, swallowing hard, fighting back tears. She shakes her head "No," as she starts to climb off of him and loses the battle with the tears. Edward grabs her hips as she stands, mindfully relaxing his hold after a first strong grasp from his own panicked reaction; swallowing too before saying, forcing it out in a harsh whisper, "Are you scared?"

Just as Edward snorts at what he believes to be the ridiculousness of his own question, and just before he's about to apologize for saying something so idiotic–of course she must be scared, he's behaving bizarrely, and he chastises himself severely for this while also swearing to himself that he will get his head back in the human game and not take any more chances with her safety (safety from him, safety from his kind, safety from the knowledge of who and what they are), Bella shocks him with a confused, incredulous even, "Why would I be scared?"

She's puzzling this out, trying to understand why he thinks she would be scared right now as she is saying this, and before Edward has processed his own incredulity at her lack of fear, she has come to the extremely wrong-headed conclusion that he must be making reference to the derision she would be subjected to if their peers at school could see her needy, almost-desperate behavior right now.

Predictably, shame slams into Bella with these thoughts, which makes Jasper gasp below, and curse Edward most thoroughly for whatever it was he'd done to make her–and Jasper–feel as ashamed as she does right now.

Edward hears Jasper, of course, and is so distressed by and not understanding Bella's ashamed reactions to him that he panics, going so far as to dislodge himself from the sofa, vaulting over the back of it, carefully moving at vampire speed away from this girl that he can't seem to stop hurting. He retreats into a corner of the room where he stands, hunched over, his arms wrapped around his cold torso with his unbeating heart, feeling pain, feeling self-loathing, just feeling more than he ever has before.

As Bella catches up to Edward's movement and slowly turns to find him cowering in the corner, looking devastated, the shame leaves her to be replaced by concern and compassion for Edward. Jasper sits down with the strength of her reaction, but manages to whisper, "She's worried about you Ed. I mean, she's… she's consumed with, with caring for you." There's a pause and then Jasper adds hoarsely, "Don't f### it up."

Edward doesn't acknowledge any of this, but feels a small bloom of hope take hold in his warming heart. The hope grows quickly as he follows Bella's movements with his eyes, watching as she lifts one of her hands, reaching out to him, then starts to walk towards him, concern radiating from her eyes and face and posture. "Edward?" she asks hesitantly, her head tilting as she closes the distance between them. "Edward, are you okay?"

By the time she finishes this question, she's standing directly in front of him and he's grinning with the joy of it, the joy of her approach, the joy of her fearless proximity to him. He manages to start to answer her, saying "I thought you—"

But he cuts himself off before he can finish the sentence, because the memory of what he did think, and what he should be thinking, and worse doing, now; the distance he should be keeping between them; the lies he should be telling her, covering over all his attraction to and desperate longing for her; all the very valid reasons why he should disappear from her life and never see her again, all the dangers to her that he and his family and his kind represent, come flooding back, and Edward does something he doesn't remember ever doing since the night Carlisle changed him: he cries. True, there are no actual tears, but the sobs and tremors and sheer desperation are unmistakable.

Bella responds immediately, taking him in her arms like she would a small child, pulling his head down to her shoulder and holding it there as she croons and whispers to him, petting his back, even placing a kiss or two against his upturned cheek. It is a moment beyond time, and no one in that house knows exactly how long they stand there, together, like that.

Eventually, Jasper and Alice leave quietly out the back door, Alice now confident that Edward will manage without them, Jasper unspeakably relieved to be away from the two of them and the tsunami swells of Bella's emotions. Luckily he's also happily primed to enjoy the intense intimacy with his wife in a way he hasn't for a while, having been so thoroughly reminded how precious it is, and how good it can feel.

After Edward has calmed, and stretched out Bella's closeness to him–her comforting motions, her comforting noises, her comforting smell and sound and touch and almost-taste and just her being–he reluctantly pulls slightly away and looks down at her, a hesitant, tender smile on his face. He unwraps his arms from around her and reaches up to gently hold her head, his bent fingers pressing ever so softly against either side of her face.

Bella's hopeful, questioning expression blooms into joy as she reads the warmth in his eyes and the upturn of his lips, and she spontaneously throws herself into him again in an enthusiastic embrace that is less unexpected, and therefore much better managed by Edward, than before.

Instead of going rigid with shock, this time Edward laughs, and pulls her tighter into him, rocking her back and forth a little in his arms. He hears a contented sigh and feels her collapse into him again, which he takes as his cue to sweep her back up into his arms and return to their previous place on the sofa.

He gets them settled, Bella leaning against the crook of his arm which is in turn up against the arm of the sofa, her torso against his chest, her legs curled up and tucked against his side and the sofa's back. He is surprised at how compact she can make herself, as if she wants to melt away. She does.

He sees a tiny shiver run through her, but as if to reassure Edward that it had nothing to do with fear, immediately afterwards Bella snuggles in closer and reaches one hand up to grab hold of his shirt. So instead of starting another cycle of retreat and shame, Edward smiles deeply and reaches behind him for the cashmere throw that Alice had insisted he needed months ago to "lighten the aura" in his room.

He is suspicious now that Alice had known he'd be needing it for just this reason, and, as he thinks about it, realizes she'd been maintaining more distance from him than normal for about as long. I'll deal with her later, he thinks, then hears Alice–who, like the others, had been unable to stay away from the unfolding drama inside the house for long–whisper-yell up to him, "Save your breath! I have no regrets, and if you're honest with yourself, and Bella, you won't either!"

Edward laughs. He is still overwhelmed, and recovering from shock, but already, he knew: Alice was right.

The peace between them was so deep and profound that neither one of them felt like disturbing it with words. So they didn't, and the late afternoon stretched into evening, and Bella's peacefulness drifted into sleep.

Edward would have sat there for as long as she slept, staring at her, memorizing every freckle and line and curve and follicle, but Alice sees Charlie getting concerned about Bella's unusual absence at dinner time and deciding to start making phone calls. She calls up to Edward after hearing no response to what he must have seen in her mind, and gets a growl for her efforts, followed by a terse hiss to "leave her alone."

Alice raises her eyebrows at this, looking at Jasper, who rolls his eyes and heads up the stairs. He finds them in quiet conversation…

"I'm sorry I behaved so rudely in biology class the other day. I hope you'll give me the opportunity to make it up to you," Edward says gently to Bella.

"You already have; and it wasn't rude. It just seemed like I did something—unintentionally, of course-that was really upsetting to you. Can you tell me what it was so I don't do it again? I really didn't mean to scare you away; I've felt really badly about that," Bella responds.

Edward half-laughs at her comment about scaring him away; then sighs, because in a way it's true, though not as true as it should have been, for her sake. But he can't see himself turning back now, no matter what his previous scruples were; and, indeed, he doesn't.