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Chapter 8 – Where Do Broken Hearts Go

"Man, you have got to snap out of it. I've been patient. I've been understanding. I've been secretly watching episodes of Dr. Phil to figure out how to deal with you. But enough is enough. Seriously, Jasper! I'm not good at this touchy-feely emotional crap!"

Against my will I felt my lips twitch. The idea of Emmett McCarty being in the same zip code as anything touchy, feely, or emotional was enough to amuse even me.

Don't get me wrong. He was a great guy.

Some fortunate twist of fate had given me Emmett as a roommate my freshman year at UDub, and we'd been together ever since. And by "together" I meant in a totally macho heterosexual-guy-friend way.

Not that I had a problem with any of the GLBT crowd. If two guys had a thing for each other, it was none of my business. And if two girls were together…well, that made up 95% of my porn viewing, so I'd be a hypocrite to complain, right?

The bottom line, though, was that Emmett was too butch and way too fucking hairy to be my type.

But as a friend and a roommate he was great.

That first time I'd stumbled into my dorm room – my arms full of boxes and my weepy mom and stoic dad in tow – Emmett had been sitting on one of the beds, playing a game on his cell phone. His side of the room was completely unpacked and neat.

I'd found out later that his mother had marshaled him into the industrious unpacking. Like the good ole Southern boy he was, no one in the world cowed Emmett…except for his mama.

Seeing the three of us enter, he had set his game aside and quickly stood to help.

At 6'3", there weren't very many people I had to look up to. But Emmett was one of them. He had at least two inches on me, and he was huge with a heavily muscled frame. With his help, we made quick work of getting all my stuff hauled into our dorm room.

While we were moving boxes in, my mom kept up a steady stream of conversation with Emmett, and I learned the following about my new roommate. He was from Gatlinburg, Tennessee and had come to UDub on a football scholarship. He played defensive tackle, which didn't surprise me considering the size of him. He had a good sense of humor, liked to laugh, and regardless of being a scholarship football player seemed to be pretty damn smart. He was majoring in secondary education and hoped to teach Social Studies and maybe coach football in the future. And he had been raised to respect his elders, 'cause he almost sir-ed and ma'am-ed my parents to death.

After my parents left, I found out a few additional things about Emmett. He cursed like a sailor, liked a good off-color joke, let off steam with a few beers and a good party, and would chase anything in a skirt. In other words, I'd found my soul mate. He and I became the best of friends.

During that first year of college, we'd studied a little, drank way too much, and cut a swath through the freshman class of girls…and through the sophomore, junior and senior classes too.

I wasn't looking for a relationship. In fact, that was the last thing I'd wanted. Although I was still friends with Maria, Annette, and Lucy, we weren't "friends with benefits" anymore.

We'd all ended up at different colleges, and we called and emailed to keep in touch. But we'd all decided that what we'd had in high school was over.

I'd come to UDub with the intention of being young and stupid right along with everyone else. I'd figured if there was ever a time for a guy to let his inner-manwhore reign, it was college. And with Emmett as my wingman – or me as his – that's exactly what I did.

I was planning for my sophomore year to be a repeat of the year before on the girl front.

She changed all my plans.

We'd only been back to school for a month. When I'd met her.

It was at a party thrown by one of Emmett's teammates.

It was totally corny, the way I saw her across a crowded room and was drawn to her. She was petite – tiny really – the kind of woman who made a man feel like it was his job to protect her. Her skin was pale and flawless. Her eyes a bright sapphire blue. Her inky black hair was cut into a short, spikey style that drew my eyes to her high cheekbones and delicate jawline. I wanted to plant a kiss right there, at the place where her jaw and neck met.

I played it cool. I wasn't going to rush to this girl's side. I was going to take my time, show her that I wasn't going to follow her around like a lovesick puppy. So I took an entire minute and a half before finding myself beside her.

"Hi," I said, obviously dazzling her with my witty conversational skills.

Shocking the hell out of me, she slipped her hand into mine and looked up at me with a smile. "You kept me waiting long enough," she said.

I guess that 90 seconds had seemed like an eternity to her too.

I was mesmerized by her eyes. They sparkled with joy and life…and I wanted that. I wanted her in my life.

"My apologies, ma'am," I responded without thinking. Christ, I'd been hanging around Emmett too long. I had picked up a bit of his accent and turn of phrase.

"Ah, a gentleman," she observed, the gleam in her eye becoming mischievous.

I chuckled. "Not hardly."

Her smile widened. "Thank God!"

~*~J~*~J~*~J~*~

Her name was Mary Alice Brandon.

Alice.

And she was everything I never knew I wanted.

She was intelligent, funny, and flirtatious. She was determined, vivacious, and quirky. Alice challenged me, made me laugh, and changed the way I saw the world around me.

It was just a fling. That's what I told myself.

I mean, who wouldn't want this woman in his bed?

I loved enveloping her body with mine. She seemed to be so delicate, but she demanded I give her all of myself, without holding anything back.

When I tried…when I was afraid that I might hurt her if I unleashed all the passion I had for her on her tiny body…she would pull me to her, cradling me with her hips, digging her fingers into my shoulders, and clasping her legs around me. She let me know that she wanted me. All of me. And God knew how I wanted her.

I don't know how it happened.

It was sex. Just sex.

So why did I want to spend more and more time with Alice?

Why was I happy just talking to her – finding out more about her – with our clothes on and no chance of getting naked on the horizon?

Why did I use any excuse to see her?

Why couldn't I bear for her to leave my bed and go home each night?

After three months of "just sex," I actually caught myself using the G-word in my thoughts.

Yes, that G-word. Girlfriend.

Jesus, I wanted Alice to be my girlfriend!

For the first time in my life, I wanted someone to belong to me, as I already belonged to her. I wanted a commitment with this girl. Me! Wasn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse or something?

I was in love. And I couldn't wait to tell Alice how I felt.

I wanted it to be special though. If I was finally going to tell a girl that I was ready for the whole boyfriend/girlfriend shebang – that I was, in fact, falling for her – then there should be a tickertape parade or fireworks extravaganza or some shit like that.

Okay, maybe not a parade or fireworks, but I could at least take her out to dinner, right?

On Wednesday, I'd made reservations at an expensive but very romantic restaurant for the following Saturday night. Then I'd called Alice.

"I can't on Saturday, Jasper. I'm busy," she told me.

Alright, that wasn't exactly the response I'd been expecting, but hey, she didn't know that I was going to pour my heart out to her or anything. I could roll with it. I'd just have to call the restaurant and reschedule the reservations. No big.

"Sure," I readily agreed. "Saturday's out. How about Friday instead?"

"Sorry. I promised I'd hang out with the girls this weekend. They've been bitching about how they never see me anymore."

Shit. I'd already asked her out twice. It wasn't like I was a desperate loser or anything. I had my pride.

"Sunday?" I asked like a desperate loser with no pride.

She sighed.

Why did she sigh? What did it mean? Ugh! I hated being the one trying to figure out the clues. I'd never had to before, and it really sucked balls.

"I need to get some studying done, and I have a paper to write. It's due Tuesday, Jazz."

I felt the bitter gall of disappointment settle in my stomach. I was going to have to put off talking to Alice. Still, it wasn't her fault. I really had been taking up a lot of her time over the last few months. I told myself it was only natural that she'd need a little break to catch up on everything else in her life. If I was going to do this relationship thing, I was going to have to learn to be flexible and understanding. It couldn't be all about me anymore.

So, I'd been the understanding not-quite-boyfriend and told Alice I'd catch up with her later in the week.

The following Thursday, I found myself on her doorstep. I'd called her, and she'd said it was okay for me to come over. My dinner plans were out, because we both had class early in the morning. But I just couldn't wait any longer. I had to see her, talk to her, tell her what was in my heart.

Alice answered the door and gave me a big smile. God, she took my breath away.

"Jasper, come in." She stepped back and I stepped inside.

I had barely crossed the threshold when she jumped straight into my arms. "I've missed you," she said, pressing a kiss at the base of my throat.

I smiled, amused. Her feet were dangling at least fourteen inches off the floor. I shifted her higher in my arms, and she clasped her legs around my waist. That ball of apprehension that I'd been carrying around in my gut for a week – the one that told me something was wrong with Alice – slackened, and I took my first easy breath in days.

I was just so new to this whole love thing. That's what it was. This was the first girl ever who could hurt me, and that scared me shitless.

"I missed you, too," I told her, dipping my head and kissing her lips. Damn, she tasted sweet.

After a few moments, she pulled away from me. I set her back on her feet and released her.

She took my hand and led me through the living room on the way to her bedroom. I waved at her roommates, Tia and Maggie, who were sitting on the couch, each wielding yellow highlighters and doing battle with their open textbooks. They looked up and gave me matching strained smiles.

Hmm… I guessed they were still pissed at me for taking Alice away from them so much. Either that or they should untwist the wad their panties were currently in. Nothing else could account for the grimaces on their faces.

As Alice shut her bedroom door behind me, I forgot all about her roommates and focused on the girl in front of me. I really needed my brain working so I could figure out exactly how I was going to approach this unprecedented love and commitment conversation.

Unfortunately, Alice had ideas for engaging my body and not my brain. And my brain was currently losing.

She'd started on the buttons of my shirt before her door had even clicked shut all the way and was currently swirling her tongue against every inch of skin exposed by her handiwork. Or maybe I should call it handsy-work, because her hands were all over me. This was great news for my dick, who had decided to stand up and be counted. For my brain though…well, thought processes tended to be hampered when all the blood rushed elsewhere. Any guy would attest to this unfortunate fact of male anatomy.

When her hand started to snake its way down the waistband of my pants, I decided that whatever it was I'd been dying to tell her wasn't so important after all.

Just as her hot little hand was about a centimeter from my cock though, my scrambled thoughts made one last ditch attempt to get through to me.

Talk. Tell. Love. Girlfriend. IMPORTANT!

Hey, you try to have a coherent thought with a girl's mouth on your nipple and her hand closing in on your dick.

I grabbed Alice's hand and gently removed it from my pants before taking a small step away from her. I needed a little distance if I was going to have to form words.

"Alice, we need to talk."

She tried to get close to me again to embrace me, but I took another step back, preserving that crucial distance between us.

She sighed then. Crap! What was with this girl and the sighing all of a sudden? It was driving me crazy.

"No, Jasper," she said, surprising me. "We really don't."

Wait. What?

I was confused.

"You don't owe me any sort of explanation, Jazz," she continued. "I don't care who she was or how many ways you fucked her. That's your business, not mine."

Okay, forget confused and make that completely baffled. What was she talking about?

"Alice, I think I missed a step. Can we go back a bit?" I asked, still waiting for my brain to catch up to this convo.

"Well, when you say 'we need to talk', that's usually guy-speak for I-fucked-somebody-else-and need-to-tell-you-all-about-it. It's fine, Jasper. So you hooked up with some girl this weekend. I know you think you need to unburden yourself to me, but there's no need. Really. I get that we're just having fun together. No confessions necessary."

Umm… No. Not hardly. I'm in love with you.

"There wasn't another girl, Alice. A few days away from you doesn't require me to stick my dick into someone else," I said quietly. "I thought you understood that. I don't want anybody but you."

I could see the shock on her face. Damn it! She'd really had no idea.

"Jasper, I don't know what to say," she said, her voice breathy as if my revelation had knocked the wind out of her. "I'm not looking for a relationship. I didn't think you were either. It's college. I thought we were just using each other to get off and having a great time doing it. It never crossed my mind that you thought we were exclusive."

And with that word, "exclusive," rattling around in my brain, the ball of apprehension in my stomach was suddenly back…but now it was a fifty pound cannonball.

So, she thought I'd been screwing around this weekend? Hmm… Project much?

"Alice, what did you do this weekend?"

Suddenly she wouldn't look me in the eye any longer. "I told you, I spent some time with the girls."

"All weekend?" I asked, already pretty sure I knew the answer.

She turned her back on me and walked to her bedroom window, looking out into the gathering darkness. "No. Not all weekend, Jazz. I was with another guy, okay? I had a date. Somebody else asked me out, and I didn't think it was any big deal."

The cannonball was now one hundred pounds and was threatening to explode from my stomach, through my esophagus, and out of my mouth in a dazzling display of gastro-pyrotechnics. I may have been slow when it came to Alice, but I wasn't a complete idiot. It wasn't just a date. She'd fucked him, this other guy, and the mental pictures that I couldn't block out were making me nauseous.

"Not a big deal?" I asked angrily. "It's a very big deal, Alice. I happen to be in love with you!"

She whirled around to face me then. "In love with me? No! Stop this, Jasper. You're ruining everything!"

I strode to her and grabbed her arms roughly in my grasp, too angry to worry about hurting her. "I'm ruining everything? I'm not the one who spent the weekend doing the horizontal mambo with some guy."

She didn't bother to deny it.

Her eyes dropped to the floor. "I'm sorry. Truly, I am. I thought you and I were on the same page. Jasper, I never meant to hurt you. I really didn't. But I don't feel that way about you. I don't want anything more than what we already have. I…" she paused and looked up at me again, her eyes suddenly boring into mine. "I don't see a future for us, Jasper."

~*~J~*~J~*~J~*~

I don't remember much of the rest of that school year, since I spent most of my time trying to pickle myself in tequila, vodka, and bourbon.

There's no doubt in my mind that I would have flunked out my sophomore year if it hadn't been for Emmett. He made sure to beg, borrow, or steal notes for the classes I missed. He sobered me up whenever I absolutely had to study, taking the time to check on me, to keep me motivated, to quiz me, or whatever else I needed to kick me in the ass. He would even deposit me at the door of the required classroom whenever I had a test to make sure I actually made it there. Because of Emmett's Herculean efforts, I managed to squeak by.

I managed to cut back on the drinking when I came back for my junior year. And I didn't need Emmett to get me through my classes anymore. I was more than a little anti-social though.

It used to drive Emmett to distraction that he could almost never get me to leave the off-campus apartment we now shared. When I'd finally give in to his constant badgering and agree to go out, I would only add to his frustration by refusing to be his wingman anymore. He thought I should have my head examined when I told him I'd completely sworn off women.

I wasn't crazy though. Well, not straitjacket, padded room crazy. I was just suffering from good, old-fashioned clinical depression, and I knew it. After Alice, I had a hard time even getting out of bed. So, why would I ever want to put myself out there again and get involved with another woman?

It wasn't just that I wasn't looking for a relationship. I didn't want to have anything to do with women period. So I lived like a monk. For the first time in my adult life, I was completely celibate.

I'd decided not to go home the summer after my junior year. I'd seen how worried my mom had been that first summer I'd gone home after the Alice fiasco. I had tried to cover, tried to act normal around my parents and Edward, but my mom knew me too well. She could tell there was something wrong with me.

I'd tried to hide my drinking. I'd tried not to sleep fourteen hours a day. I'd tried not to flinch whenever someone touched me or when my parents wanted me to go out in public. I must have done a damn good job of it too. 'Cause it took my mom a whole week to confront me.

With a "Jasper, I want to know what's going on with you," followed by strategic silence and a deadly accurate use of a raised eyebrow, she got the Alice story out of me. Or she got the whitewashed, Disneyesque version of events. I told her I'd cared about a girl and it hadn't ended well. Then I told her that I'd get over it soon and I'd be fine. In other words, I lied through my teeth.

That had raised mom's eyebrow again. I knew she wasn't buying the line of bullshit I was giving her. But after several seconds of giving me a disbelieving glare, I could see her come to a decision. I did my best to stay still as she threw her arms around me and hugged me tight.

"I love you, Jazz. And I know you're a grown man. I understand that I'm not going to be able to protect you from the ugly parts of life anymore. You're going to have to make your own decisions and mistakes. I'm going to have to stand back and watch you live with the consequences. That's part of growing up – for both of us. But please tell me you know that I'm always here for you. You can talk to me. Lean on me. I want to help you if I can."

My arms came around her in a tentative embrace. "I know, mom. Thanks. I'm having a hard time right now, because this stuff just happened. I'll be fine. Really," I lied to her again.

So, I couldn't go back home that summer after my junior year. I couldn't give my mother several months of unfettered access to me. She was way too observant for my good. She'd know that it had been over a year since Alice had broken me, and I wasn't going to be fine. The truth was I wasn't sure I'd ever be fine again.

I'd told my parents that I wanted to get a summer job.

It wasn't a complete lie. I was actually planning to work over the summer. I didn't like the idea of my parents paying for everything. I wanted to contribute. I didn't want to be a spoiled brat living off my parents' money. It was one way that I could actually be a man. The only avenue Alice had left open to me.

And since the job market in Forks was pretty much non-existent, it was the perfect excuse not to go home.

Emmett decided to stay with me. He said that he thought staying in Seattle and working over the summer was a great idea. That he needed to make some money too. I think he was just worried about me and didn't want to leave me alone. The big, loveable doofus.

We each got a job in the same little neighborhood bar where we spent most of our time anyway. Emmett worked the door and looked generally intimidating to discourage anyone from wanting to start something. He was good at it too. He almost never had to break up drunken fights. I was hired as a kind of apprentice bartender. I was lucky to get the job, since I didn't have any bartending experience…well, not unless you counted pouring my own drinks. The owner of the bar – a very savvy businesswoman named Victoria – thought I'd bring in the female customers with my looks.

I'd been a little shocked when she'd come right out and told me that. And I'd been brutally honest when I'd told Victoria that I had no interest in women. She'd just smiled at me.

"Oh, honey. That's perfect," she'd told me. "I don't want you to date the customers. It's bad for business. I just want you to smile and be friendly. Let their imaginations do the rest. You're a good-looking boy, Jasper. They want the illusion. The fantasy. They want to imagine that you're interested. You can give them that, can't you?"

I didn't see the harm in it. As long as we were both clear that the illusion was all I'd be providing the clientele.

I'd taken the job. And it was actually good for me. It got me out of the house. It forced me to interact with people again. And if I had to fake being the happy, carefree, flirty guy I was at work, at least I was able to fake it. I felt like I had to be getting a little better, healing a bit, if I was no longer the drunken, cave-dwelling hermit I'd been.

Emmett knew the truth, of course. He had to deal with me during the off-hours, during the down times – and there were still a lot of those.

It was during one of those low periods that he'd told me to snap out of it.

I knew he had a point. I'd been nursing this broken heart of mine for almost two years now. I just – I don't know – I just hadn't been interested in anyone since Alice. I could pretend to be social and happy. I could even pretend to flirt with the women across my bar. But my shattered heart just wasn't in it.

It was a Friday night when Emmett confessed his secret Dr. Phil obsession – I had serious doubts that I was actually the reason for that by the way. After living with him for three years, I knew he was actually a reality TV addict. I'd even walked in on him Keeping up with the Kardashians more than a few times.

We were at the bar, but our shift hadn't started yet. It was September, and school had just started the week before. Victoria had asked both of us if we'd like to hold on to our jobs and work part-time for her during our senior year, and Emmett and I had both jumped at the chance. We really liked working there.

Since I knew the returning students would swell the number of customers in the bar that night, I was in the back, taking an unofficial inventory, making sure we had plenty of booze on hand. And because I was in the back where nobody could see me, I was wallowing in self-pity before I had to go out and turn on the charm. That's where Emmett found me.

"Listen, buddy. I really need you. I hate to bring up how big you owe me for putting up with you, you morose motherfucker." Coming from Emmett, I understood that he meant that as a term of endearment.

"Uh oh. What are you about to get me into?" I asked, not bothering to look up from the cases I was counting. I hadn't wanted to encourage him by making eye-contact. I had known Emmett too long not to recognize the gleam in his eye when he'd walked in. Whatever he was planning, I probably wasn't going to like it.

"The girl of my dreams just walked through the front door, Jazz. Long blonde hair, great tits, legs that go on for days. I have to have this girl. You've gotta help me."

That got my attention. "What do you need me for? You've never exactly been shy, big guy. What could I possibly do?"

He ducked his head, unable to meet my eyes, and I suddenly had a bad feeling about this.

"Emmett?" I prompted.

"Well, she came in with a friend. I need you to run interference. Distract the friend for me?"

"Aw, Em. Do I have to?"

"Jasper, stop the martyr act, please. You are a straight, twenty-two-year-old guy. I'm asking you to entertain a young, pretty girl. I'm not asking you to marry her. I'm not even asking you to fuck her. I'm just asking you to talk to her while I get to know the future mother of my children. Be a pal, will ya?"

I let out a heart-felt sigh. I didn't really want to do this. But Emmett was right, I did owe him.

I needed to clarify something first though. "You said young. How young? She's legal, right?"

The place we worked at was primarily a bar, but sold enough food to be classed a restaurant too. That meant that we did get underage customers. It was something I had to be really careful with as a bartender. I had become an expert on detecting fake ids. I could even spot the really expensive, professional looking jobs like Em and I had had before we turned twenty-one.

"Freshmen, I think. Definitely over eighteen."

"But just over," I guessed.

Emmett had the grace to look sheepish. He shrugged. "The heart wants what the heart wants, Jazz."

I shook my head at him. How well I knew that lesson. I just hoped Emmett's story had a different ending than my own.

"Alright," I finally agreed. "Let's do this before I change my mind."

Emmett's eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning. "I love you, Jasper Cullen."

I laughed. "You're lucky I'm secure enough in my masculinity not to take that the wrong way," I said teasingly.

He gave me his wide two-dimple smile. "Well, if the blonde shoots me down… You know, maybe…" he replied, waggling his eyebrows at me.

"Don't even think about it. I'm not going to be your catcher, Emmett McCarty." I punched him in the biceps in a totally manly way. "But I will run interference with the barely-legal nymphet. Which proves I love you too."

Still smiling, I followed him out of the back room.

After walking out front, he stopped and leaned casually against the bar, not wanting to appear too eager. I stopped next to him and nonchalantly surveyed the room.

It didn't take long for me to narrow in on Emmett's prey. She was sitting at a tall table not far from the bar, and she was exactly as he'd described her. Definitely a knockout. But even if I hadn't given up on women, I never would have approached her. She absolutely screamed high maintenance to me.

Of course, to each his own, and by the look on my best friend's face, he had found exactly what he was looking for.

My eyes slipped past the blonde object of Em's affection and focused in on the friend. Her back was to me, so I couldn't see much. What I could see was long, mahogany hair curling down to fall almost to her waist. The girl was wearing one of those barely there, mostly backless scraps of fabric that were popular attire in the bars. It left her slender arms and shoulders bare, and I could see tantalizing glimpses of the snowy skin of her back as she moved and her hair swung momentarily aside. The color of her shirt, if you could call it that, was a midnight blue, and it gave her already luminous skin an added radiant glow.

My breath caught in my throat. I felt the hair on the nape of my neck stand up.

And that wasn't the only part of my body that was suddenly standing at attention. For the first time in almost two years, my dick was starting to harden for a real life, flesh and blood woman. You know, one who was actually in the same room with me and wasn't in any way porn related.

Without conscious thought, I was walking toward her.

I heard Emmett behind me saying my name. He was wasting his time trying to get my attention though. I couldn't stop, or turn around, or acknowledge him. All of my focus was on her.

I hadn't even seen her face yet, but I knew it didn't matter.

There was something about her.

I hadn't felt an attraction like this since Alice. But in my gut, I knew it wasn't the same at all. Every bit as strong, but in a way I'd never experienced before. Something deep inside of me was screaming at me that this girl was different, special, important.

I was two paces away from her when she must have heard my approach. She turned slowly towards me. I saw a long, graceful neck, a strong but feminine jaw, and the sweetest little shell of an ear I'd ever seen. She had a pert nose, the kind that made you want to kiss the tip of it. Her lips were a soft pink, her eyelashes long, thick and dark. Her profile sent a delicious shock all the way through me.

I couldn't really see her eyes yet. But I didn't need to. I knew they would be chocolate brown.

"Bella?" I asked in wonder.

Please let me know what you think, dear readers. Whether positive or negative, I'd still love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks to DeltaSwan90 and my2galspal for doing beta duties for me and to Vican for making the Destination Wedding banner!

If any of you have any questions or comments about Destination Wedding (or feel the need to rant about my characters), you can find me on the Destination Wedding thread on twilighted. http:/www(dot)twilighted(dot)net/forum/viewtopic(dot)php?f=44&t=14195&start=0