Morning Moon

Chapter 22

Announcing our engagement was a blur. Of course every one of the Cullen's were excited by the news. Alice began making plans right away for a wedding in the winter. "You'll look absolutely fabulous in a snowy wedding!" She exclaimed proudly. Everyone assured me that it was best to let her have her own way.

Charlie was another story. I forced Edward to tell Charlie even though I was sitting right next to Edward on the couch. I'd never been so scared for my father's health before that day. One minute he was his normal healthy shade of pink and the next he was purple. Edward rushed to get him his favorite beer from the refrigerator and once Charlie calmed down, he appreciated the gesture. Though, I frowned at both of them thinking that alcohol was the cure-all for Charlie's problems.

I left the living room, to start preparing a healthy dinner for Charlie when he started lecturing Edward on taking care of his "baby girl." I kept catching glances from an annoyed Edward since I left him all alone to fend for himself.

My "friends" at school were a whole other issue. We had originally only told Angela and Ben about the engagement, knowing they would keep the secret. However, what we didn't count on was my father saying something to Jessica's mother at the bank. And just like her mother, Jessica had the gift of gab and told everyone at school. After of course she and Lauren told everyone that I must be pregnant. I rolled my eyes at how unoriginal they were.

Those that were happy for me and Edward though, occupied my time enough that I didn't actually realize how much time had passed until our guests started arriving. I was amazed to see the different clans that hated the Volturi enough to come together to witness the fall of Aro and the guard. It would have been such a fascinating sight, except that most of the ones that Rosalie and Emmett recruited drank human blood, and we had to constantly remind them to hunt outside of a 300 mile radius of Forks.

It only took two weeks for all of our guests to show up, the first ones being the Denali's of course. All in all there were a total of twenty vampires that came to join our band. Carlisle spoke with Sam and the elders every other day to inform them of the expansion of our family, hoping that it would help improve relations between us and the pack. I thought it was a false hope.

With our little army compiled, that meant that there was only one more thing to do. Graduation approached Forks High School fast. The entire school population was abuzz with electricity. Despite the recent scandal that my engagement proposed, Jessica and surprisingly Lauren seemed excited to wish me well for life after graduation. Jessica hinted that she would like to be in the wedding. I told her with much certainty that wasn't going to happen. Alice loved the face of confusion and rejection that Jess pouted with for the rest of the week.

Thursday was the dreaded day of the archaic celebration of adulthood. Edward thought it was especially funny that I found graduation archaic even though he's gone through more than me. I guess he was right, after all this was only my first graduation human or vampire.

Last minute preparations were underway of making sure everything was ready for the arrival of the Volturi. Billy assured me that there was some type of playoffs or World Series on t.v. and that it would be easy to lure Charlie to the reservation to keep him safe. I still worried that should the wrong situation occur, the Volturi wouldn't hesitate to take him out, along with everyone on the reservation.

Edward helped me secure tickets to a concert in Port Angelus to give to Ben and Angela. We passed it off to them as graduation tickets, not knowing that besides my father, they were the only humans that I felt the strong need to keep safe.

Alice bought me a black dress that stopped just above my knees for graduation. I protested but it was no use.

"Alice, please tell me in what parallel universe would I even wear this?" I argued.