A/N: Thank you to everyone who has read "The Secret" and who are excited about this sequel! If you haven't read "The Secret" yet, I strongly recommend that you read it first… the reason being that although everyone is pretty much true to their character, there are a ton of differences compared to SM's canon. Speaking of which, I do not own the Twilight characters… they belong to Stephenie Meyer. Some new characters are actually real people, mostly avid reviewers who I planted into the story (with their permission, of course), and I don't own them either… lol.

Again, thank you all so much! I'm excited to get this show on the road, so here it goes!

-Stephanie

…

BPOV

I was sitting in a chair, and Alice was running a curling iron through my already-wavy locks.

"Hmm," she wondered out loud, "This would look beautiful this weekend, as it is. But maybe we should try an up do?"

"I already promised you, Alice, that you can do whatever you want to my hair for this event. After all, it is a once in a lifetime kind of thing, and I'm not terribly opposed to looking awesome."

"Oh, Bella! You silly thing! You are going to look so much more than just 'awesome.' You are going to be…" she paused a moment to search for the perfect word, apparently, "… Glorious!" She chuckled for a second, "Not that you don't already look just dazzling. Your change really did wonders for your skin and hair. I just wish it altered your preference for shopping."

"Alice!" I pretended to be offended, then laughed, "There's not a bite in the world that is going to change that."

"Don't I know it," she sighed.

She took the pointed pick on the end of a comb and separated my hair into sections. She employed a few hairpins, trying to search for the look that would make me glorious.

"So, you are going to be eighteen tonight," Rose squealed as she entered the room.

"Technically, she already is eighteen," Alice chirped.

"So today you can add 'adult' to your resume, and this weekend you can add 'officially off the market' too," Rose laughed cheerfully.

"Can you please plug in the littlest curling iron and the largest barrel iron?" Alice asked Rose.

"Bella, if you weren't already a vampire, I would be worried our dear sister would burn that hair of yours right off your head," Rose snorted as she complied with Alice's request.

Alice stuck her tongue out at Rose and then patted my shoulder.

"Don't worry, Bella. Don't let her suggestions get to you. It is not possible to singe your hair. It is, after all, literally, quite perfect."

"Thanks, Alice," I smiled.

"We have to hurry though, because Angela, Jen and Kathy will be here in less than twenty minutes. I've already seen what they're going to get you for the wedding, but I'm not going to tell you what it is. They just picked it out about ten minutes ago, and you're going to love it. I wonder what their boyfriends are up to, if not escorting them around," Alice teased.

"I'm going to open the windows downstairs," Rose said suddenly, "It's not that I don't want them here or anything, but they always bring a trail of wolf-stench in here, you know what I mean?" She snickered all the way down the stairs about it. She just loved to give the wolves a hard time. However, I'm sure when the girls saw their guys again, they would be harassed about bringing back a trail of vampire-reek, as Jake so 'lovingly' called it once.

Over the summer, there were quite a few changes to our little, quaint town. For one thing, Jacob had imprinted on Jen. She was allowed into all of their secrets, which naturally led her to be in on all of the Cullen's secrets too. It was only a few short weeks after Jake and Jen fell head over heels for one another that Embry met Kathy through Jen. I thought Kathy would freak out when she was let in on everything. She seemed the type to have too level a head to believe in werewolves and vampires. And yet, when she found out, all she could say was, "I knew it! I just knew that something was up around here." We all shared a good laugh at that.

For another thing, the weekend that Jen moved down from Port Angeles to live with Angela for our senior year, we decided that it might be too much work to keep Angela in the dark about everything. The wolves decided as a tribe (which wasn't difficult because Jen had Jake wrapped around her little finger), and we decided as a family (which wasn't difficult because Angela is one of my very best friends), to tell Angela. At first, she thought we were playing an elaborate prank on her. It wasn't until Carlisle insisted that she began to crack a little. To top it all off, though, Emmett made a spectacle of himself. He ran around at a pace that no human possibly could. She was stunned to hear the entire secret, but in the end, she managed to assimilate very well. She wasn't afraid, and that was as much as I suppose we could have hoped for.

For a third thing, the tension between the tribe and the clan seemed to have vanished for good. I like to think that I might have had a little something to do with that. Once Jake imprinted on Jen, Edward and Jake began to get along pretty well. They became interested in one another's cultures and Jake decided it would be alright if the Cullen's crossed the Quileute borders, so long as it was done with good intentions. The pair shook on it and it became the groundwork for the new treaty.

All in all, everything seemed to be going pretty darn well for a change. And yet, I was more stressed out than I had ever been.

"Gee, you sure look nervous, Bella. I mean, it's just a tiny little birthday party. Only the ones you love the most will be there."

"It's not that, Alice. I just feel a little funny about this weekend, you know?"

"You're not getting cold feet, are you?"

"It's not like I can," I laughed.

"I know, I know," she replied, "Because your feet will always be warm, just like the rest of you and your beating little heart."

"But no, whether you're speaking literally or figuratively, I'm not getting cold feet. It's just that… I feel a little guilty keeping it from my parents. I want to marry Edward, and I'm going to marry him. I just don't want the world to think I'm foolish for doing it at such a young age. Not to mention, I'm in high school. If I weren't in the circumstances I'm in, where I know we'll be together forever and all that, I'm not sure I would be going through with it at this time in my life. I don't know... does any of that even make any sense to you?"

Alice giggled and kept pinning my hair into sections while she spoke, "You know Bella, you are eighteen now and that makes you able to legally get married. You may not have the courage to tell the world about it, and you may have sworn all of us to secrecy on the matter, but you really have nothing to be ashamed of."

In one sense, I knew she was right about that. But that was the idealistic side of me oozing out. The more logical, realistic side said keep quiet you moron! Don't tell your mom and especially don't tell Charlie. He'll shoot Edward for this and then he'll find out that something is different about him. Not to mention, all the lectures you'd have to endure from Renee about being young and stupid. Plus, what would the town think? It's not that I particularly cared about what the town thought, but the logical side of me just had to throw that in there, for extra measure.

And I knew that our ultimate little secret would remain hidden. I knew that the Cullens would never speak a word of it to anyone who wasn't already in the loop. And I trusted my very best friends as well: Angela, Jen, Kathy… And it's not like the wolves even could tell anyone about it. I had ordered them to never tell Charlie, or anyone else for that matter, about the vows Edward and I would be making this weekend.

The only one among our friends left out of the more-supernatural-stuff circle was Ben… though, if he married Angela one day, then that would probably all change. For now, however, he was clued in on the wedding, and we just knew we could trust him.

"I'm thankful for you keeping me grounded, Alice. I'm glad you're on my team."

I was also glad that our team was so big. Between all of the family and the wolves and our close friends, the little birthday party tonight wouldn't be that terribly little after all. Neither would our wedding roster, come to think of it.

I could hardly believe that that day was so near. A few months ago, just before the school year ended, Edward and I had planned on waiting a year. But the more we were together, the more eager we became about the event. Edward was simply ecstatic when I proposed we get married right after my eighteenth birthday.

I hadn't thought that through very well, though. I would still live at Charlie's house, because he would have no idea that we would be married. Edward would still sneak through my window at night, as he always had, and Charlie would have no idea that he was in my room. I guess I was comfortable with that, but I didn't think it would be long before Edward would want more than that.

"It's not like I can just move out and get an apartment with you, Edward," I had said.

"Fine then. We can buy a house."

"We can't buy a house either."

"Okay, then. We'll build a house then."

"I can't do any of those things. I'm sorry."

"Because you're in high school?" he asked.

"Yup. Because I'm in high school."

"And you're afraid of what the neighbors will gossip about?"

I bit my lip and turned away, embarrassed.

"Look, sweetheart. We don't have to rent or buy or build anything. Not until you want to. I'm fine with whatever you want. I'm just happy that you're marrying me, to be honest."

I knew that he said and meant those things at the time… but as time passed, I wondered if he would continue to be so relaxed about our living-situation. It's true that I could have waited for the entire year to pass… but I just didn't want to wait anymore. I wanted to marry Edward Anthony Cullen… I just didn't want anyone to know about it, and that's where the conflict kept rising up in me.

I was so deep in thought that I hadn't noticed Alice spraying my hair.

"Ta-dah!" she announced proudly. "I'm finally finished with it. The top is up and the bottom is down and wavy. Just fabulous, don't you think? And this weekend, it will be all the way up… or at least that's the plan for now. But who knows? It's all subject to change… there are no guarantees."

"Have you picked out the dress yet?" I asked her.

She bought fourteen different dresses and matching veils and shoes for each one. I pissed and moaned the whole throughout the entire day that she had me try each and every one on.

"How about you let me pick the dress?" I asked.

She quirked her eyebrow in interest.

"Really?" she asked timidly, not sure if I was joking around or not.

"Sure. I think I know which one I would go for."

I tried not to think too hard about which one it was, or she would probably see it in one of her visions.

"You're being sly," she said devilishly, trying to sneak a glance into the future and see which dress I preferred the most.

She knew what I was up to. She knew I was trying to keep it from her. But after pretending I was up to nothing the last few months with Charlie, I was actually getting pretty good at being so darn sly.