Dedicated to Awesomeness 101

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Another lunch period in another cafeteria in another high school in another city in another state. Another. Another. Another. Wonder if words begin to have no meaning to other people when they say them over and over to themselves like they do with me?

I pick apart a breadstick that I would never eat and try to tune out the talk - and thoughts - of those around me, including my siblings.

Another school, another city, another state. I bite back a grin. Anyone eavesdropping on my thoughts would probably think me morose and depressed. Quite the opposite. I'm elated that it's another lunch period in another cafeteria in another high school in another city in another state. One more day in my lifetime, one more lunch period of probably thousands to come.

I used to try to avoid such thoughts. I wouldn't say they depressed me, but they weren't exactly encouraging either. What's the point of eternal life when you're always thirsty, and there's no one to share it with outside of your parents and your siblings - who you love, of course, but who all have mates that they're very much in love with and who have no qualms about thinking about their mates? Often. Graphically.

I shudder at the things I've had to hear and see in my mind.

"Are you all right, Edward?" Alice asks.

"Fine," I say, going back to tearing the tiny pieces of breadstick into even tinier molecules. Wonder how small I can get them?

"He's just missing Bella," Rosalie teases. "Where is she anyways?"

"She stayed after class to help her lab partner try to understand the differences between the phases of meiosis and the phases of mitosis," Emmett says, who has Biology with her. "I think the kid pretends to not understand just to get to talk to her more," he chuckles.

"I know he does." Poor guy has no clue he doesn't have a chance in the world with Bella. It would almost be amusing… if he didn't sometimes have lurid daydreams about her. If she's not out of there in five minutes I'm going after her and bursting his bubble…

The breadstick is massacred by now, so I'm forced to start tuning back in to reality.

Morgan Isaacson.

Morgan seems to be the talk of the cafeteria and in the thoughts of most people's minds. Who's Morgan?

I glance around the cafeteria quickly and find the source of the chatter. Morgan is obviously the new girl. Petite and pale, dark-haired and pretty. She is definitely on the thoughts of most of the males, and already the speculative enemies of many of the females.

I tune in just in time to hear the exchange been Jessica and Morgan. My siblings obviously hear it too.

"There's something strangely familiar about that conversation…" Alice trails off, her eyes twinkling at me. Of course she knew what it reminded her of. Her memory is just as good as mine.

"New girl in town, wanting to know who we are?" Jasper muses. "Doesn't ring any bells with me!" His grin tells the lie though.

"Why are you all smiling like that?"

Ah, at last! My beautiful Bella arrives! She tries to sit next to me, but that doesn't last for long. Once I have her safely in my lap I whisper in her ear.

"A new girl in town, sitting by Jessica Kramer, wants to know who we are."

Bella's eyes land Morgan's face for a brief moment before meeting mine. She grins.

"Let me guess. 'They're all together,'" she mocks perfectly, causing our siblings and I to burst out laughing.

We've heard it before. The shock and scandal that Dr. and Mrs. Cullen's foster kids are all couples. Long before Bella we tried to pretend that we were all only siblings, but Alice and Jasper and Rosalie and Emmett just couldn't do it. Looking at my Bella, I understand why.

What strikes us as funny is not that all the students think we're scandalous, but at the thought that they only know the half of it.

That Alice and Jasper have been married for over fifty years now, and they still have moments where they disappear for a weekend without warning, coming back smirking and - in Alice's case - giggling like a schoolgirl with a crush.

That Rosalie and Emmett have been married so many times that even I have to stop to think in order to count. And we still banish them to a two month honeymoon whenever they do get married - just for our own peace of minds.

And Bella and I - well, all these years later and the family still makes sure that we have a place of our own to spend our nights in, for their peace of minds. And not only that, but we have a daughter. How scandalous would these children consider that? A daughter and a son-in-law, who keeps hinting that "grandpups" may very well be in our future, if he and Nessie have anything to say about it.

So we laugh. Bella in my lap, Alice in Jasper's arms, Emmett with his hand in an inappropriate place … blocking those thoughts! … and the mundane soap opera world of high school life for normal teenagers goes on around us. If only they knew… probably best they don't.

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I was quite content with "Cafeteria Repitition" being a one shot, but then Awesomeness 101 had to go and make me think. Why exactly were the Cullens laughing? I realized that I didn't have a succinct answer, so this was born.

Unfortunately, she just HAD to go and ask for it in Edward's POV... but once challenged I had to try. Do I like this story? Yes. Do I think it captures Edward's way of thinking? Not at all! It more captures my random thought patterns. Oh well! That's why fiction is so great... you get to do what you want to do!