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"We have to get ready for midnight mass," Tony said. "It's almost time to leave."

I went upstairs and changed into a church-type dress. Alice and Rosalie came into the room, chattering away about wedding things. "Can you believe they pulled this off?" Alice said.

"No, I really can't," I said.

"Am I going to have to wear off-white because I'm not a virgin?" Alice asked, admiring her ring. "Because I don't think I really want like, white white white white. Maybe eggshell. What about the bridesmaid dresses?"

"It really depends on your bridesmaids," Rosalie said. "If you want to make them look good or bad next to you."

"Y'know, I really like the idea of a pink wedding," Alice said. "Do you think Jasper would wear a pink vest and tie?"

"No," Rosalie said. "How soon do you want to get married?"

"Gosh, I don't know," Alice sighed. "He's gotta finish his master's degree, do you think he'd want to come to New York for that? And… I've gotta finish mine… That's going to be at least another year and half for me. What about you and Emmett?"

"Oh, we've talked about it, actually," Rosalie said. "This wasn't too much of a surprise, we just thought about it before."

"Really?"

"No, really," Rose said. "We talked about getting engaged, and then we went ring shopping together."

This was news to me. "Wow, really?" Alice asked. "This was a total surprise!"

"We're thinking sometime next summer," Rosalie said.

"Oh!" Alice cried. "It's such a short amount of time to plan your wedding!"

"We'll get a wedding planner," Rose said.

I wondered if Alice and Rose were going to talk the whole night about their upcoming weddings as if I wasn't in the room.

We took separate taxis to the Anglican Church. I took the one with Edward, Liz and Tony. It was a nice break from all the wedding talk. I wondered what was bothering me so much.

It was on the way to midnight mass, that I realized that it was that neither Rose nor Alice had asked me to be a part of their bridal party, yet. I loved both of them so much- and we had all known each other the same amount of time. And Alice and Rose were going on and on about being each other's maids-of-honor. That's probably what they were talking about in their taxi right now.

"I guess Alice and Rose have their whole weddings to plan," Edward said. I shifted uncomfortably beside him.

"I guess," I said, looking out the window.

We finally arrived at the church, which was quickly filling up. I thought this was the one place Alice and Rose couldn't talk about their weddings. I thought wrong. They were whispering and giggling the whole time.

Edward got into the pew beside me, wedging himself between me and Jasper, who was sitting between me and Alice. It made me feel a little better.

I didn't go to church too often. It made me uncomfortable most of the time because I didn't live the saintliest of lives, personally. And right now, I was resenting my best friends for forgetting about me. Renée had gone on a Christianity kick when I was a kid for a couple of months. She met this preacher-type and dragged me along. I'm surprised we didn't get taken to a compound and raped, but Renée lost interest and we stopped going.

I said a quiet prayer to God (if He's actually there) that He'd get Rose and Alice to stop talking about weddings and Edward would simply get lost. Yeah, that'd happen.

We waited forever before the choir actually came in and started singing. That was bearable, but after an hour, it got old. The minister finally came in with a bunch of altar boys and the mass finally started. We had been there for two hours already.

After church, it was almost one-thirty am, and we were all ready to crash, but the people exiting bottlenecked the exit, and then, they had to start talking to each other, holding it up even more. This was why I wasn't good with church.

"Do you like church at all?" Edward asked. Rose and Alice were discussing wedding plans again.

"To be honest with you, I don't," I said, quietly.

"I know," he replied in a low voice. "Me neither."

"Mom!" Alice cried. "I had the best idea for my wedding just now!"

"Me too! Can we talk about in the cab on the way home?" Rose asked.

"Sure!" Esme said.

Tony, Jasper, Carlisle and Emmett loaded into one taxi together. I wasn't too fond of getting into a cab with 'the wedding planners' just this moment.

"Let's share a cab home," Edward said.

We loaded into a cab and went north to Islington.

"So, aren't you chuffed for your friends?" he asked.

I guessed 'chuffed' meant 'happy.' "Sure I am," I said, shrugging.

"You don't seem like it," he said.

"I'm just tired," I said. I hadn't had a nap this afternoon and my circadian clock was probably scheduled to wake up in two hours.

"I can't wait for those girls to shut it about their weddings," Edward said.

I smiled. "I guess we just need to give them a chance to be excited," I said.

"You have to sleep in the same room as them." He chuckled.

"They didn't sleep in my room last night."

"Tonight's going to be a repeat," he said, shrugging.

"I know. How can it not be?"

"I heard what you said over the gingerbread cookies."

"You did?" I asked, feeling sick.

"I suppose I look like a giant wanker to you," he said.

"Well, yeah," I said, not really understanding the gravity of the word.

"You're a big wanker, too. Who told you about my mold and spore collection?"

"Emmett," I said. "Do you still have it?"

"No, I had to dispose of it when I came to England. I got an A in science that year, though." I realized he found it funny.

"How did you stop being a dork?"

"I don't know… I just outgrew it… Why, am I the opposite of a dork, now?"

"I've only known you three days."

We pulled up to the house. "I got it," he said, getting out his wallet. "Thank you," he said to the driver. I climbed out of the car. The girls were already home and they were talking in the foyer.

"Bella!" Esme cried. "You're back!"

"I'm so tired, I think I'm going to go to bed, now," I said.

"Yeah, me too," Esme said. "It's been a long day."

"Good night," I said.

Alice and Rosalie came upstairs with me. I started changing into my pajamas.

"I'd like to have a destination wedding," Rosalie was saying as she changed into a t-shirt. "I'm thinking we can get married here in London."

"Oh that's a great idea!" Alice said. "That way you can only invite the people you actually like! And we can find the church now! I bet Liz would love to be the liaison for the wedding!"

With that, Alice and Rosalie left the room without saying good-night to me. I sighed and put on my eye shade and earplugs.


I woke up a few times in the night, but I got back to sleep quickly without long periods of insomnia. In the morning, I put on my socks and went downstairs to see if anybody else was awake. Liz and Esme were working on breakfast and the guys had started on the small array of presents. I went to the kitchen to help with the food.

"Breakfast will be ready in a minutes," Liz explained. "I'm trying to do something a little more American." She was chopping up potatoes for hash browns.

Alice and Rosalie came downstairs, the wedding talk kept on going. Ugh.

"Bella, did I tell you I wanted to do a destination wedding to London?" Rosalie asked.

"Yeah, you did," I said.

"Alice, please, have your wedding in Washington State," Esme begged. Liz laughed. They degenerated into wedding talk. I had told myself I would give them a chance to be happy about it, but it was getting old.

"I will," Alice said, happily. "I'm still high from last night!"

"I know," Esme said, smiling.

After a breakfast about London weddings, we went to the den and started opening the presents and going through our stockings. In my stocking, I got an orange, a pair of English wool socks (they were very nice), some chocolate coins, some candies in a plastic bag, and some CDs, probably picked out by Edward. I figured the orange, the coins, candy and the socks were traditional British Christmas presents. I got a few more presents- small stuff I could bring home. We had exchanged most of our presents before we left the States since it was so difficult to not have to pay extra to check extra suitcases. I got a pashmina from Carlisle and Esme, Eat, Pray Love from Alice and Jasper (which was a book I had wanted to read for a while), an open-hearts collection from Kay Jewelers necklace from Emmett and Rosalie. The Masens gave me a new collection of Charles Dicken's works in Hardback. I had gotten my presents from my parents and bigger presents from my friends while at PSU before I left for the break, too.

After we opened all the presents, Tony turned on the television and turned to A Christmas Carol. "Most British families watch this on Christmas day," he explained.

Edward got out the pillows and blankets from the coffee table and we all curled up with mulled wine, watching the flatscreen. This was as close to my fantasy on the plane as I could get. Edward sat beside me and put a pillow on my feet to keep them warm. We shared a smile. Liz and Esme jumped up a few times to work on the goose. There were no greetings from Military stationed overseas to say hello to their loved ones.

"Godbless us everyone!"

And it was over. I sighed. "I love that story," I said. "They do an adaptation of it every year in America."

"Yeah, it's pretty lame," Edward agreed.

"You know what? I think I want a wedding around Christmastime," Alice said. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Edward and I shared another smile. He wasn't so bad, after all.

Liz turned to Eastenders and we watched as terrible things happened to the main characters. We all laughed. "They always do this at Christmas," Liz explained. After that, we watched Top of the Pops Christmas Special, which was like American Bandstand and Dr. Who. Jasper has always been a Dr. Who fan since I've known him and Edward got a little irritated when I tried to talk to him during the show. I bet he was a Dr. Who fan, too.

After that, I went into the kitchen to help out with the last-minute Christmas dinner preparations, which was mostly peas, green beans, stuffing, brussel sprouts, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, carrots and chipolata sausages and bacon. Alice and Rosalie went on to set the table and talk about wedding stuff.

By the time we got to sit down to dinner, I was starving.

There were Christmas crackers laid out and candles lit. "Hey, watch this," Emmett said, pulling on the ends. It exploded with a loud crack that made me jump and confetti and streamers flew everywhere with little bits of candies. There was a short, child-friendly joke in them that we all groaned at. While we were eating dinner, we pulled all the crackers apart and they made us all jump and laugh a little. Tony explained that all the good football matches were on Boxing Day and Emmett got excited about that and started making plans.

"Tottenham Hotspurs are playing Fullham," Tony said. "A London Derby."

"Big rivalry?" Emmett asked.

"No, not majorly," Tony said.

After dinner, we listened to the Queen's Christmas address, which I personally found quite boring. It was like a bad Christmas letter that people wrote to all their friends that was really impersonal.

"I think we should tour churches tomorrow while the guys are watching the games," Alice said. "I'd love it if it snowed at my Christmas wedding!"

I wondered if Alice would ever stop talking about her wedding.

As I took my presents upstairs, Edward fell instep with me up the staircase. "Sorry, I'm not much for going out on Boxing Day," he said. "But, after that- would you like to see what London night life is like?"

I thought I'd never see that on this family vacation. "Sure!" I cried.

"There's lots of night clubs in SoHo. Most of my friends work in the restaurants and night clubs," he said. "It's good work where you can get it. If you have to have a job."

"So, I guess you're in luck then?" I asked.

"Well, I go to some of the clubs to help them out, sometimes," he said. "I think you'd like London night clubs."

"We've got night clubs in Spokane and Seattle," I said, thinking about the Christmas pub crawl with the Frosh Dorm Staff.

"Not like here, you don't."