A/N: Sorry for the very long breaks between updates, guys. I've been super busy with school and all that junk. But, my promise to you all is that I will be getting a lot of new chapters out this month in honor of New Moon premiering. Expect two new chapters every week!! And once again, thank you so much for reading my story.

9. The Party

It was like a dream. No, scratch that. It was like one of those happy, sappy dreams that instantly turn into a nightmare. But, instead of me opening my eyes and going back to reality, I couldn't escape this.

"Nessie, darling! You look lovely!" A tall, thin woman came up to me with her arms outstretched. She immediately wrapped her cool, rock hard arms around me. "I can't believe how tall you've gotten. And, my, you're more gorgeous than any of us could have imagined."

I wanted to respond with a very generous thank you and possibly throw in some "But not as gorgeous as you!" or 'Thank you so much. You're looking lovely yourself," remarks, but I had no idea who this woman even was. So instead I replied, "Umm, thanks," and then quickly (and not so gracefully) walked away. This had been happening to me for the past hour. Person after person, or should I say vampire after vampire, would come up to me, comment on me, and then hug me in a life-sucking hug. I mean, I thought turning sixteen was going to be the worst part about the party.

I guess I thought wrong.

After walking away from another unfamiliar looking vampire (and tripping in my heels during the process), I made my way to the super long buffet table. All of my favorites, including pigs in a blanket and spinach and artichoke dip, were lined up and down it. Barely anything was touched. Maybe if I just grab a few pigs in a blanket and sneak through the back door, no one will even notice.

"Nessie! Come on," an all too happy Alice said while grabbing my hand and leading me back into the crowd of overly excited vampires, "It's time to sing Happy Birthday!"

"Really? Is that necessary? I mean, can't they--"

"Oh Nessie, be excited," Alice stopped and turned towards me, lowering her face next to my ear, "I know you don't want this, but to please your father just look like you're having fun, okay?" I couldn't say no. I mean, Alice had that certain little way of getting whatever she wanted and this time she actually sounded like if I did what she wanted, it would also help me in the long run. So, I agreed.

"Here's my birthday girl," my father said loud enough for everyone to hear as I made my way to the center of the dance floor (I still can't believe we actually bought one for the party). "Now before the cake is brought out, I just want to say a few words," my father walked up to me, slinging his arm around my shoulders, squeezing them gently with his hand, "I've waited a long seven years for this day. For my daughter to finally become the woman I know she wants to be." He looked down at me throughout the rest of his speech with that goofy half smile he does, and I couldn't help but look away. Here was my father, happier than I've ever seen him and here I was, more depressed than a little girl who just lost her favorite toy. How could I look at him? "To Nessie," he finished, holding an empty wine glass in the air.

"To Nessie!" the whole room said in unison, mocking my father's motion.

"Now, bring out the cake!" Emmett yelled from the crowd, causing everyone to laugh. I watched as two sort of familiar looking vampires wheeled out a massive five-tiered cake, covered in purple and green. On the top, large sparkling candles were lit.

Then it seemed as if everything was in slow motion and realization had sunken in. This was it. My last few moments of semi-normalcy. And I was no near ready.

"Haaaaaaaapy Biiirthdayyy toooo youuuu...," everyone's voices seemed to run together and the room began to spin. I tried to focus my eyes back to the glittering candles. Don't pass out Nessie. Just make it to the end of the song. "Happy Birthday dear Nessie. Happy Birthday to you!" Standing on my tippy toes, I made my last wish, and blew out the candles.

The party moved on and I did as well. After getting a pep talk from Alice and Rosalie, I decided to actually enjoy the party. I mean, why not?

"Come on Nessie," Alice said while grabbing my hand, "Lets show these old folks how to really dance." She led me towards the center of the dance floor where many of the vampires were just slow dancing to an old timey sounding song. That song instantly ended.

"This is for our guest of honor," a voice filled the speakers followed by a too familiar sound. I looked over at Alice who had a huge smirk on her face.

"I love this song!" I blurted out, sounding way too much like a little fan girl at her favorite boy band's concert.

"I know!" Alice shouted, "Now, let's dance!" That's when I realized, I sucked at dancing. I mean, yeah I loved to dance, but the actual doing it well part didn't exactly work. I looked around at the people around me. They weren't really watching and were doing their own thing. I then looked over to Alice and, what seemed to be, a very dance illiterate Jasper dancing to the beat. They wouldn't really care. Hmm. I began to move my hips to the beat, not exactly moving my legs with them. Looking around one more time, I lifted my feet and moved them to the beat. Moving my arms up just slightly from my sides, I was finally, erm, dancing! And you know what? It felt great. I let myself go into the song, not giving a care in the world. I could hear people around me, but I tuned them out as I danced to the beat of the song. I felt as if no one could stop me.

"Can...can we stop the music please," okay well my father could be the only exception, "Thank you. Now, I recently found out that Nessie had been wanting to practice her driving," Shit. He was going to rat me out in front of everyone that I took Emmett's Jeep. Wait, how did he know? I looked over at Emmett who was standing next to my father. Of course, he was smiling away. I glared at him, ignoring whatever my dad was saying. "But instead of using our cars, I think she deserves one of her own." I mean my dad could have a least waited until after the party to--wait. Did he say a car of my own?

I felt a sea of people rush me towards the front door. When I made it outside into the cool night, all I could do was gasp. In the driveway sat a deep burgundy Mercedes SL-Class (the only reason why I know the full name of the car is because I had been talking about it ever since I saw the commercial for it on TV). The hood was down, exposing the exact white leather interior I wanted. I looked over at my dad, whose arm was draped around my mother. They were both smiling as big as they could. "Go on Nessie. It's yours," my mom said.

I quickly walked towards the gorgeous automobile that was perfectly placed in our driveway. My hand scanned the outside until it reached the handle on the door of the driver's side. Once I opened it, I hopped in and sat in the most comfortable seat you could imagine. When I looked at everything inside of the car, I noticed the keys were already in the ignition. I then turned the keys until the engine rumbled. I was in heaven. Suddenly, I heard a knock on the passenger window.

"Ahh!" I screamed, looking over at the direction of the knock. The door then opened and Jacob's head popped in.

"Can I come in?"

"Uhh," I looked forward towards where all of my party guests should have been, but for some reason they were gone, "I guess."

My car began to shake back and forth as Jacob's large body squeezed itself inside. "Wow, now this is one amazing car." I didn't instantly reply, due to the fact that I was still shocked that my dream car finally came a reality.

"Yeah, isn't it--hey wait! Why are you here...again? Don't you ever call before coming over?"

Jacob just laughed and turned on the radio. Some type of foreign music began playing. "It's your birthday. And it's also your party. So, I came over to tell you happy birthday. And," Jacob exposed his right hand with a pink sparkly bag attached, "to give you this."

"You...you got me a present?" I asked, a big smile forming on my face. "But, we barely know each other and--"

"Just open it!"

"Okay, okay." I ripped open the bag, throwing the white tissue paper into the backseat of my car. When I felt something other than paper in the bag, I pulled out the gift. It was a wooden picture frame with carvings of all kinds of things around it. There were wolves, moons, a few flowers, and at the very bottom my name was engraved in a loopy font.

"So, what do you think?"

"It's gorgeous," was all I could say as I stared at the one-of-a-kind piece, "Did you make this?"

Jacob nodded and turned the music to a better station, with music we could actually understand. We both just sat there and listened as the melody filled our ears.

"So now that I'm finally sixteen, do you think you could possibly tell me about what happened with you and my parents?" I finally asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean why you have been such a big secret? The only reason I have come up with has to be that you guys fought or something and then they never mentioned you to me."

Jacob looked away from me and towards his feet. "Nothing happened between me and them."

"Bull. Then why didn't I know about you if you guys were so 'close'?" Yes, I did do the air quotes.

"Look Nessie," he said while looking back at me, "I'm not the one to tell you about the past. That's your parents' job. And possibly now since you're sixteen, they'll tell you." Ugh, this was useless. I will probably never find out any of the answers to any of the estimated millions of questions I had at that moment. "I got to go. I think somebody is coming," Jacob said while grabbing onto the door handle.

"What? No, wait," I grabbed onto Jacob's arm and he looked back at me, "You always leave way too early. Why can't you stay?"

"Because I wasn't invited. And I don't think crashers are welcome."

"Well I'm inviting you. Now, stay. Please?" I jokingly pulling on his arm, but accidentally pulled it too hard and before I knew it, his body had twisted and his face was just a few inches from mine. Now, in the movies this was where the girl and the boy would stare at each other with wide eyes and parted lips. This was the one part that the audience would be waiting for throughout the entire film and then when they would slowly move their faces together and their lips would touch, you would cheer and say "aww". Jacob's face got extremely close to mine then and my mind raced with different things like "I have no idea how to do this" and "Oh my gosh, I just ate like a handful of chips and french onion dip before" and "This does not feel right. Why?" Jacob's lips were barely touching mine before I moved my head back and gently pushed him away. "I can't do this."

Jacob then stared at me like he had done something horribly wrong. "I'm so sorry."

"Wait, why are you sorry? I should be the one saying sorry."

"No, it's just that I should have asked you if it was okay first and--"

"Woah, calm down Jake. It's fine. It's just that, umm, I don't really know you that well and I, umm, feel more like a friend with you."

"Oh," was all he said.

"Yeah."

Then there was silence between us.

"I really have to go now, though," Jacob finally said. I nodded and watched as he opened the door and got out of the car. He then turned back to me and peeked his head back in one last time. "Call me tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay. Wait! What's your number?"

"I left it for you in your room. Underneath your heart frame," he winked and then ran off into the woods beside my house. I sat in my car for a little bit longer, wondering why I didn't want to kiss Jake. I mean he was cute, funny, and seemed like someone who was fun to hang out with. And for some reason, I felt a pull towards him. Like, I wanted him around me and when he wasn't, I wanted him to be. But, it wouldn't have felt right. Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong type of relationship. I felt as if we were to be just friends.

Finally, I had decided to get out of my car and go back to the party. When I opened my front door, I noticed everyone was having a great time dancing and chatting with one another. That is until I stepped inside. Right when my foot hit the floor, everyone in the room stared back at me. Their eyes were black. Their noses were scrunched.

*****