How many times can I say I love you guys before it gets annoying? Well here's one more:

I LOVE YOU GUYS! Thanks for all the awesome reviews!

--

I had managed to avoid feeling awkward around Edward, or at least to avoid making him think I felt weird around him. Things went pretty much back to normal over the next couple of days.

It turns out that Alice had called Edward as soon as she'd gotten off the phone with me and Mike that night. Knowing what Mike and his friends were like, Edward, thankfully intercepted Mike before he could attempt to take me home or whatever.

"Bella, I'm so sorry for leaving you there alone." Alice had apologized to me a million times when I saw first her after the night of the party.

" Alice," I assured her with a hug, "I wanted to stay. There's nothing you could've done. You did nothing wrong. I should know better than to accept anything to drink from someone like Mike."

That seemed to ease her distress, although she apologized a few more times that day.

It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Charlie had been guilted into spending this holiday with some distant relatives of his, and rather than be forced into some annoying cheek-pinching, I insisted that I had a lot of work to do so that I could stay on campus for the holiday.

I had decided to spend the day in the library after my class today since there was no school tomorrow, until the following Monday and I could use the time to look at old school yearbooks. I was hoping to find out something about my family.

I had looked through quite a few before I came across a her picture.

I knew it was her instantly because she looked so much like me. My mother had always told me that I looked like my grandmother, but looking at her picture, I knew that we could have passed for twins. She had the same heart-shaped face, big brown eyes and thick mahogany hair. Her smile lit up the photograph. I ran my fingers across it, tears forming in my eyes.

I looked through the yearbook and found many pictures of her. She was on the women's tennis team and she had been Summa Cum Laude of her graduating class. There were so many pages with her brilliant smile; her with a Meyer shirt cheering at a game with some friends, her at a bonfire laughing, her looking up at the camera making a silly faces among a group of others doing the same.

I noticed that she was with the same group of people in many of the black and white photographs. As I read over their names, I realized that I knew those surnames; Abramson, Schuler and Hale were among some others. Those stood out to me. Hale, of course was the name belonging to two of my friends. But the others I couldn't place.

Then it hit me; Joshua Abramson and Logan Schuler. Josh had mentioned that my grandmother and his grandfather had been close friends, but I hadn't known about Logan or Rosalie's family's connection to mine. How odd that they hadn't mentioned it. But then again, maybe they didn't know. After all, I barely knew anything about my grandmother, what were the chances they did?

My curiosity got the better of me and I consequently spent the next couple of hours going through countless yearbooks dating back to 1900 (I don't know if they had yearbooks back then, but lets just pretend), ignoring the library worker looking at me curiously. I had found my great-grandfather and his father each in quite a few pictures in a few yearbooks, and they had both been surrounded by others whose last names I recognized also; Denali, Gilmore, Schuler and Cullen. It seems that these families tend to stick together. Whenever I'd look up on of these surnames they were with one of the others. How strange.

I noticed that in one picture my great-great grandfather had a ring on his finger, as did his friends. I instinctively went back to the pictures in the other year books of my other relatives. I wasn't surprised to see that in a few of the pictures, they were all wearing similar rings. Even my grandmother wore one in her graduation picture.

Was that supposed to mean something?

It had gotten late and the library was about to close. I put away all the yearbooks except the one from my grandmother's graduating year. I took hers to a photocopy machine and took a copy of the page with her picture before packing up and going home.

When I got back to my dorm, it was late and I was tired so I changed into pajamas and went directly to bed. I looked over my grandmother's picture longingly. Her smile reminded me of my mother's; so joyful and full of life. I missed Renee. It wasn't very often that I thought about her anymore, usually it just made me sad. I read over the quote under her photograph a few times before finally falling asleep:

"With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity."

--

I woke up that morning to Alice ranting. "Damn severe snow storms!" She had her arms crossed furiously as she stormed into our room the next morning.

Barely awake, I turned my head towards the window. " Alice, it's only a lightly flaking outside," I said.

"Not here!" she pouted, "In Vermont, where my parents are. They're completely snowed in!"

"What are your parents doing Vermont?" I sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.

"Visiting friends or something. But this means no Thanksgiving!" She was leaning against her bed looking like a lost puppy. I hated seeing Alice sad. She was normally so bouncy and optimistic that seeing her upset was just not right.

I racked my brain for something to cheer her up, "Well, are you still flying home? I bet it'll be really nice to be home even if your parents aren't there."

She looked even sadder, "No, we're not going home. There's no point without them being there!" My heart broke at her gloom, "We've already canceled our flight."

I got off my bed and went to give her a hug, "Well, I'll be here too. It won't be so bad."

Then an idea hit me.

"Hey, how would you feel about having our own Thanksgiving?"

She looked up at me still sad, "I can't cook."

"Well, that's OK, I can!" I jumped up and down uncharacteristically, trying to get her happy and bouncing again. Alice Cullen without bounce is like … like… I can't even think of an analogy but it's eerie. Anyway, I stopped after a second because it hurt my head. "I'll make a turkey and stuffing and all the trimmings, I promise."

She looked at me with pleading eyes, "Can I help?" she asked, the way a little kid asks for candy, by giving the candy holder a look that's too heartbreaking to resist.

"Of course!"

Suddenly she was happy again, "Oh YAY Bella, this is going to be so awesome! Okay, we have to tell everyone else!" She bounced again, and I sighed with relief. The real Alice was back!

"Yes and I have to go grocery shopping and start cooking."

"But it's not until tomorrow!" Alice looked at me like I was crazy.

I just laughed, "I know silly, but you have to prep. Marinate and such, you know. Plus, we don't want to leave it all until the last minute."

"Good point," she ran to the door, "I'm going to tell everyone else."

"Ask them what their favorite Thanksgiving dish is. We'll try to work everything in."

Two hours later we had all bundled up, driven through the snow (I let Rosalie drive my SUV since it fit us all better) and were at the grocery store with Emmett, Jasper, Rosalie and Edward. Everyone was excited for our makeshift Thanksgiving meal and all wanted to help. Jasper and Rosalie's parents were with the Cullen parents in Vermont and were also stuck. This reminded me that I had to talk to Alice about my discovery at the library last night. But that would have to wait until later.

"OK, we'll definitely need frosted flakes," Emmett said, pushing our cart towards the cereal aisle.

"WHAT!" Rosalie stared at her love with an incredulous expression on her perfect face, "What on earth do we need frosted flakes for?"

"Thanksgiving breakfast!" he looked at her like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I laughed at his expression, "Fine, you can get frosted flakes for Thanksgiving breakfast, but you better leave a lot of room for dinner."

Emmett rolled his eyes at me, "Bella, please. No one can pack it away like I can," he rubbed his belly proudly.

Rosalie shook her head in disbelief as we moved towards another aisle.

"OK, we need mashed potatoes, so lets go to the produce aisle." Alice cut in.

We headed over there and got a sack of potatoes and a few other ingredients. We were all laughing and excitedly planning our dinner. Rosalie insisted on making candied yams and salad. Alice was in charge of potatoes and cranberry sauce (which I would be helping her with). I, being the only one who really knew how to cook, took over the turkey, pumpkin pie, stuffing and cornbread. The boys had volunteered for the drinks and clean-up.

"And now we need… marshmallows." Rosalie said, checking her list and crossing off the things we already had in the cart.

Jasper looked at his twin sister and rolled his eyes, "No, not those, you need the mini ones. Mom uses the mini ones."

"Well, they're out of mini ones!" Rosalie snapped at him, "And my yams will be just as good as moms!"

Jasper muttered something under his breath.

"OK, turkey time!" Alice said excitedly as we made our way to where the turkeys would be. Jasper picked up his tiny girlfriend and carried her piggy-back as we walked. They really were so perfect together. I mind battled my heart as I wished that their love would last forever; I couldn't think of anyone two people who deserve to be happy more than Alice and Jasper, except maybe Rosalie and Emmett.

I couldn't help but glance over at Edward. His eyes met mine briefly before I looked away, blushing furiously. I could've sworn I saw him smirk, but I refused to look back to make sure.

"Where are the turkeys?" Alice asked as we reached an empty refrigerated bin reading 'Thanksgiving Turkeys'.

"Maybe they're keeping them somewhere else." I put in helpfully.

"I highly doubt that," Alice countered.

Rosalie went over to a worker, "Excuse me, but do you have any turkey's left?"

The pimply worker couldn't have been older than fifteen. He was clearly flabbergasted by Rosalie's beauty and looked like he was about to faint when she spoke to him.

"Uh, hello?" she said again to him, waving her hands in front of his face. I turned around to hide my laughter behind Jasper and Alice who were both biting their lips trying not to laugh. Emmett had his hand covering his mouth and covering a huge grin.

"Um," came a very squeaky voice, "W-we ran out of turkeys… I-I'm sorry," and he looked it. In fact, he looked like he was going to faint. He bid a very high-pitched farewell and half ran away from us.

When enough time had passed for him to be safely out of earshot, I couldn't hold it back any longer and let out a huge laugh. Emmett's booming laugh followed, then everyone else joined in.

"Now what are we going to do?" I asked.

"Well, we can have Thanksgiving chicken," Alice suggested, "or ham."

"What about To-furkey?" Rosalie suggested.

"Ew! No way!" Edward contorted his face to show that he was disgusted… and he still looked amazing. Life just wasn't fair.

"Ok," I chimed in, "Thanksgiving chicken it is."

--

We stopped at another store to get pots and pans (none of us had any, not even Jasper, and he had a kitchen.), and cooking utensils as well as napkins, paper towels, oven mitts and such. Everything was Thanksgiving themed, thanks to Alice. Then we all headed to Jasper's apartment to unload.

Jasper's campus apartment was like a huge bachelor pad. He had a modern looking kitchen off to the corner with a bar separating it from his large dining room, in which he had place a pool table and a dart board. His living room was composed of a very large and comfortable black leather L-shaped sectional couch, with a sleek black coffee table and matching side table next to one end of the sofa. On the other side there was a tall, stylish lamp. There was a huge TV with many video games facing the larger side of the sofa and a very cozy looking La-Z-boy chair off to the side. The whole place was like something out of a magazine.

I had asked Alice why Rosalie hadn't gotten an apartment like this and she had told me that this apartment was meant for them to share, as it had two bedrooms, but Rosalie preferred the single dorms… probably because of her proximity to Emmett.

Edward turned put on some music as we unpacked everything in the spacious kitchen. Then the boys went to play video games while we prepared. By the time we had finished marinating the chicken, peeling potatoes and readying everything for tomorrow, they were already taking bets on the game.

Alice and I started a game of pool. I was dreadful. She kept giving me pointers until I shot a ball directly across the entire room, nearly getting Edward in the head. That's when I gave it up.

"Hey, Lice, don't let Bella near the darts, OK?" Emmett said, not taking his eyes off his game.

"No problem. And don't call me Lice" Alice said.

I took the opportunity to talk to Alice and Rosalie about my discovery in the library.

"How come you guys never told me your grandparents knew mine?" I asked them.

I noticed that Rosalie did a small double take at my words, missing the cue ball completely, "What?" she said, composing herself.

I told them about how I saw my grandparents in pictures with theirs. "Isn't it strange that each generation hung out with each other? That can't just be a coincidence."

"Well, they've all kept in touch, so their kids were bound to know each other." Alice shrugged nonchalantly.

"Yes, I suppose that's true," I considered, "but the more I think about it the weirder it seems. I noticed that in the picture my grandmother was wearing a strange looking ring. It wasn't clear in the picture, but I looked at all of her friends, and they all had it too."

Alice and Rosalie glanced at each other.

"And also, when I looked back at my grandfather, he was wearing a similar ring, and so were his friends."

"What are you saying our families were in a cult?" Rosalie asked as though it were ridiculous.

"No, not a cult, but maybe a fraternity or sorority of some sort?" I asked them, "Did your parents ever mention anything about it?"

"Nope, my dad never joined a fraternity when he was here," Rosalie responded.

"Neither did my parents, they both attended this school." Alice mentioned as she continued to beat Rosalie at pool.

I was quiet. There was something to this. My mother had always told me that her mother had the most amazing experiences in college and how she always talked about wanting her daughter to attend, just as her and her predecessors had done. I wonder if there was more to it than that.

They both looked at me with unreadable expressions.

"This all sounds insane, doesn't it?" I blushed a little.

Alice smiled at me, "Just a bit, but its ok. Honestly, though Bella, school is hard enough without worrying yourself about this stuff too."

I couldn't just let it go, but I didn't want to tell Alice that, "Yea, maybe you're right." I didn't meet her eyes as I said it though. "OK, give me another shot at pool. I think I can keep the balls on the table this time."

Mysterious, I know. If you've figured out what the secret is, please don't let it out. PM me and I will tell you if you're right or not. I wouldn't want to ruin in for others. :)