*Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight

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I walk on a crack in the cement, putting one foot in front of the other. These are the slowest steps I've ever taken. We never even walked this slow back when we spent our mornings hoping for Jasper Whitlock sightings.

Alice groans and looks back at the parking lot. "Where is she?"

I shrug and open the door, though I doubt our goal here is to go inside. It's Monday morning, and we still haven't heard what happened with Rosalie's meeting with Alec. She didn't come to school with Alice like she usually does. In the twenty minutes I've been with Alice, she's gone through every negative emotion imaginable.

Two students walk through the door, while I hold it open for Alice. They thank me as if I was being nice on purpose.

"Are we going in or not?" I ask her and smile at another grateful member of the student body.

Alice squares her shoulder and walks into the building. Even though I'm trying to be neutral, I scan the lot one more time for Rosalie before I go inside. Where the heck is she?

Through a hallway window, I catch sight of Edward sitting on that random picnic table in the old courtyard, leaning his elbows on his knees. Zafrina, with her red shoes and matching purse, walks toward him with a pink envelope extended his way. I lose sight of him as I hurry to catch up with Alice, but not before I see him take the envelope.

"What's with all the pink?" Alice asks as we walk past a few people pulling light pink parchment out of the bright pink envelopes, the same shade as the one now in Edward's possession.

"No clue," I say, but then I see Tanya and Siobhan passing them out and reading off names as they do. "Ah, Siobhan's birthday party. It's a couple's theme."

"What?" Alice squints as she looks at me. "Excuse me. Who are you? How did you even know that?"

I shrug, slightly offended. "Why wouldn't I?"

She shakes her head, causing her earrings to sway. They are not the ones from me. I'm glad since I'd rather her not wear them all the time. She has many earrings and she wore the ones I made way longer than I've ever seen her wear any others.

"Because you don't pay attention to gossipy things."

I start to protest, but she's right, I usually don't.

"We probably won't be invited," she says and scrunches her nose. "Oh, well. We'll do something else instead."

I can hear her disappointment, but also, I can feel a hint of my own. I'm not sure why that bothers me, but it does.

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The day is filled with a sea of pink envelopes. Every single one wears a little more at me. Of course, Edward would be invited, but I'm not. I don't want to go to the party. I can't even imagine the idea of actually going, but I don't like feeling like an outsider. The feeling becomes compounded when I head to lunch and see Alice and Rosalie down the hall, hugging outside the locker room. I don't want to interfere with their reconciliation, so I go to the cafeteria alone.

I can't bring myself to sit at our usual table without Alice and Rosalie, so I walk slower, hoping they'll hurry up and join me. An arm goes around my shoulders, and I start to shrug off who I expect to be Newton or Crowley. It's Emmet though, so I let it go.

"Where are your friends?" he asks.

"Talking."

"Where are you eating then?" Emmett asks.

I look between him and Jasper, wondering if this will lead to an invitation to wherever they eat with Edward. Of course, because I can't handle things, and I hate the idea of pushing anything on him, I look around the room.

Heidi waves when I look her way. She's sitting with all sorts of people that I don't like, but oh well.

"Over there," I say, nodding toward Heidi's table.

"Cool," Emmett says. "Well, we're getting food. We'll see you later."

I nod and watch them head toward the line before I turn and walk Heidi's way.

"Hi," Heidi says in her too cheery way, but she pulls out the empty chair beside her and asks, "Do you want to sit with us?"

I take the seat, eternally grateful.

"Hey, Bella," Jane says from across the table, and I smile at the yearbook paparazzi before turning my attention to my lunch.

As much as I've been listening to gossip lately, I tune out theirs and pull out my phone. There are a few texts that I missed since my phone is silenced. I start with the most recent one. It's from Edward.

Are you okay?

I look back at Emmett in the lunch line, knowing he must have said something.

I don't really know how to answer because technically, I'm probably fine, but right now, I don't feel right, so I text back, I will be.

There's a poking tap on my shoulder. I turn to see Tanya and her acrylic nails. "Where are Alice and Rosalie?" she asks.

I glance at the table I usually sit at and then to the entrance of the cafeteria with no sight of them. "I don't know."

She flips her hair over her shoulder and extends three pink envelopes my way. "Okay, well, here. We have a website too, but we thought old-school invitations were a nice touch."

I thank her, and she leaves. There are mutterings around the table about how lame this party is going to be. I would have thought they'd all have been invited, but I guess not. I look at the elegant script adjourning my name on the first envelope before I push them into my backpack.

"Are you going to go?" Heidi asks.

I don't get a chance to answer.

"It's okay, Bella. You don't have to go to that," Jessica Stanley says as she twists the cap off a water bottle. "I'm going to throw a bigger and better party."

I hum an unintelligible response, as I look back at my phone to see Edward has responded to my last text by asking me if I want to talk about it. I ask him if he's still working after school just as Jessica says, "Maybe you could even get your friends to come, and if you can get Emmett and his friends to come too, it's guaranteed to be a cooler party."

It takes me a minute to realize she's talking to me. I laugh at her delusion as I ask, "You think so?"

"Anything is possible." She laughs as well, but embarrassment reddens her cheeks.

I look at the other texts I missed and realize Alice and Rose had asked me to meet them somewhere else, so I let them know I'll catch up with them later. If I tried to meet them now, lunch would be ending by the time I reached them.

I start to put my phone in my bag, but then Edward is texting me, "Yes. So, come by?"

"By your work?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," I type before I tuck my phone away with the envelopes. My smile isn't so easy to tuck away though, and it has nothing to do with the people I'm sitting with, so I finish my lunch, thank Heidi for letting me sit with her, and excuse myself from the table.

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Mike grins at me when I walk into Newton's.

"Hi, how are you?" I ask as I approach the checkout counter. It seems rude to lead with asking if it's okay if I just head to their storage area.

"Not bad." He slides a box over and leans on the counter. "What can I help you find today? Camping gear? A boyfriend, maybe?"

"Yeah, something like that. " I say, smiling as I check my phone for a text from Edward.

"That I can help you with. We may not have many options here, but we do have a couple good models for you to choose from."

When he starts listing his own attributes, I cross my arms. "Seriously? Aren't you seeing Jessica Stanley?"

He lifts his hands in surrender. "I'm just kidding, but I don't know. Am I seeing Jessica Stanley? Did she say something about me?"

"Well, no." Of all the things to relate with someone on, I never thought I'd relate with Mike Newton on relationship uncertainty. "I just heard she asked you to a football game or something."

"Yeah, but is it a date though? Cullen set it up, but that was just so I'd stop flirting with you, which isn't working by the way."

"I noticed," I say, but I think the set up was more to get Jessica away from him than it was to get Mike away from me. He still looks unsure, so I add, "I'm not friends with Jessica, but I'll let you know if I hear anything, or you know, you could just ask her."

"How am I supposed to ask that?"

It takes a little longer than I'd like to come up with something Mike is willing to say, but we eventually settle on a plan for him to ask Jessica if they are keeping things platonic or if it's okay for him to bring flowers before the game.

He tears off a bit of receipt paper and starts writing. "Go down that hall, and it's the first door on the right. The door has a code." He slides the paper my way. I take it and thank him, feeling like we've just made some sort of illegal transaction. Over my shoulder as I walk away, I wish him luck on his maybe-date.

I feel out of place in the vacant hallway, especially after I pass the bathroom and see bulletin boards on the walls, filled with info for employee safety procedures. Down the hall further looks to be a breakroom, featuring a small couch and an even smaller vending machine. When I find a door with a keypad above the knob, I look down at the paper in my hand and try to decipher the puzzle that is Mike Newton's handwriting. The buttons are so loud that there's no way Edward does not hear the sound from the other side. I open the door, and just as I do, Edward looks up from where he's scanning items stacked on a pallet.

He says, "Hey, hold on," as he marks something on a clipboard and then walks over and washes his hands in a large metal sink.

I sit on a stool and can't stop smiling as Edward walks toward me with a matching grin. "I tried to text you. I wasn't sure if I should just come in or not."

"Sorry," he says. "Cell service comes and goes back here." Tilting up, I meet his lips, but all too soon, he's taking both my hands, and asking, "What happened today?"

I shrug, feeling like my issues today are fairly resolved, but then out in a rush, I say, "There was this thing with Rose and pink envelopes everywhere. Then, Alice and Rose made up, but I left them alone to figure it out, and I'm pretty sure I ended up eating lunch with your fan club. I never know where you are, and it's hard when your closest friends are best friends with each other, you know?"

Edward doesn't seem put off by my rant. He kisses my forehead and squeezes my hands. "Is that why Emmett had to go pick up Rose the other night—she got in a fight with Alice?"

I stare at him, retracing everything that's happened the last few days. "No, I don't think so. It wasn't that kind of fight. Alice would have picked her up. I'm sure. Why did she need a ride?"

"No idea," he says as he brings my knuckles to his mouth. "Are you going to find out?"

I nod as he presses kisses across my hands. I'll go track down Alice and Rose after I leave here. I doubt it's okay for me to stay too long anyway, so I don't rush to go.

"And, that other thing you said, if you want to know where I am, just ask."

"Okay," I say because I do know I can do that, and I want to, but I stand in my own way when I overthink things. "Are you and Mike the only ones who work here?"

"No, his parents are here when we're in school and on the weekends. There are a few others that are here sometimes too, but speaking of parents…" He tucks his lips in as he laughs.

"What?"

He shrugs. "It's just my mom. She wants me to have you over for this dinner thing this week, but…"

My eyebrows rise because I know what dinner at the Cullens' means. "Tanya Denali and her parents will probably be there too?"

He takes a deep breath before he says, "Yeah, probably. See, you met my mom once and you already know how she is."

"Because of what you've told me." If I just had my one time meeting her as a reference, I wouldn't know much about her.

I'm nervous about this dinner plan, but I push it down and lean in to kiss him instead.

With his forehead against mine he says, "I can talk to her and make sure she's not going to be a problem."

"Your mom?"

"No, well I could talk to her too, but I meant that blonde girl. I think it will be fine if I talk to her first."

"Oh," I say, not sure how she'd be any better than us being together around any of his other crazed fangirls. She's bound to be worse. She talks to him more than anyone else, and I imagine her mom and Edward's have probably been considering the possibility of their children joining their families in some sort of unholy matrimony. Tanya Denali is flawless, and not someone I want to be competing with. Edward's not interested in her though, so I can do this. I'm almost sure of it. "Okay, but does your mom wish you would be with Tanya?"

He scoffs and his face contorts. "No, she used to say that stuff when we were kids, but she knows better now. Anyway, she said she really likes you, so I don't think it's going to be the big fiasco you might be thinking."

"Okay," I say as I feel the nerves creep back up again.

"Okay, so you'll come?"

It might mean I'm going to get my eyes clawed out, but still, I say, "Yeah."

The way he smiles is worth dealing with a million Tanya Denalis.

Lips against my cheek, he says, "And, tomorrow is Tuesday. You're still coming over, right?"

Now, it's my face lighting up with a smile. "Yeah, where else would I be on Bella Tuesday?"

"Bella every day," he says as if he's correcting me.

I sigh at both his words and the feel of his lips as they move down my neck and back up again.

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Author's Note: Hi! Thanks for sticking with me! I hope you are all doing well! Thanks so much to dazzled eyes22 for her beta work and YourVixen for prereading! I'm still working on review replies from last chapter, but if you left me one, you should hear back soon.