Thanks for the lovely reviews! So here's chapter 10!

Chapter 10 (only 1 left! Wah!)

Isabel

At quarter after 11, everybody starts arriving. First is Arkarian, his hair back to normal, then Ethan, Rochelle, and Shaun, and after them is Neriah and Dillon.

Mom takes it upon herself to get to know Arkarian as best as she can, and I actually have to come over and force Mom to let me have some time with my boyfriend alone.

Once she leaves reluctantly, Arkarian pulls me into a deep kiss. "Happy Birthday, Isabel," he says. "You look beautiful today. Then again, you look beautiful all the time."

I grin. "Even when I wake up in the morning and my hair's a total mess and I haven't had time to shower yet?"

He gazes at me lovingly. "Especially then."

I giggle and pull away to greet everybody else. Ethan seems closer to his dad than before he ran away, as if that whole adventure made Shaun determined to get to know his son better. Ethan is happy that Rochelle's back (aren't we all?) and Shaun is getting along well with her too; more so than when she first joined the Guard.

Poor Dillon is, once again, the only one of the Named without somebody to love. But he seems fine with it.

"This makes it so that I'm free to date whoever I want," he tells me. "I feel sorry for the rest of you who are tied down to one person."

For the first hour or so, everyone just talks with each other. Then, at around 1:00, the games start. There are some classic party games from when I was about 4 that I put in just because, like "Pin the Tail on the Donkey", but most of them are board games.

Later, we play couples Pictionary with a few extra rules: Truthseers aren't aloud to use their skills, and Ethan can't use his either. The teams should be obvious: Matt with Neriah, Ethan with Rochelle, Mom with Jimmy, me with Arkarian, and as the only two without their sweetheart there, Shaun with Dillon.

Guess who wins? That's right, Matt and Neriah. But only because she's such a talented artist! At around 8:00, we have dinner. Then, before cake, we have presents! My personal favourite part!

I open Matt's gift first, to find a pair of bungee-jumping passes. "If," he adds, "you can find someone crazy enough to want to go with you."

I get 50 bucks from Jimmy, a pair of roller blades from Shaun, a $50 gift card for Payless Shoe Source from Dillon, a paint brush set from Neriah (she wants to teach me art), a gift card for Home Outfitters from Ethan ("Because you're probably going to move out soon," he says, but I know that he knows Home Outfitters has baby furniture), Rochelle gives me a $50 gift card for Wal-Mart ("For clothes!" she says with a wink).

Arkarian is the last to give his gift, but it's definitely my favourite out of all.

He comes up to me, in front of everybody, and says, "Isabel, I was trying to think of something to give you that means as much to you as you do to me, and then I found it. The one thing that nobody else would ever give you: A simple question." He takes a deep breath, and I'm almost positive that I know what's coming next. When he gets down on one knee and takes out a little black box, I'm even more sure, and I feel tears streaming down my cheeks.

"Isabel Becket, will you marry me?"

I find myself unable to speak, so I scan the crowd to see if anybody knew that this was going to happen. By the looks on their shocked faces, Arkarian never told a soul.

I turn back to him, and try to find my voice once more. "Yes," I whisper softly. He slips the beautiful diamond ring on my finger, and stands up. I wrap my arms around him, and everybody claps. Mom also has tears streaming down her face.

But all I can think about is that I'm the luckiest girl in the world. This is, by far, the best day of my entire life.

Okay, raise your hand. How many people saw this coming? How many people were as shocked as my friend? Oh…I can't see anyone's hand…just tell me in a review, then. If too many people saw it coming, I'll have to try to be a little more subtle…