Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. :)

AN: So, of course, first off, thanks to all my reviewers of last chapter! I know at least one person said that this story doesn't really match up with it's prequels very well, but hopefully I'm getting back to that. Now, this chapter is a little light and fluffy, and it was originally going to be combined with the next chapter, but it was getting long, and I was getting short on time. So, I hope you enjoy this! Keep those reviews, alerts and faves coming, you know I love tham! :D And now, read on!

"You really think so?"

"Ang, yes. If it doesn't bother you, why should it bother him? Anyways, if he's the kind of person who is going to care about something like that, then you're not missing out." I'd been saying basically the same thing for what seemed like the past half hour (although lunch started at 12:00, and it was only 12:20, so it really couldn't have been that long ) but I must have hit on the right phrasing, because she looked more convinced.

"So you really think I should ask him?"

"Yes," I laughed, "but this is the last time I'm going to say it!"

She cracked a smile at that. "Okay. Thanks, Bella."

"No problem. But could we please get back inside now?" I pulled the collar of my coat closer around my neck and glowered at the steadily thickening snow to illustrate my point.

Now it was her turn to laugh. Angela, in only a sweater and scarf, didn't even seem to be affected by the cold.

We'd been talking about, as everyone seemed to be these days, the Cullens' upcoming Christmas bash. Because Christmas fell on a Thursday this year, we got let out of school on Friday the 19, and the Cullens were holding a big bash for what seemed like half of our school on the Tuesday night before christmas. Nominally, the party was in Edwards honour, but I now knew Esme well enough to know that she would just take any opportunity to get her house all dressed up.

The whole school seemed to be talking about it, but you could almost always tell that something was actually worth getting excited about if Angela Webber was excited. Of course, her interest, as we'd been discussing, rested mainly on her plans to ask Ben Cheney, whom she'd admired for who knew how long now, and who was clearly smitten with her, even if she couldn't see it because of a measly 6-inch height difference. Talking about Ben was pretty much the only time you would ever see Angela acting like a typical teenager, so I was mentally patting myself on the back for having convinced her to finally take action.

If only my own love story were going as well. Of course, on the surface, Edward was the same as always, but there was always still that little niggling doubt in my mind, and there had been a few more instances of suspicious behavior on Edward's part. Of course, I knew I should just tell him about my doubts, surely there was a perfectly reasonable explanation, and we could just laugh it off. But I also knew he trusted me implicitly, and I didn't want to confess that I wasn't giving him the same trust. I didn't really want to confess it to myself either.

It wasn't always hanging over my head, though. I'd still had a wonderful last month of the fall term with Edward, but for the little niggling doubt that would rear its head every once in a while.

Before I knew it, the last week of school was over, we were all complaining over the amount of homework we'd been given, Angela was over the moon about the fact that Ben had accepted her invitation to Edward's party, and I had realized that I didn't have a) a dress to wear on Tuesday, and b) a gift for Edward.

Because it was the weekend, and the holidays, I didn't worry about schoolwork, and just had Emmett bring me to the Cullen house after school. We walked in the doors to find Esme's holiday preparations in full swing, and we were quickly enlisted to help.

An hour later, Esme and I were occupied in the tedious task of hanging garlands throughout the large house (made all the more difficult by the fact that neither of us were taller than 5'5''), and Emmett and Edward had been dispatched to a place were you could cut your own Christmas trees (Esme had insisted that it was the only way to ensure it was really fresh. I hadn't even known places like that existed - then again, I had grown up in Arizona.) It was while we were both precariously perched on kitchen chairs, working together to hang a particularly long garland of evergreen and silver ribbon above the doorway to the living room that I asked her for help.

"Esme, um what exactly is the dress code for this thing?"

"I put on the invitations 'semi-formal' " she chirped enthusiastically, totally unaware of my dilemma. "It's always fun to get dressed up for a christmas party!" Sure it was, unless you were me, and only owned one skirt, which was nowhere near to being classed as "semi-formal".

"So, what are you thinking of wearing?" Esme asked me after a moment, when I hadn't responded.

"I'm. . . not sure. I hedged. I'm not really the dressing-up type."

"Oh, you don't have to wear a dress if you don't want," she encouraged, "you could just wear a nice skirt and top if you wanted."

"I should have been more specific. I don't have any dressing-up clothes. I've only got one skirt." I confessed.

"Oh." she scrutinized me. "But you don't have anything against dressing up?"

When I shook my head somewhat hesitantly, she jumped down from her chair, letting the garland swing crazily from where I was holding it against the doorframe. "Follow me."

After carefuly setting down the garland, I followed Esme up to the master bedroom. All the times I'd been in this hosue, I'd never been in that room. It was big, airy, and beautiful, like the rest of the house. She led me over to a big walk in closet. After I'd followed her in, she turned me around, to face the right wall. My jaw dropped. The entire wall was covered in dresses. Long and short, casual and formal, long sleeved, short sleeved, sleeveless, and strapless, in every colour. She laughed at my expression. "It's my one weakness!"

"Now lets see." She reached around me, to pull out a red velvet dress with three-quarter sleeves. "No, everyone will be wearing red." she muttered. She pulled out a few more, rejecting them all, before she seemed to find what she was looking for. She pulled out a hanger, looked at it, and smiled. "Aha. perfect. I just got this, I didn't know what I'd need it for, but it'll be perfect. " It was of a thick, silvery fabric, not either silk or velvet, but almost a combination of the two. It was also strapless, and seemed impossibly short.

"Esme, I don't think I can wear that - "

She seemed to see what I meant right away. "Oh no, Bella, sorry. It's not actually a dress, it's really just a very high skirt." she held it up on herself so that the top of it hit around the middle of her ribs. "Like this. You'll wear it with. . " She turned around, rummaging through the clothes on a half rack on the other side until she pulled out a blouse. ". . .this!" she finished triumphantly, showing me. It was short-sleeved, and a very dark, Indigo blue silk. It was frilly and feminie, but not overly so. I could sort of see how it might look.

"I'll step out so you can try it on," Esme said, pressing the two hangers into my hands.

I put on the blouse first, the the skirt, pulling it up and struggling to reach behind me and do up the stiff zipper, all the while wondering if Esme would ever stop surprising me. There was the side that most people saw - kind, maternal - the librarian, mother, and foster mother. As I'd been spending time at the Cullen's house, I'd also learned she had a passion for art and design, and now she was a stylist! But it did fit in with the rest of her personality. She just loved to help people, whether it be finding the obscure books on microbiology for a tired grad student, taking a new son into her household, or helping me find something to wear.

She knocked on the door. "Do you have it on?"

"Oh, yes," I pulled open the door.

She looked me up and down, the her face broke into a wide smile, and she clapped her hands. "It's perfect!" she exclaimed. "Everyone will be wearing red, you'll really stand out in this," I wasn't sure that was a good thing, but I let her continue. "and it still looks wintery. But do you like it?"

I realized I hadn't actually looked at myself in the mirror, so I turned, to face the full-length one at the back of the closet. I almost looked like a different person. The dress made me look older, more confident. Maybe I wouldn't mind standing out, after all. "I do!" I replied.

She grinned at me. "I'm so glad!"

The next week, I spent my time going back and forth between my house - trying to get some of my mountain of holiday homework done, Edward's house - helping Esme set up for the party, and spending time with Edward, while in between trying to get my christmas shopping done. I'd puzzled over what to get for Edward for weeks, until I'd been in a bookstore trying to find something for Charlie and I'd noticed a book called "everything you need to know about american pop culture of the 80's, 90's, and 2000's"

I knew Edward still felt out of his element in the modern world, and as if he didn't know as much about history and pop culture as he should, so, inspired by that book, I decided to put together a pop-culture primer of sorts, with that book, a book of modern history, and then some mix CDs I'd made, such as "the songs from your childhood in the 90s and early 2000s", and "Songs everyone will assume you know". I'd been looking for something personal, but also useful, and I thought I'd found it, expecially since one of the CDs was just the songs that I'd come across in my search that reminded me of him, of us. I'd also, for a bit of a joke, thrown in a DVD of "Casper, the Friendly Ghost". As I wrapped up the box, finishing it with a silver ribbon, I thought it was probably as close to a perfect gift as I was likely to get.

AN: there you go! Now, I felt this ending was a little abrupt, but I wasn't sure what to do to make it better, so I hope it's alright. So, I hope you enjoyed it, and, as is probably evident, it's mostly just set-up for the next chapter, where the real action will take place. Also, I hope Esme isn't getting OCC, she sort of seems to be taking on an Alice-type role, as Alice is conspicuously absent. . . :P Anyways, I hope you liked that and are liking this story so far, please leave me your thoughts in a review! :D

-Hannah