In the morning I awoke to the sound of thunder.

CRASHHHH!

I jumped out of bed and looked out of the window. It was pouring. I groaned. I was supposed to meet Alice because the caterers were coming to finalize payments today. "Such a beautiful morning," I said to myself. I groaned. I pulled myself up out of my covers and onto my crutches. My arms were so sore this morning. I cringed in pain as I started to move to the door. "Today's a good day to crawl back into bed," I said. As soon as I lay back down under the covers, the phone rang.

BRINGGGG! BRINGGGG!

I whimpered. "Not now!" I picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Bella! Are you coming? I'm standing outside your door. We have to get going! Are you ready? Come on out," the shrill, recognizable voice said.

"Alice, I'm still in bed. Stop screaming!"

I heard the door slam. This cannot be good, I thought. The sound of heels pounded across my tile kitchen floor.

"I knew it was a good idea to get here an hour early," Alice called from the other room.

I rolled my eyes, still under the covers.

Alice marched in. "Bella, you are my best friend," she said sitting on my bed. "I need you to please come with me to these caterers. You know I want to have a second opinion about everything."

I continued to roll my eyes. Yeah, right. Alice was a master at making decisions. She could totally handle this on her own. Alice only wanted me to come because, well, she worried about me. But she never really realized I could take care of myself on my own.

"It's so gloomy," I said.

"Get up!" There was no use in arguing with Alice. As she started ransacking my closet, I reached for my black yoga pants. "NO!" Alice slapped my hands.

"What?" I said.

"No sweatpants. No, no, no! What have I taught you?"

"Come on Alice! They are the most comfortable things in the world. And they are yoga pants. NOT sweatpants."

"Anything that you can workout in Here wear these." She tossed a pair of deep blue jeans at me, along with a flowered halter top. "Here. Wear this," she said.

I changed quickly. "You look great," she added.

"Let's go," I said.

Alice led me out the door. Once we were in her car, she handed me a coffee. During the drive, Alice kept chatting about haggling the food prices, and the flaws in the cake design. I patiently listened, but my mind was thinking about other things.

"Alice, watch where you are driving! We almost hit that car!" A horn bleeped to the left of us.

"Oh it's fine, I've got more important things to think about!"

"Maybe if you didn't drive so fast we wouldn't have almost hit that guy!" I exclaimed.

Alice rolled her eyes at me. The next hour passed by in a blur. When we left the caterers, I was dead bored. And tired. I knew today was the right day to stay in bed.

"Now," Alice said as we were driving home, "we will go shopping, and then we're meeting Rosalie at one to go over the seating chart one more time," I rolled my eyes at this one, "and then I have to go home and meet with the band for one last time, and finally I have to choose which color napkins I want via telephone with the company because the manager is off in New York and I have to call at a six because that was the only time she was available." Alice took a deep breath. "Then we are-"

"ALICE!" I screamed. Thankfully we had stopped at a red light. "I really don't need you telling me what to do! I can't do all of this with you! I have to go see the doctor today. My appointment is at three and it's already one-thirty. I don't have time!"

Alice look surprised. After a few seconds she regained color in her face. "Bella of course you are allowed to do other things. I'm sorry," she said pulling up to my apartment building. "I didn't mean to make you feel as if you had to come with me to all of this. Can I make it up to you?"

I gave her a hug. "Well, you can drive me to see your brother. That would be great."

Alice lit up. "I'd love to! I need to talk to him anyway. See you in an hour!"

I waved goodbye as I maneuvered myself into my apartment. When I got inside, I checked my email and found a confusing message from my editor. It said, Swan, call me when you get this. Newton. I dialed his number only to find that he wanted me to take a photograph for the article about the medical trip to Africa.

"Why me?" I asked.

"Because nobody can figure out what would be a good shot for this photo, and I think you can do it. Besides, you must want some sort of work. C'mon, it'll be easy," Newton said.

At the doctor's office I was nervous seeing Dr. Cullen again. The way his green eyes had made me feel last time… well… I hadn't felt that attracted to a man in a long time. Not even with my last boyfriend Jacob. He was plenty nice, and I was going to almost marry him, but I wasn't in love with him. I craved romance. But the romance wasn't there with Jacob.

I met Dr. Cullen in the doctor's room. "Dr. Cullen," I said, reaching my hand out to shake his.

He met me with an open hand and a smile. "Please, call me Edward. If you are Alice's best friend and maid of honor, I'm sure we will be seeing more of each other."

"Okay, Edward." I smiled. "Nice to see you again."

"As you as well, Bella," he said. Edward opened my file. "How is your ankle?"

"Well," I said, "it's best when I'm taking Ibuprofen ™."

He laughed. "As expected," he said. "Let me see your cast. Have you been elevating it?"

"Yes," I said. "And resting it." I paused. "Are you a, bone doctor?"

"No, I actually want to become a neurosurgeon, but I currently have a job as the orthopedic surgeon here. That will take a lot more studying. When I go to Africa I will be helping people with treatments, but also helping everyone who has orthopedic injuries."

I nodded. "That's really great. It's great that you are someone who can sacrifice their time to do this. Actually, my editor wants to know if he could have some sort of photo for the article, although we're not sure yet what we want to do. We might do a picture of everybody from the hospitals around here going. That's not very interesting though."

"When you do know," Edward said, "contact me and I'll make sure that you have everything you need."

"Thanks," I said. I looked down at my knees. Why was I so nervous? My stomach felt all fluttery. I barely knew the man, after all! Why did he make me feel this way? I am a strong, confident, self sufficient woman, I told myself. I took a deep breath.

Edward moved onto my ankle. "So, um, I think you are doing nicely on your ankle. Just keep resting it, alright? You don't have to come back for about six weeks when we take off the cast."

"Thanks so much," I said. I shook his hand once again. I felt a pass of electricity between our hands. Looking at Edward, I could tell he felt it too. He pulled his hand away quickly. I gasped. "B- be seeing you," I said quickly. I knocked over a huge stack of papers on his desk. My face turned bright red.

"Oh, shit!" I murmured. Edward looked at me quizzically. "Uh, I'll just pick these up." I made a pile of the mess I had created. Nice going Swan, I thought as I left the waiting room back to the parking lot where Rosalie was supposed to pick me up.