I was a wreck. I probably shouldn't have been driving. I had 15 minutes to get home, well Jasper and Rose's home, and I couldn't even see. I eased over to the side and realized that it was raining. I was a bad driver in weather that wasn't sunny, or sunny.

"Please pick up Jazz." Jasper, and very rarely, Edward, was the only ones I allowed to drive my car. Well my dad and mom, but only when it was necessary, and only because they were my parents.

"Hey babe" he said solemnly as he picked up.

I was a bad crier. "Jasper" I sobbed, "It was horrible. Remind me to never eat dinner at their house again. I, I think they hate me even more than when I walked in. Emmett probably hates me for yelling at his mom"

"Now calm down darlin'" he soothed, he shushed Edward and Rose, and continued calming me down. "Where are you? Have you left?"

"Yeah I've been driving for about five minutes. I'm on the highway not main.." I trailed off as the rain turned to snow and sleet, "Jazz it's storming out here, I can't-" I yelped as lighting struck and thunder crashed. "Jazz." I whispered.

"I'm on my way. Edward c'mon"

I generally didn't have to have someone come and save me, one time I got stuck in my mom's car, and Mike Newton drive past me that time, saved my ass, and tried to get with me. The towers had been down, but I didn't dare call my dad..

"I hate the rain." I said to myself. Ironically, I lived in the rainiest place in the world, well maybe not, but it was pretty rainy, and I didn't appreciate the rain, cold or anything that wasn't warm. I lived playing in the snow, but not the snow itself, if that make sense.

The thunder got louder as the storm got worse; I turned my iPhones music on, and turned my hazards on. Thunder, when I was little, scared me shitless, and it wasn't getting better the older I got. Not especially when I had to drive home.

Fifteen minutes came and went, and snow, sadly, had accumulated on the road, so I figured that Jasper and Edward were taking their time.

…..

I sighed as Bella drove away. I was appalled at my mother. She was so loving and caring towards others, I hate never even known she had a spiteful side. I guess everyone did, I just wanted to know what from my friend, well girlfriend, brought it out in her.

I stormed into my house, not taking off my muddy boots; I knew my mom hated that, tracking mud.

"MOM" I hollered.

"Emmett dear, come sit and finish your dinner, as out guest was less than polite enough to stay and finish her serving"

I lost it, well not bad, I still respected my mother. "Mom what you did tonight was totally rude. I can't believe you. Did you even give her the time of day to talk at all? She's not spoilt she's my girlfriend and before that she was my best friend! Her brother and friends are mine too! They aren't spoilt! You're the one who's spoilt!"

"Emmet" my father warned, not wanting to have to yell at me.

"Dad, you cannot be on her side. She called my girlfriend a spoilt brat! IT's the second time she met her! The first time was because of a mistake that I made. Sorry that I'm a teenage boy who had sex one time. God forbid. Did you even talk to her parents when they were here? They are like, the nicest people I've met in my life!"

"Emmett, go to your room." My mother said, tears falling from her eyes.

"Emmett you made mom cry!" Alice said. I loved my sister, don't get me wrong, she was great and she was important to me, however I was sick of her sabotaging my relationship with bell.

"Alice nobody asked you! Mom made my girlfriend cry, our guest. Does she feel bad? Probably not!"

"Emmett!" My dad said, appalled. "You are being completely disrespectful. Go to your room, and give me your cell phone right now."

I handed him my piece of crap flip phone, stormed to my room, and slammed the door so hard I heard a crack.

"DON"T SLAM DOORS!"

"TOO LATE" I called back.

I laid face first on my pillow, and heard a knock on my door. "Go away mom. Or alice. Whoever you are"

"It's me Emmy" Megan whispered, downtrodden.

"Come on in star"

She walked in scared, and I opened my arms for her. She ran to me and cried. "I've never seen you so mad Emmy. Not even when I broke your game system." She sniffled. "It scared me. You scared me Emmett"

"Ah Baby. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. Mom just made me so mad. Did you hear what she said?"

"Yes" Her muffled voice came from my neck.

"I'm not angry at you Megan. I love you, I could never be mad at you."

"How old is Bella." She asked.

I whipped the tears off of her chubby face. She was so beautiful. I loved my sisters. I smiled as I answered. "She's 17. I'm a year older than her. Her older brother is in my class, so is her friend Jasper. Her friend Rosalie is in her class."

"Tell me about her"

I sighed. "Okay. She's cheer captain. I don't know how she's captain before Rose, but she's "main captain" Rose is her co-captain, but I think that's just in title as they both do equal amounts of work. Anyway, Bella is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen." I looked at her, smiling, "Besides you of course. And maybe Alice." We giggled together for a second.

"You think I'm the most beautiful girl?"

"Of course! Why wouldn't you be?"

"Because the boys in my class pick on me and tell me I'm ugly."

"Well their wrong baby doll. You're perfect the way you are. You beat out my girlfriend, that's how pretty you are. Don't let them tell you different."

"I love you!" She kissed my cheek. "Tell me more about Bella and your friends."

"Hmm. They have a lot of money. You know how we wanted that Xbox for Christmas?" she nodded, "Well their house has three.

"Wow. Can we have one?"

I laughed at her. "I'll have to ask. Bella's Dad is the owner of the hospital and he is the head doctor. They own the restaurant I'll start working at."

"Emmy?"

"Yeah?"

"What do you see when you look at Bella?"

"Hmm. Good question. I see a gorgeous girl with perfect hair. I see a girl that I love talking to and a girl who is confident."

"You like her a lot don't you?"

"I do. How did you know kiddo?"

"I can see it in your eyes. You look happy."

"I am." I kissed her head, and saw it was 9 PM, her bedtime. "Come on I'll read you a story."

"Can I stay in here tonight?" Alice and I used to share beds when we were little. The rainstorms scared her, and I protected her from the rain monster. "I hate the thunder. You protect me Emmy"

"Of course you can. Go grab the book you're reading in school, and we'll read together okay?"

"Okay!"

I Looked out the window and the storm was horrible. I only hoped that Bella made it home okay.

…..

I squealed at thunder crashed. "Fuck. Grow up Bella" I said to myself.

Car lights pulled up behind me, and two tall figures got out, I knew it was Jasper and Edward. I got out of my car and ran to the one on the Driver's side. I jumped into his arms and relaxed at the familiar feel of my older brothers arms. Jasper and I were close as siblings, sure, but there was an unbreakable bond between siblings. Jasper walked over and grabbed my hand.

"Edward I hate the thunder" I cried into his shoulder.

"I know you do Bean. Calm down okay." He rubbed my back, soothing me with each passing second.

"I'm so horrible, making you and Jazz stand out here" I sniffled, "In the storm, it's snowing. How does it thunder when it snows?"

Jasper giggled at my antics. He knew how much I hated storms, but I couldn't blame him for finding humor. "Shut up" I laughed, calming down in my brothers arms. When we were little the storms made me really bad. We weren't allowed to leave our beds after the storm, so to avoid getting in trouble I sneaked to Edwards room. As we got older, however, he did the sneaking into my room. All he would do is hum and hold me. My brother is my protector.

"Look it's getting lighter. Bean, are you better now?" He held me at arm's length and whipped the tears from my eyes. "Let's go get warm okay? I know you only trust Jazz with your car, so I'll drive mine, but do you want to ride with me or him?"

"I don't know. I love you both too much to choose. Cut me in half and each of you take half of me." They laughed at me, and I eventually decided to oversee Jaspers driving.

We made it to the Hales house , and Rose greeted us with jello shots and popcorn. "Rose, as captain, I have to say, no drinking." She just laughed at me. We came to a mutual agreement to only have two shots, Jasper and Edward had 4. That sounds like a lot, but they usually can hold down seven or more. They figured they'd rather not face the wrath of Coach Cullen at their game tomorrow.

"What even happened Bean?" Rose asked, using my childhood nickname, that I had eventually grown to love.

"Well she basically called me a spoilt rotten rich brat. And I went apes shit on her, respectively, I then stormed out of their house and started driving. Bad idea considering" We laughed at that.

We played life, a favorite amongst us, and Edward won with a total of 2,349,801 dollars. I seriously was ten dollars behind him. Rose and Jasper sucked it up this game and lost with a sum of 789,546 dollars between the two of them.

….

Despite my unadulterated hatred towards Alice, I tried to be nice. Key word being tried. She was infuriating. She tried to tell me how to do my stunts. No Alice, I've been cheering for years. Please, don't tell your captain what to do.

Aside from that, it was time to pick the stunt person for our homecoming dance. Alice was top contender for now. My anger had died down as two weeks had come and gone, I still was angry at Gia. What she said was completely unacceptable. Even Alice, who had planned the night to go horrible, had been surprised at her mother's actions.

"Alice! Come over here for a minute would you?"

She came over quietly. At her house I was subject to her, but she knew her place on the team, she knew who was in charge, and for that I was grateful.

"How long have you been doing dance or cheer?"

"I started when I was 11."

"You're really good, there is no denying that. I was wondering, how would you feel if you were the stunt person for the halftime show at homecoming. For soccer, football and basketball. Football is the biggest one, obviously, and you don't have to if you don't want, but it's a big honor. I'm not able to be the flyer this year, you're smaller than I."

"I'd be honored!" She said, clapping her hands, she turned to leave. "Oh, Bella, I was supposed to tell you that my mom is sorry about what happened. She wanted to invite you to dinner again."

"I'm not completely opposed. But I'd rather invite you to our house. My mom loves entertaining people. You can let me know, just have Emmett call me."

Practice ended, and I was home, doing homework. Well, trying to at least. "Argh!" I screamed, slammed my book shut, and walked to my dad's office. "Daddy" I knocked on the door.

"Come in sweetheart"

"I invited the McCartys to our house. Alice called me a minute ago and said they accepted. They best day for them is tomorrow night at 6. I told them to be here at four for cocktails.. Can you get it off. I need extra reinforcement. Jazz and Rose will be there, but a big intimidating father figure would be best. Maybe I'll invite James too. Mom said yes already."

"I have nothing important tomorrow. I'll be home at 3:30."

"Yay! Thanks dad!" I kissed him on the cheek and went to call James. Honestly, I was just avoiding my homework.

….

Tomorrow was now today, and I was nervous. Saturdays were great because you didn't have school. This Saturday was not great because I had to have another dinner with the monster my boyfriend called mom.

James has said yes to coming, he'd be here at 6, an hour before the dinner started; right now however, it was three PM. I was helping my mom do last minute dinner preparations, Jasper was cleaning the sitting room for cocktails, he brought in the cart with little help, Rose was making desert, and Edward was preparing the music for the evening. My mom was determined to knock their socks off and show them that not everyone in the world was judgmental dicks.

I received a text message, "does the no elbow on the table rule aply?" Emmett had asked.

"yes" I replied, being completely serious. I don't know how, or why but my mom was a stickler for table manners.

"How should we dress?"

"semi-formal. Dress pants and a tie for the guys, and sun dresses for the girls. We have claps ;)" My mom entertained people for a living. She loved it. She organized dance parties, formal parties, breakfast parties, any party you can imagine. She loved to entertain, and she took it seriously, down to the clothes that you wore.

The house was spotless. Dinner was baking and desert was cooling. I had prepared a pasta salad for appetizers, and I was ready to roll.

I watched the clock. 4:15 and not McCarty's. They were late and it was wearing on me. By 4:30 we heard their car pull up.

My mother went to greet them at the door, but considering we had given him a yes, Emmett walked right in.

"Hey babe. Sorry, we got lost. I tried to tell my dad how to get here but he thought I was lying. Then Bill had a hard time getting a hold of your father."

"That's okay."

"Everyone in to the sitting room, right this way." My mother led us there, and called my father down. Carlisle came down and put his hand on her waist.

"Pleasure to see you again. We have another guest that will be arriving before dinner starts, He is my son James."

"Hello. These are our children that you weren't able to meet last time we met." Gia said, trying to be civil.

"I'm Megan, I'm ten years old. Nice to meet you"

"I'm her younger brother, I'm Derrick. I'm nine."

"This is carl he just turned two a couple weeks ago." Roger said.

"Alice, introduce yourself." Gia said sternly.

"Oh no need for that, we've met Alice before. Cheerleaders come over sometimes." Esme said.

"We sat down on the couches, children on one side, parents on another. "So tell me Gia, how far along are you?"

She warmed up at the mention of her impending baby. "Six months, and you?"

"Four" my mother said, and they started to gush.

The closer we got to dinner, the closer we got as a group. I was currently coloring with Megan, Rose and Carl, Edward Jasper, Derrick, and Emmett were playing a video game in the other room, Gia and mom were gushing over baby names, and Dad and Roger were smoking cigars in the cigar room.

A clang was herad in the garage, and I jumped up, going t greet my much older brother. "James!" I said, hugging him.

"Yes hello Bella. Where are the jerks?"

"Shh" I laughed, leading him there. Everyone had gathered in the sitting room again.

"Hello son!" My father greeted him.

"Hey dad, Hey mom." He said giving my dad the man hug, and kissing my mom on the cheek. "I'm James." He introduced himself.

We scattered until dinner time and this time, my father and Roger were joined by James.

"Well, shall we go eat?" My mom said. I could tell that Gia and my mom were bonding. I just hoped it was a real thing and not a façade.

"Carlisle!" She called up into the room.

They came out laughing, a glass of scotch in each hand, and we made our way to the dining room.

"Bella honey, be a dear and help me serve yes?"

"Sure." I said, patting Emmett's hand. My mom noticed how carl was seated on Gia's lap.

"Oh that is unacceptable. Jasper dear, would you go to the attic and get Karen's old high chair?"

"Sure Esme." He said, I heard Gia whisper to Roger. "Why does he call them by their first names?"

I ignored it, as I'm sure everyone did. "Emmett, how is football going? Did you start to late?"

"No Carlisle, I love it. It's amazing. Thank you so much for pulling some strings."

"And what about work dear? Is it getting better?"

"I love my job! I'm so glad I have one too. Thank you for employing me Esme."

"Anytime dear. Oh Jasper, Edward, help him set that up please. Then I'll serve dinner. I hope that everyone is hungry."

We started off in good conversation, but by the time we got to the main course, things started going downhill.

"So Esme, Carlisle, how do you manage such an extravagant house, a hospital and a restaurant?" Gia inquired.

"Well, we have great managers at the Restaurant. Our closest friends, Jasper and Rose's parents are co-owners, and they usually oversee La Luna. I'm usually at the hospital, but I have wonderful staff members."

"I manage the house." My mom said.

"You clean it by yourself?" Gia sounded incredulous. "Do your children have chores?"

My mom looked offended. "I don't do everything. I do the cleaning, they do their laundry. Once a week Edward makes dinner, and once a week Bella makes dinner. Jasper and Rose have their own days aswell. Same goes at the Your house correct?"

"Yeah, mom makes Bella clean the kitchen" Rose said.

"How can you all be so reckless with money?" Gia was starting things.

"Mom" Alice and Emmett whispered at the same time.

"We have plenty. How's the casserole?" My dad asked, trying to steer the topic elsewhere.

"James, how are your kids? Aren't some the same age as Derrick and Megan?" Edward asked.

"They are pretty close, you two are ten and nine right? Do either of you know Jaccie or Recee Cullen?"

"Oh, yeah! Jaccie is in my class. She is super nice." He blushed, and I got the idea he had a crush on my beautiful niece.

"I know Recee and his sister Amber. Amber is my reader. We go to the middle school once a week and read with them, she's my partner. And I sit next to Recee at lunch time. He's funny."

"So, Carlisle, Bella told us that the hospital is worth around 1.4 billion?"

"Mom." Emmett warned.

"Hush son." She said.

"I'm not comfortable talking money at my dinner table if you don't mind Gia." Mom said, becoming uncomfortable.

"Speaking of the table. This must have cost fortunes. It's huge. It seats us all with plenty of elbow room." She said, placing her elbows on said table. "How many can it seat?"

"16. We had it custom made, and please, I would appreciate if you would keep your elbows off." Mom was getting annoyed, and my dad rubber his hand on hers.

"How can you afford a house so extravagant. I mean this dining room is huge." She continued to pry. "I always dreamed I'd be rich…" She trailed off.

"I'd hardly say we were rich." Carlisle said.

"I beg to differ." All of the kids and I were very uncomfortable. Edward nodded to me, and I glanced at Jasper.

"Edward! Why don't you go and play that song you wrote for me?" I asked.

"Yes dear! That would be amazing." My mom was grateful for the interruption.

"Go on babe." Rose encouraged.

"They have a piano to? I can't believe this." Gia whispered.

"Gia" Roger said sternly. "Drop it."