The Learning Curve: Chapter 124

Rosalie Hale's House

"It seems awful anticlimactic," I complained.

Alice, Rose and I were gathered in Rose's living room. Her parents had allowed her to have an all-night post-grad party. Edward, Emmett, and Jasper were here, too, but they'd gone down to the "man cave" as Rosalie called it to play foosball while us girls watched a movie. There was no parental supervision, but I'd definitely told Charlie there was. I hoped he never asked the Hales about it.

Rose snorted. "Of course it does. By the time you actually finish high school, you've got an actual real life coming up. Graduation is always going to be kind of a let-down. I mean, look at your life. You're moving across the country, you're getting married…that's all pretty huge in terms of change. Graduating high school just means you won't be going to high school anymore."

I snagged a Twizzler from the bowl on the table. "Still, I thought I'd feel some sense of accomplishment."

Alice shrugged. "It felt pretty lame to me, too. And since you mention it, Rose, we do have some wedding things to discuss."

I grimaced. "But we've got the dress, and Esme's doing basically everything else…"

"Oh, but there's fun stuff we should do, too," Alice said, sitting with her legs tucked beneath her. "Like a bachelorette party. And we all need to go on a little shopping trip so that Rose and I can pick out the fabric for our bridesmaid's dresses."

"Fabric?" I asked, confused.

"I'm making our dresses, too," Alice grinned. "We were going to just buy them, but since you liked your dress and the alterations are simple, I'll totally have time to make two more dresses. And then I'll have material for my portfolio before I even get to fashion school."

"Dear God, they burst into wedding talk anytime we leave the room," Emmett's loud voice complained, and we all looked up to see that the boys had evidently grown bored with foosball.

Edward squeezed into the remaining space beside me on the couch and let out a long yawn. I glanced at the clock on Rose's cable box. It was nearly one in the morning, and we'd all been up since at least eight in the morning.

Rose flicked a jellybean at Emmett. "Don't be such a douche, Em. Real men can handle a little wedding talk."

He caught the jellybean and raised an eyebrow. "Real men? Oh, I'll show you a real man."

"Eww. I think that's my cue to go to bed," I complained, subtly nudging Edward. Rosalie's house just happened to have two guest bedrooms.

"I second that," Alice said, jumping up to grab Jasper by the arm. Apparently, she was as eager for some couple time with Jasper as I was with Edward.

Rosalie rolled her eyes and huffed. "Fine. Go have sex in my house. See if I care."

We took her words to heart.

A/N: I tried to find a good picture of a dress that I think works for Bella's, but I couldn't...so I'm going to try to draw it for you. It's probably going to look like shit, but hey. At least you'll get an idea.