A/N Heyy People! I know this chapter has taken a ridiculous amount of time, but I struggled a little with this one but here it is as always I shall leave my babbling to the end!

But first: THANKS to all of you Readers, reviewers, subscribers, favouriters, I mean all you, virtual cookies for you all!

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing; I mean it, nothing, at all... I'm just gonna leave now...

BPOV

"Hmm, no." Alice shook her head looking me up and down wrinkling her nose.

"Alice." I looked at her, grabbing the skirts of the monstrosity of a dress she had forced me into. "I look like I have been eaten by a cotton candy monster!" Rose and Victoria were snickering to my left, yep, thick as thieves those two. "Alice, we went through the rules this morning when we left the house. No frills, meringue skirts, nothing poufy and no hot pink." I paused. "Or lime green or bright orange, just, nothing fluorescent." I muttered, shuffling back into the changing room to take off the dress, the bodice of which was digging into my ribcage, making it hard to breathe.

"You're no fun Bella." She laughed, she said something to the others I couldn't hear "We'll meet you at the entrance, we're gonna move onto the next store!" she called out as I heard them all walk out of the changing rooms.

"Sure." I answered, muffled as I grappled with the dress, unzipping it then squeezing it over my head, stumbling to the side I fell into the wall. "Shit!" I cursed; they really need to make changing rooms bigger. I flailed around for a bit trying to push all of the puffy skirt off my head managing to get tangled up in doing so, I growled, I was gonna get the blasted thing off if it killed me. I took a breath and tried again I untangled my first arm then the second then I began sliding up my body careful not to rip it.

I shoved my clothes on quickly once I got the dress off of me and place it back on the hanger; I hung it on the hook in the dressing room and pick up my bag. I hooked my bag across my shoulder and just stared at the dress for the moment. It was almost similar to the one I had worn a few years ago at the first and only dance I had been to back in sophomore year. Alice and Rose had helped me to choose a dress then too. Yes the dress is hideous and safe to say that Alice and Rosalie's tastes have gotten infinitely better, but I still regret buying the dress. I don't remember why that was the dress I stuck with, but I can remember how I felt when I was in it. And I didn't feel good.

I remember getting ready and taking pictures with the girls, similar to what we'll do the night of this dance I suppose, but I felt frumpy and self conscious. Then I'd look at Rose and Alice, they looked so beautiful and both had amazing dresses and dates (Alice had been dating Jasper for a year then. Also this dance was one of the things that led to Emmett and Rose becoming a couple but that's a story for another time). I'd look at them and honestly, I'd be jealous, I wished that I could feel as confident as they did, feel as good about myself.

Sometimes I just wish I could have one moment, just one, where I feel beautiful. I'd rather stay at home and snug on the couch if I'm totally honest, but I might as well give it a chance. Before we got in the car this morning, in my driveway, Alice had taken me aside;

"Bells?" I turned pulling my head phones out of my ears and shuffled over to her leaning against the car.

"Mhm?" I yawned, squeezing my eyes shut; it was way, way too early. Well it was ten, same difference. Still Rose jumped on me at half eight this morning telling me rise and shine, I wanted to neither rise nor shine, I wanted to sleep.

"I don't want you to feel like I'm forcing you to do this." She looked at me placing her hand on my arm, I snorted raising a brow. "I don't."

"Yeah." I rolled my eyes, wrinkling my nose at the cloudy gray skies.

"Bella, I know I had to use coercion to get you to this point, but if you really, really don't want to go I won't force you, I think it would be good for you though." She smiled rubbing my arm, I grinned and nodded.

"I know." Truthfully I did, I knew as scheming as they were they'd never force me to go if I didn't want to. At the moment I was neither here or there, so I decided, against my better judgment I might add, to go. Plus if it made them happy were was the harm right? "I know"

"Good, I mean I will use all my power to get you there…" She grinned. "But I'd never force you."

"Mmm." I nodded, the turned my full body to face her. "But, one thing I don't get is why you want me to go so much?" She just shrugged.

"I don't want you missing out, I guess. I'd feel guilty leaving you alone at home being lonely watching reruns when were out, you're always looking after us and every so often I want to look after you." She smiled I reached over and squeezed her hand.

"I love you for that, but I like being alone and watching reruns, it's just my thing, so I don't feel I'd be missing out. However, I think this is the last time all of us are gonna be able to do something like this so I don't think it'll be so bad. Plus when am I ever gonna be able to dress up and wear a mask without being looked at like I'm going insane." I grinned, giving her hand a final squeeze. "And about me looking after you all, I do it because I love you all; you're all a part of my family."

"What, even Emmett?" she teased, I laughed.

"Yep, even if he eats me out of house and home, I don't know what I'd do without you, Ali, either of you." She looked at me with a watery smile and sniffed. "With everything that's happened in my life, with my mom and the way my dad is…"

She nodded. "Love you too."

I smiled as I walked out of the dressing room, dress in tow, I hooked it up on the nearest rack and jogged out of the shop. I stopped and scanned the mall seeing the tops of the heads bobbing as they headed into a small boutique a few doors down. I jogged through the crowd weaving round the occasional old lady who tottered into my path.

I ducked into the boutique and looked around; the first thing that entered my head was that it had a boudoir sort of feel to it. Two shelves of masks lined both sides of the store, each one unique and beautifully crafted; I shuddered to think what the prices would be. In the centre a few rows of dresses sat, from what I could see they were equally as stunning.

"Bells!" I turned to the far corner of the store, Alice grinned and waved. "Start looking!" I laughed at her enthusiasm and started poking round the rack closest to me, I picked up a few dresses that caught my eye and slung them over my arm. After a while I took one last glance over the racks and pursed my lips, before heading to the changing rooms, the others close behind me.

I hooked up the dresses, pulled off my clothes and unzipped the first dress off the hanger; I tugged it on and awkwardly zipped it up. I wrinkled my nose at my reflection the dress hung off my frame in an unflattering way; the lemon colour making me look sickly and the skirt didn't quite reach my ankles. I took it off quickly deciding it looked better on the hanger, I also made a note to stay away from any form of yellow. As I stared at my next dress wondering if gold would also me look sickly, a squeal came from the next stall over.

"This dress is perfect!" Victoria called, as a squeal came from another stall.

"Come out and show us!" Rose shouted I heard the shuffle of fabric and the stall curtains; I picked my head out and clutched my curtain round my chest to watch Victoria step out. She stood smiling and twirled, the skirt flying up, the deep plum colour showed off her olive skin. The sweetheart neckline and left hip were embellished with small crystals and a single strap stretching its way across her shoulder and across the cut out back. It clung to her giving her the appearance of wider curves on her extremely slim frame.

"It looks stunning on you." Rose grinned, Alice nodded furiously in agreement.

Victoria just smiled. "Have you three had any luck?" Were all shook our heads. "Okay I'll get dressed whilst you try on the last of your dresses." She grinned playing with one of the folds in the skirt. We all headed back into our cubicles, Victoria waited as we each one by one came out of the changing room until only Rose was left in her cubicle. We heard her shuffling about then the curtain pulled back to reveal Rose in a floor length red dress. The single strapped bodice hugged her curves and fell to the ground in tiers with a flowing train and a cut all the way up her left leg stopping at the top of her thigh. The bodice was intricately detailed along the front and down the centre of the back. She was beautiful.

"It's beautiful Rose." I smiled, she grinned.

"Then it's settled, I'm buying it!" She laughed and ducked back into her stall to change while the rest of us head back into the store, heading towards the shelves of masks and browsed. I walked over to Alice who was holding a mask that could double as a feather duster. When she saw me she grinned and thrust it in my face.

"What do you think?" she asked. "For Jasper" I choked back a laugh.

"I think he'll poke someone's eyes out." I laughed, she huffed and went back to rummaging round the shelves, then stopped and picking up another equally feathery one, she opened her mouth expectantly but I shook my head cutting her off. "No, no, not unless you want him to look like a Vegas show girl."

"Ha ha." She mumbled, she stuck her tongue out at me, I just grinned and scanned the shelves for myself, I didn't have a dress but it didn't hurt to look. As I looked Alice poked me in the shoulder and handed me a different one, this one free from feathers, it was gold, blue and green with a diamond pattern on it and a music note embellishment above the eyes, which would only cover the top half of his face.

"This one's nice, really nice." I smiled running my fingers across it then I placed it back it to her hands. "You should get it."

"Yeah, but what if it doesn't match my dress or his tux?" She deliberated chewing on the inside of her cheek.

"You'll regret letting it go." I shrugged.

"Mmm..." She deliberated on it for a minute or two before nodding. "Yeah I think I'll get it." She kept a hold of it until we both finished up looking for ourselves not being able to find anything and headed to the counter. Whilst Victoria, Rose and Alice finished up paying for their purchases I leant up against the glass counter when something caught my eye, a small pure white lace mask was nestled in the blue velvet display case, it was quite plain and understated but pretty at the same time. I pressed a hand against the glass and stared at it biting my lip.

"Would you like me to take that out for you to view?" I looked up started at the friendly face of a shop assistant as the moved to open the cabinet, I just smiled and nodded. She unlocked the cabinet carefully lifted it out and gently pressed it into my hands, I ran my fingers across the delicate fabric.

"How much is it?" I asked, not taking my eyes off it.

"$15." She replied. "It's the last one in stock; we won't have another set like that for a couple of weeks." I chewed on the inside of my lip before placing it down on the counter and fished out a twenty from my purse. "Good choice." She gave me my change and placed the mask in a small gift box and handed it over to me in a bag.

"Thanks," I smiled with a small nod a walked over to where the other three had just finished paying. Rose was clutching a box almost identical to the one I had in my bag expect it was larger. "What masks did you get?"

She grinned, eyes sparkling with excitement. "Two matching red ones for me and Em, I'll show you when we get home." I smiled. The others paid and we made our way out of the store, Victoria had decided to look online for a mask and Alice said she'd do the same when she found a dress. We carried on just walking in the direction of the car park window shopping. My eyes wandered across all the different windows until it rested on one in particular, a dress sat in its window, it was the same silvery white colour as the mask I had bought, I stopped in my tracks, causing the person behind me to swear.

"Guys, can you just give me one sec, I want to go in that shop over there." They nodded and followed behind me as I drifted in to the shop and up to a shop assistant to ask for the dress in my size. She disappeared into the back for a minute or so before emerging holding the dress in my size, I took it to the other changing room the others following behind me immersed in their own conversation. I slipped into a stall and quickly pulled off my clothes slipping the dress onto my body. The dress fit comfortably, the neck line dipped all the way down the white band circling the bottom of my breasts, spaghetti straps held it up where the skirt fell down to the ground a waterfall of sliver like petals covering it.

"Is it any good?" One of them shouted, I pushed the stall curtain back and step out the dress swishing round my bare feet.

"What do you think?" I asked, they all grinned at me nodding their heads, Alice squealed.

"You look amazing!" She laughed. "You look so beautiful." She smiled at me softly. "Don't you feel it, because you should?" I nodded smiling.

"It's nice to feel beautiful." I murmured, Alice leant over squeeze my hand, a frown flashed on Victoria's face before being replaced with a smile.

"So it's settled." Rose piped up. "You're buying it."

"Hell yes." Victoria nodded.

I laughed, shrugging. "It'd be rude not to."

"So you take that off and we'll go wait for you by the tills." Rose grinned standing up, I nodded and got changed, by the time I got to the till a small queue had formed by the till.

"You two can go take those to the car; I'll wait with Bella whilst she pays, cause I don't know about you but I'm tired." Victoria offered, the other two nodded in agreement.

"Oh, you don't have to, just go down and the three of you can wait for me there." I insisted waving her off as the person in front of me shuffled forward a little bit.

"No it's fine, I can wait here." She smiled, then leant in and whispered in my ear. "Plus this way we don't have to carry our bags to the car." I laughed and shook my head.

"Win, win." I whispered, I turned back to Alice and gave her a sweet smile. "Would you mind taking the rest of my bags too?" Her eyes narrowed, I grinned at her, she simply sighed and held out her hand, I hung the bags on her arm and watch as she shuffled off towards Rose who waited just outside the entrance. "Nope, I know I like that I idea." I laughed.

"Me too." She grinned, then her face turned solemn. "There was something I wanted to talk to you about though." I frowned, quickly trying to figure out what I might have done, if I might have offended her in some way, seeing my worry she waved me off. "It's nothing bad, not really anyway, you just said something that bothered me that's all."

I cocked my head to the side. "If I offended you in some way...?"I trailed off in question, she waved her hands.

"No, god no." She shook her head. "It's just, when you were trying on your dress you said that it was nice to feel beautiful, I just wondered, what did you mean by that?" She asked her voice soft, I look down and shrugged.

"What I said." I mumbled keeping my eyes fixed on the ground.

"Do you honestly believe that?" She whispered.

"What?" I asked playing dumb.

"That you're not beautiful."

I sighed, looked away then back, "Yes." She leant over to me and squeezed my arm.

"Well you are." I shook my head. "You are, I know what it feels like to have low self esteem. It's one of the worst feelings in the world." Her voice was quiet her gaze cast down, I looked her not being able to grasp how someone as stunning as her could begin to understand, but then again I had under estimated her before, I just looked at her and waited for her to carry on. She let out a shaky breath and spoke. "I used to be anorexic –" My eyes widened.

"You don't have to – are you sure you want to tell me this?" I asked, she nodded.

"I'm not ashamed of who I was, it's been just under two years since I recovered and I never want to go back there, but regardless it will always be a big part of my life. I used to be like Lauren Mallory, a pageant girl, obsessed with winning, being the best and looking perfect." She took a breath. "My mother always had me on crazy diets to keep me slim and at my best, but after a while I started to resent it, started to hate being in the pageants, but my mother gave me no choice in the matter, it was at that point that losing weight, I was never skinny enough to please my mother anyway, became less about looking perfect and more about having control over something, anything." She paused.

I was shocked speechless, I didn't have to say anything though, as she started to plough on. "It became almost like a game to see how little food I could eat in a day, then I stopped eating all together, my mother never noticed, never really cared as long as I could perform well." She breathed and run her fingers through her hair, gaze fixed in front of her. "I kept telling myself I was healthy, what I was doing was perfectly fine perfectly normal and eventually I believed it, none of the girls that I was friends with noticed, they weren't really friends in the first place, it was quite sad really, there were four or five of us in our little group, the only thing that kept us together was a mutual hatred of everyone else in the group." She shook her head.

"I couldn't even imagine how that would feel." I said, I'd had Ali and Emmett all my life, including such a close relationship with my siblings. I knew I had it good compared to other people, so I found it difficult to imagine not having them, not having anyone to trust and confide in.

"Yeah, well don't feel sorry for me." She laughed bitterly. "I was a real bitch, I said some things, did some things, I'm not proud of. I had become so absorbed in myself that I hadn't even noticed my parent's marriage falling apart right in front of my eyes. My mother had always been a self centred bitch." My eyebrows shot up hearing the malice in her voice. "My dad absorbed in work, it left no time for one another, that dynamic worked pretty well until I collapsed one day during pageant rehearsals and I was rushed into hospital, my mother was furious –"

"Was that when she realised that you were ...?" I asked quietly trailing off, she snorted.

"Possibly, but at the time she was just furious that I had fainted and was wasting valuable time, she was living vicariously through me, making me do all the things she'd wanted to do at my age but couldn't–" the women at the counter interrupted her and broke us out of little world, we silent walked up to her and quickly paid, then as we started to walk out Victoria spoke again.

"I don't think she acted that way because she didn't love me." A crease formed between her brows. "I just think she was so self involved that in the end there was no room left for me anymore, shortly after my collapsing episode my dad found out, I told him what I'd told the doctors, I'd just been working hard, but he wasn't as easily convinced, we got into a terrible fight, for the first time in a while I began to think maybe what I was doing wasn't right, that doubt was what made me reluctantly agree to go see a doctor. It was then when my parents marriage crumbled, my mother insisted I didn't need to go I was perfectly healthy, she knew, she saw me all the time, I don't know if she was in denial or just ignorant but either way my dad just lost it and by the next morning the lawyers had been contacted and the divorce was under way

When I went to see her the doctor diagnosed me with anorexia, I had made a habit of wearing baggy clothing to hide all my weight loss so when the doctor requested I remove it so she could accurately weigh me I felt anxious, I'll never forget the look on my dad's face when he saw how thin I'd gotten, he looked like he wanted to cry, that was kind of my wake up call. My dad, even though he's not around much, is my world, it took a while for me to recover and I'll give him his dues, he stood by me through the entire thing, even through his own divorce." She smiled fondly looking down at her feet as we walked. "I spoke to many therapists and doctors, I won't go into details but, it was hard" She thickly swallowed then turned to me and smiled. "But I did it. I beat it, I was lucky to get out when I did; some people have it so much worse than I did." Her eyes were glassy as she shrugged. "That's my story, kinda sad but, if you look at me now you can see it has a happy ending."

"Why did you tell me all that?" I asked still trying to process it all, I couldn't even begin to fathom what she had been through.

She shrugged. "I just wanted you to know you're lucky, that you're so beautiful and that I know how it feels to feel like you're never good enough."

I smiled and looked at my feet then back up "Do the guys know?" I asked.

She nodded, smiling. "Yeah, it was pretty big news at the time but towards the end of my recovery I befriended them all and I told them all the full story, they all help me through the end of my treatment and I'll be forever grateful to them for it, it's hard sometimes being the only girl, but then again I've never had such good friends in my life." She smiled.

I thought about all those guys and the way I had previously thought of them, I would never have thought they would do anything like that for anyone, guilt flooded me. It shocked me how caring they were towards her, by now it really shouldn't have been, it was hard to get my head around it all at once, I looked over at her and smiled reaching a hand over to hers, giving it a quick squeeze. We quickly fell into a comfortable silence as we carried on walking to the car park. I let my eyes wander as we walked; I stopped when the feel on a familiar looking woman walking in our direction chatting animatedly with another girl around my age.

I softly elbowed Victoria in the ribs. "Hey, isn't that Edwards mom?"

She cast a quick glance over and nodded. "Yeah, it is, I'm not sure who she's with though."

"No idea?"

She shook her head. "Nope, I've never seen her before in my life."

I nodded, I looked back at the girl, she was pretty I had to admit, they didn't bear any resemblance to each other so I assumed they weren't related, the girls blond hair fell past her shoulders, her eyes a dark brown the opposite of Edwards and his mothers. Both of their clothes where pristine and clearly expensive, I frowned, the fact I couldn't figure out who she was bothered me more than it should. I shook it away for now as we walked back to the car, we shoved our bags in the car boot with the others and we were off.

The days before the dance passed quickly, Alice had made another trip to the mall and found a strapless emerald green dress that fell to her knees in layers it was embellished and embroidered all over along with a matching green and gold mask. It fit her to a T. Victoria hand also found herself a mask for the dance and on a not totally unrelated note had taken to switching between sitting with Edward and the boys and me, Ali and Rose, some of the others would occasionally join her too. During the week I had passed many fliers for the dance with:

7.00pm

November 5th

Senior dance

Written on in chunky gaudy handwriting, for a second I'd feel dread, then inexplicably I'd get excited. Never thought I'd see the day when I actually felt excited about going to a dance after the train wreck my first dance was, especially since I was still going stag. Even so the closer it got the more excited I became, until the day finally came around.

A/N I hope you liked it! So dance next chapter exciting I know, and who is the mystery girl? Who knows ;) ? So first a links to outfits will be found on my profile so you can take a look see at those. Second – review replies for those of you who have the private messaging disabled:

Foreverbookworm13: Hey thank you so much, you have no idea how much it means that you think that, I'm glad you like it so far, just a bit more suspense to go everything will be revealed soon enough ;) and thank you so much for reviewing!

Twifan3: Thank you so much :D And thank you bunches for reviewing I hope you like this chapter!

Jadedghost22: I'm really glad you liked it and it's no problem! Thanks so much for reviewing again, it means a lot :D and I hope you enjoy the chapter!

So as for updating I'm sorry I've been such a crappy updater so far but I'm gonna try and stop it, it's not intentional, honest :D I'm just a brilliant procrastinator! In all seriousness there have been other things going on with my friends, I've been worried about both of my best friends lately which has put this on hold, combined with writers block.

NEXT UPDATE: between 5th October and 12th October so 2 weeks max just to get myself in the swing of things :)

So, Lovage to all

Monstergirl (Who should really be asleep right now :D )