A/N: We're down to the wire here, folks. We've got 2 regular chapters left and then the epilogue (which I'm currently working on). A huge thanks to all of you for reading and a massive thanks to my beta, Heather, for making sure those pesky commas are in the right place and for her great ideas.

"Prom is almost here!" Alice squealed through the phone, and I rolled my eyes at her exuberance.

"It's still a good month away, Alice," I told her as I looked at Edward while shaking my head.

We were snuggled up on the couch at my house, relaxing on a Saturday afternoon, while my dad was out fishing with Carlisle.

"I know! And that's no time at all. We still have to get dresses and shoes, and we have to decide on a hairstyle and what makeup to use. We have to go shopping and soon."

Edward snorted out a laugh when I let out a loud groan, and I swatted him on the arm as I agreed to go shopping with Alice the next day.

"Oh, and tell my brother he'd better ask you and soon," she said before hanging up.

"I was getting around to it," he promised me before asking me if I'd like to be his date.

"What? No promposal?" I teased, laughing when he made a face. Some of the promposals we'd seen around school had just been ridiculous, and I, personally, felt the whole thing was dumb. I was relieved that Edward hadn't gone that route.

"I'll save my proposal for something far more important down the road," he told me as he placed a kiss on my lips.

"Wait, what?" I asked because I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly.

He ran a finger across my cheek as he gazed into my eyes.

"I love you, Bella Swan, and I hope to marry you some day," he told me, and my mouth dropped open as my heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest.

"You love me?"

He nodded. "Very much so."

I threw myself into his arms before pressing my lips to his in a heated kiss. I couldn't believe it. He'd actually said he loved me.

"I love you, too," I said in between kisses.

The rest of the afternoon was spent kissing and groping and saying I love you as often as we could. We were eventually interrupted when I heard my dad's car pull into the drive.

We smoothed our clothing and our hair and pretended like we were watching the movie that was on the TV, but I was pretty sure the cheesy smile on my face was going to give things away.

"You're in a really good mood," Dad commented later that night as we ate dinner.

I nodded my head as I shrugged, but Dad just kept looking at me, and I finally blurted out that Edward had told me he loved me. I braced myself for the whole "you're too young to be in love" speech, but all he said was that he already knew that Edward loved me.

"Just wait a few years to get married," Dad said.

"Well, damn, there go my plans to get hitched at the courthouse next week," I teased.

"Ha, ha. And no babies right away either. Go to college, get married, and then have babies," Dad said in a stern voice, but I knew he'd support me no matter what I did or what happened. Although, I did like that plan. College, for me, was a must. It was something I desperately wanted to do, and I knew that Edward was college bound as well.

"Oh, by the way, I'm going shopping with Alice, Rose, and Angela tomorrow. Prom is a month away, and according to Alice, that's not nearly enough time to find the perfect dress."

"How is it almost the end of the school year?" Dad asked, and I shook my head, just as confused as he was.

It felt as if the school year had flown by, and it was hard to believe that I'd been living in Forks for so long already.

Dad and I chatted for a while longer before I decided to call it a night. Alice had told me she'd get me at nine, and I knew I was going to have a long day of shopping ahead of me, so I'd need all the sleep I could get.

Of course, my plan to get to bed early failed because Edward kept texting me, and I finally told him goodnight before adding on that I loved him, and it made me giddy to see those same words repeated back to me. It was going to take some time getting used to hearing and seeing them coming from Edward.

Eight am rolled around way too early, and by the time Alice pulled up in the drive an hour later, I was only just beginning to feel awake.

I was pretty quiet as she drove us toward her favorite boutique shop in Port Angeles, but she didn't seem to notice or care. She, Rose, and Angela kept a running conversation on which fashions were in and which were out. I wasn't a fashion person, so I didn't pay much attention, and eventually, my mind wandered toward Edward.

"Okay, what's going on with you and Edward?" Alice asked once we were inside the store and browsing the racks of prom dresses.

"What do you mean?" I asked her.

"Well, Edward had a stupid grin on his face all night, and in the car, you had the same one. So spill," she demanded with both the other girls nodding their heads in agreement, begging me to talk.

I shrugged as I browsed through a rack of dresses, not quite ready to spill the beans just yet.

"Bella!" Alice whined, stomping her tiny foot, and I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Are you a toddler?" I asked her. "Are you going to throw a temper tantrum next?"

"Bella," she said again, dragging out my name, and I grinned because she looked like she was about to burst.

"Oh, for the love of God, just tell her before she spontaneously combusts," Rose said, and Angela let out a giggle.

I rolled my eyes at them before telling them that Edward had said he loved me.

The squeals let out by the three girls had me cringing with embarrassment and looking around the store, praying that no one was paying us any attention.

I shushed them, but they ignored me, and I let out a groan when Alice wrapped me up in a tight hug before letting go of me and doing a little dance.

I knew my face was beyond red, and I did my best to ignore them.

"Always making a spectacle of yourself, aren't you Alice?" I heard someone say from behind me, and I turned around to see Tanya standing behind the girls with a haughty look on her face.

Alice shrugged before she began to speak.

"At least I'm not some pathetic girl who hooks up with criminals because she's desperate."

"Or can't seem to get the hint that her ex-boyfriend has moved on and wants nothing to do with her," I muttered under my breath, but apparently, I wasn't as quiet as I thought I was.

"What did you say?" Tanya demanded to know, stomping over to me, and I finally got a real good look at her.

She might have been a pretty girl, but at that moment, her face was ugly and her eyes were cold. She looked bitter and pissed off at the whole world, and she had no one to blame but herself.

"I'm sure you heard me just fine. I know all about your attack on Edward the other day, I know about you and James, and I know that you were the one driving by my house a few months ago. Just let it go already," I told her in a clipped tone. I was so done with her.

She opened her mouth to fire back at me, but I shook my head as I held up a hand, and she looked taken back.

"Leave it alone, Tanya," I said in a firm voice. "You can't have Edward. He loves me, not you. Me! He's never going back to you, and your constantly going after him just makes you look pathetic. Move on. And while you're at it, stay away from James. I don't know what he said or promised you, but I'm sure it's all lies. He's in jail as we speak for breaking and entering into my house. Do you really want to be with a guy like that?"

Tanya's mouth snapped closed before giving me a look that I couldn't interpret, and then she walked off. I wasn't sure who was more surprised, the girls or me.

"Go, Bella," Rose said with a grin, holding out a fist for me to bump.

"What the hell just happened?" Angela asked, looking as confused as I felt. I'd thought for sure Tanya would have kept coming at me, but instead, she'd almost looked defeated.

"I think Bella just put Tanya in her place," Alice said, a stunned look on her face as well.

"As long as she leaves Edward and me alone, I don't care what she does or whom she does," I told them before directing them back to the reason we were there, prom dresses.

Four hours and five stores later, all four of us each had the perfect dress. There had been a huge debate on whether or not to get a long dress or a short dress, so I'd tried on both. Hell, I'd tried on more dresses than I'd ever cared to try on and for a while there, I was afraid we'd never find our dresses and that Alice would end up driving us to Seattle to the huge mall there.

It was at the last store that I'd found my dress, and all the girls agreed that it was perfect. It was a long dress with a blue sequined bodice and a dark blue mesh skirt. I'd been hesitant at first because I wasn't a sequin kind of girl, not to mention that it was a strapless dress, but I'd fallen in love with it once I'd tried it on.

With bags in hand, we made our way out to the car and then back home where the girls filled in Edward, Emmett, and Ben, who had come over to hang out, on my verbal smackdown of Tanya.

"It wasn't a smackdown," I interjected with an eye roll. "It was more like a firm talking to. Hopefully, she'll listen to what I said."

Edward wrapped an arm around me as he pressed a kiss to the side of my head.

"So, I take it you got a dress," he said, changing the subject for which I was grateful. I was tired of talking about Tanya, and he obviously sensed that.

"Yep."

"Are you gonna show me?" he asked, eyeballing the bags that were sitting in the corner of the living room. Alice had been so excited to tell the boys about what had happened at the store, she'd made us drop our bags in the living room instead of up in her bedroom.

I went to tell him sure, but Alice shouted no and told Edward he'd just have to wait until prom to see it, and boy, did he pout which caused me to let out a laugh.

"You guys want to order some pizza and watch a movie?" Emmett asked a few minutes later, and we all agreed.

Halfway through some comedy that the boys wanted to watch, I called Dad and asked if it was okay if I spent the night. Agreeing, he told me he'd see me tomorrow.

"Are you freaking kidding me?" Alice scowled as she looked out the window the following afternoon.

"What?" I asked around a mouthful of leftover pizza I was eating for lunch.

"Tanya's coming up the walk."

Edward and I looked at each other before we got up and made our way over to Alice. Sure enough, Tanya was coming toward the front door, and the girl looked like crap. Her hair was a greasy mess, and her face looked tired and weary.

She paused for a second before knocking on the door, and Alice looked over at us before asking if we should answer it.

"I want to know what she wants," I told them, so Alice opened the door with a scowl on her face.

"What do you want, Tanya?" she asked with a bite in her voice.

"I need to talk to Bella and Edward," she said, barely able to meet our gazes.

Alice looked over at u,s and we both nodded, so she let Tanya in, and we all went into the library. Alice reluctantly left us to talk, but I would be willing to bet she was sitting right outside the door trying to listen in.

"You wanted to talk, so talk," Edward said, crossing his arms over his chest, a fierce look on his face, and I couldn't help but rub a hand across one of his arms.

With an ashamed look on her face, Tanya began to speak.

"I'm sorry," she began. "I'm sorry for harassing you, keying your car, and causing drama. I just got so caught up in …" she trailed off.

"Caught up in what?" Edward asked with a harsh tone. "Drugs?"

Tanya shook her head. "No. Well, yes, a bit, but I got caught up in James as well. I met him at a party and pretty much told him my whole life story while I was drunk. I told him you had moved on and were dating Bella, and it all snowballed from there."

"What snowballed?" I asked her.

"Everything. James had seen you in Forks at the grocery store shopping and decided that he wanted you. I figured if I could get you and Edward to break up, then I could have Edward and James would get you."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Edward said with a look of disgust on his face.

"I realize that now," Tanya said, looking embarrassed. "I really didn't have any idea how to break you two up, so James decided that he would convince Bella to go out with him, and then I could show Edward that you were cheating on him.

"Except that didn't work. You weren't interested in James at all, and that pissed him off. He started talking about how he was going to have you no matter what, and while his talk scared me a bit, my main focus was on getting Edward back."

I stared at her like she was an idiot, and in this case, she was. Her plan with James made absolutely no sense. I mean, I guess if I'd fallen for James it could have worked, but when that didn't happen, why did they keep coming after me?

"So, why drive by my house all the time? Why key Edward's car? Why keep trying when it was clear that I wasn't interested in James?" I demanded to know.

"I was curious about you at first, wondering what it was about you that had Edward moving on so fast. Seeing him happy without me made me furious, so I started driving by your house, thinking I could scare you away from Edward."

"Never gonna happen," I told her.

"I know," she said. "James starting following you because he was positive he could get you to change your mind about him, yet all it did was make you scared and angry, so he thought he would use your fear against you."

"Is that why he broke into my house?"

She shrugged. "I didn't know he had done that until you told me yesterday. I think he's gone a bit crazy."

I told her she needed to tell my dad everything, and once she agreed, I called him and asked him to come over to the Cullen's house. He agreed and arrived a little over an hour later.