[Disclaimer] SM owns Twilight. All I own are the eight extra pounds I gained during my trip to the States and I'm pretty sure that she wouldn't want to swap with me.

[A/N] As I've kept you waiting for so long, I had to reward you with another update today. Hope you'll enjoy.

This one here is dedicated to SOFisticated1 and mydsgirl. Thanks for supporting my story with your reviews.

**Chapter 62**

My face turned into a frown when my eyes caught the reflection in the mirror in front of me. Just what I had expected – a whale in white silk…

"Angela, this is completely hopeless." I stated and tried to fumble at the pearls on the back of the awful dress.

"Wait, I'll help you. And just for the record; we'll find you a dress, Bella."

I sighed deeply and stepped out of the crinoline.

"I look absolutely horrible in white. The color makes me look two sizes bigger than I already am."

"You're not as big as you think you are."

"Thanks," I mumbled while I tried to ignore the growing hunger in my empty stomach.

"Are you sure that you want a white dress? I mean, you could always go pink or red or purple, whatever you want it to be. If white makes you feel…uncomfortable, just pick a different color."

She handed the ivory-colored silk-nightmare back to the shop girl.

I started biting my lower lip nervously until I tasted blood on the tip of my tongue. What if I didn't find a proper dress? This was going to be so embarrassing and I was pretty sure that Angela was going to lose her patience with me quite soon.

She took my hand in hers and squeezed it gently.

"We will find you a dress. Don't worry."

"Easy to say for you, Ela. I bet you found yours in like…two minutes or something like that. I've seen the pictures of your wedding and you looked…fairytale-princess like."

"Thanks. I've always had this little girl fantasy about being a princess for once and so we got married in a castle. It was so romantic and then…,"

"And then Vlad got drunk and started singing and the whole romantic atmosphere died." Benjamin stated cheerfully as he walked into the fitting room.

"Arg, can't you wait outside?" I snarled at him, trying to cover myself up.

"What for?"

"Privacy, perhaps?"

"Oh come on, Bella. I've already seen naked women before; doesn't do much for me, so no worries."

I shoved him out of the fitting room with both hands but couldn't suppress a giggle while doing it. It was not easy to be mad at him. He was such a funny, warmhearted person.

"Haven't you found a dress yet? The two of you have been here for almost an hour now."

"Are you here to spy for your sister?" I asked him, crossing my arms in front of me.

"Maybe a tiny little bit. Ali wasn't too happy that you insisted on buying the dress without her."

"And now she's sent you to spy on me, hasn't she?"

"She did not send me. I was curious myself, but I'm planning on giving her a few details to calm down her curiosity a bit."

"Benjamin, you don't grasp the concept of surprise, do you?"

"Of course, I do, Ela. When I told my father that I was gay, he was very surprised."

"You are impossible. Would you please remind me, why we haven't kicked you out yet?"

"Kicking me out? You can't do that to me. Don't you know that I could never afford living on my own?"

"Oh, you sure could, if you wouldn't be spending all your money on clothes and contacts."

"My looks are important to me."

"Trust me; one soon to come day having a roof over your head will be way more important to you."

"Why do you want me to move out anyway? It's not like you and my dad would have sex on the kitchen counter if I weren't around."

"Where we have sex and where we don't is so none of your business." She stated, sounding slightly irritated now.

Benjamin chuckled and pulled out his cell to read a new text.

"That's your fiancée. She's asking me about the dress. Got anything, I should tell her?"

"Just tell her that I can't find one and ask how she feels about me wearing my sweatpants during the ceremony."

"I won't do that. She would freak. Jeez, Bella, how difficult can it be to choose a wedding dress?"

He walked around in the shop and grabbed a dress from a hanger.

"Try this one."

I raised one eyebrow.

"But it's red…and shoulder free."

"And you can't show your shoulders why? Do you have any gross scull tattoos that you need to hide or something similar like that?"

I shook my head.

"No, I don't."

"Then, what's your problem? This will look good on you."

He handed me the dress and I closed the curtain behind me, knowing that he wouldn't stop until he'd seen how completely ridiculous I'd look in this one. Angela helped me closing the tiny buttons on the back.

"Am I supposed to be able to breathe?"

"A little bit would be useful. It would probably kill off the romantic atmosphere if you fainted on your way down the aisle."

She turned me around so that I could take a look at myself in the mirror.

"Lovely,"

"Hmm,"

Benjamin stuck his head in again.

"See, I told you that it would look good on you."

"I don't know."

He rolled his eyes at that, and I realized that they were a warm orange color today.

"Maybe it's just the hair. You should wear it up." he mumbled, twisting it around itself until it was a messy knot at the back of my head.

"There we go, much better that way. If I wasn't gay and you weren't in love with my sister, I'd marry you myself, Bella."

"Thanks," I mumbled while I tried to get used to the woman in the mirror in front of me. I still looked bigger than I wanted to be. Hell, I would probably look big in every dress, but the ruby color of this one at least managed to make my pale skin look almost translucent. Ali would love it too because it showed some cleavage. My cheeks felt suddenly a lot warmer when I found myself thinking about her dainty fingertips stroking over the exposed skin on my shoulders. This no-love-making before the wedding was going to be the death of me for sure.

"Bella?"

"Yes?"

"Do you want to take the dress? It really looks great on you."

I nodded my head. This was as good as it could get.

"Ali will like it, I think and that's my main goal right now, to make her happy."

Then I turned to Benjamin again, trying to make my voice sound cold as ice.

"And don't you dare to tell her one tiny bit about the dress, are we clear?"

He smirked and shoved his cell back into the pocket of his jeans.

"My lips are sealed."

XXXX

After practically busting my credit card debt for the next…three months or something like that, I left the shop with the dress and Angela offered to store it for me at her house until the wedding.

"Are you planning on telling Renee about things?"

I sighed deeply and closed my eyes for a moment to fight the unpleasant dizziness. It didn't work and so I sat down on the ground to put my head between my knees.

"Are you okay? Jeez, you are as white as a ghost."

"It's nothing, really." I croaked out embarrassedly.

Angela pulled a candy bar out of her handbag and handed it to me.

"Here – eat."

"Ela, I'm not hungry." I stated, cursing myself for the trembling in my voice.

"Maybe she's practicing the whole fainting thing for the future pregnancy? Don't pregnant women always faint?" Benjamin whispered while he tried to check my pulse.

"I don't feel anything. Are you sure there's nothing wrong?"

"Are you sure how to do that properly, Dr. Popescu?"

He laughed, and I realized that he had dimples like a little boy when he did that. I bet he was pretty as a child. Ali was pretty too, like a little pixie although she didn't like the comparison that much. For a split second the picture of the spikey-haired baby appeared in front of my inner eye again. I knew that it was impossible and that send a sharp pain straight through my heart. It wasn't so much my own pain that hurt me but the knowledge how much this whole baby subject hurt Ali. Her pain hurt me way more than my own, so much more. How much I wished that I could help her…

Benjamin helped me up and led me into a café where he and Angela forced me to eat a chicken sandwich.

"I'm not going to fit in my dress." I mumbled with a full mouth.

"Then we'll change the dress. No big deal. It's your well-being that matters and not that of the dress."

Angela sighed and took a sip from the caramel latte in front of her.

"You see, sometimes you say such smart things, Benjamin and I'm really happy that your father has you as a son. You're going to make him proud one day, I'm sure about that."

He cleared his throat nervously.

"Stop talking to me like that. It makes me feel…awkward somehow."

"Kay, won't bring it up again. You know, that I'm not that good at the whole stepmom thing."

"You're doing okay, it's not like I need you to make me hot chocolate with marshmallows or something like that. Just promise me to take care of dad when he gets senile in a few years."

"You better not mention that when he's around and now be a good stepson and give us some privacy."

"You're asking me to leave? Come on, you can't do that, Ela. You know that I don't want to go home while Vlad is still around."

"Fine, you can stay if you want to but we're only going to talk about cramps during our period…,"

"Arg! God, Ela, that's so gross." He made some puking noises and Angela chuckled a bit.

"You should be happy that women get menstrual cramps now and then because otherwise there wouldn't be any hot-assed guys that you could stare after."

"I can't believe that you used the word hot-assed."

"Must be your influence, I guess."

"See, I only bring out the best in you."

"Benjamin getting knowledge about body parts that I won't come near ever again, isn't exactly the best."

"I'll find something better to show you, I promise."

"You don't have to. Just stay the way you are. You're such a funny person. It's a pleasure to be around you when you're not trying to be a pain in the neck."

He crossed his arms in front of his chest and frowned.

"I'm not trying to be an ass. I'm just saying what I'm thinking – always."

"And whether people want to hear it or not," Angela stated reproachfully before she turned to me again.

"Bella, you don't have to answer that but I'm really curious. How are you and Ali planning on having a child together?"

I cleared my throat nervously and emptied the glass of water in front of me in one big gulp.

"I guess, we're going to use an anonymus donor, but I'm not really sure about that. It feels weird to me not to know the…father of the child."

"How does Ali think about that?"

"We've not really talked about it that much. For her it's more difficult anyway…,"

"Why?" Benjamin asked me while he continued playing with the rubber bands around his wrist.

"Because I think that she's pretty upset that she can't have a baby of her own."

"But it's still you who is going to get pregnant, isn't it. For it would be…fatal for her heart condition if Ali…," his voice raised two octaves, sounding almost panicked now.

"Yeah, I'm the one who's going to have the baby. It's not like I have to worry about ruining my figure or something like that."

"You really do have issues about your weight, don't you?"

My cheeks turned into a crimson color, and I tried to hide it quickly behind a curtain of my long hair.

"You're not fat, Bella. And you know that I would tell you if I thought you were."

"Thanks," I croaked out. "Can you just do me a favor and drop the weight topic now?"

He nodded his head and took a bite from my sandwich.

"You weren't going to finish that, were you?"

Angela hit him playfully on the head.

"What? People in other parts of the world are starving, and she was going to throw it away."

"It is okay, Ela. I don't mind."

"Good, cause otherwise it would have been really rude. Well, to come back to the donor thing. I think it's creepy somehow. The guy could be a criminal or a lunatic."

I cringed when I realized that her description pretty much fitted Edward. Not that I would consider that option – ever.

"They could also use someone as a donor that they know, if they preferred that."

I bit my tongue to keep me from telling him that the word 'donor' itself managed to make me feel uncomfortable. What a weird way to form a family.

Happy families are all alike…

Benjamin's cell started ringing, and he pulled it out to answer it.

"Hi, Ali. Hmm, yes she's here with me right now and we found her a dress."

"No, I can't tell you anything, I promised her to keep my mouth shut."

"Hmm, oh, that's not fair that you're trying to play out the sister card now."

"Benjamin, give me the cell." I told him and he handed it me over the table.

"Hi, sweetheart it's me."

"Oh, Bella, it's so unfair that you won't let him tell me anything about the dress."

"Ali, you are far too curious about this. You'll have to be a little bit patient and trust me that you'll like it."

"It's your lacking sense of fashion that I don't trust."

"We can't all be fashion freaks like you, my darling. But to tell the truth, Benjamin found me the dress."

"Fine, I'm kind of relieved now."

"Good to hear that. What are you doing right now?"

"I'm trying to keep the dog from eating Lilly's toys and apart from that I'm waiting for you to come home to me again."

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