Chapter Seventeen

I woke up the next morning to the smell of biscuits and gravy, and the sound of Bon Jovi drifting up the stairs. Not only was my dad home, he was in a good mood. He had come late the previous night, I was already in bed, and I heard him open my door to check I was there before shutting it and ushering Maddie into his room. I rolled myself out of bed and threw a cardigan that I had kicked under my bed the night before over my shoulders, as the chill of November had already gripped us early this Halloween morning. After finally shoving my slippers onto my feet I wandered my way downstairs. My father stood whisking the milk gravy and singing 'It's My Life' in a hushed tone. When he finally finished the song I erupted into a ton of cheers and clapping. "Encore!" Dad spun around, successfully flinging gravy across the kitchen off the whisk.

"Hey squirt didn't realize you were up!" The next song began to play from the bluetooth speaker, and he reached over to pause it before returning to the gravy and removing it from the heat. "Want some breakfast? I know you got a long night ahead of you." His Halloween costume must be himself from before the accident because I hadn't seen him willingly make breakfast like this in almost four years.

"Yeah absolutely, as long as you didn't burn the sausage."

"Oh well that's just mean, you know I'm better than that." He waved the whisk at me, flinging another drop of gravy, this time it landed in a plop on the floor and Maddie dashed to vacuum it up. As he sat the plates on the table I jumped up and started the coffee, a relatively quick thing to do in our house due to the coffee maker being the most regularly maintenanced thing in the kitchen. The handle to the microwave may be cracked and broken but the coffee maker glistened like it was brand new and ran just the same.

Once the piping hot liquid was done brewing I poured two cups and grabbed the table top sugar and creamer containers and sat it all down in the center. By this point my father had also fed Maddie, who munched happily on her dry kibble that was mixed with leftover sausage and the tiniest biscuit from the batch that had been pulled from the oven.

We sat in silence for a moment while we mixed our coffees to our preferred levels of perfection and then began chowing down on the plates in front of us. My stomach shuddered in hesitation as the food began to slide down my throat, and my fathers eyes bounced up to mine. He had heard the audible groan and looked at me with sympathy. "Is your stomach acting up again? What did you have to eat last night?"

"I had stir fry, and popcorn."

"Is it, maybe, the popcorn you had?" He wondered aloud.

"I don't know but I hope it stops before the dance." I grinned as I forced myself to eat more food.

"Are you sure you want to go when you're feeling like this? The kids at school already think something else when you are having a flare up."

"I will not sacrifice my happiness and ability to make memories in highschool for their comfort." I stated simply as I shoved more food into my mouth and ignored my audible groans my stomach gave.

"Okay honey but you will have plenty of opportunities to make memories in highschool, you're in your first semester of freshman year, don't sacrifice your comfort for the sake of tradition and the fear of missing out."

"I've already promised Gi that I was going to help set up, I'll let her know it's a flare up day and she will help me and help keep an eye on it all." I countered, knowing full well that he had lost this battle. Gi was the only one more well versed than myself and my father in handling my medical issues. During flare ups I couldn't eat as fast if at all, we didn't have an official diagnosis yet but the term 'autoimmune disorder' had been tossed around during my tests. I hadn't had a flare up since before my surfing accident, but the flare ups always made me suffer a little more than the average of your typical angsty teen.

"Fine, but if you need anything or if something goes wrong let the deputies working the dance know, I'll be on shift tonight patrolling but I can run over and get you." He raised his eyebrow, as if he had let me win this discussion.

"Deal." I slid my plate back and grabbed my cup of coffee. "I need to get my makeup bag and clothes ready, and I did dishes last week so it's your turn." I smiled triumphantly and bounded my way back up the stairs and through the door of my bedroom, carefully selecting all the items I needed for the dance.

•••

My vampiric outfit was honestly a bit medieval for my newfound knowledge of the supernatural world that lay hidden within the mundane existence, but it was what I had so I went with it. Lucky for me I had apparently gotten one thing right, the blood red contacts. The teeth however were a bit overkill, but I had paid money for them so I wasn't about to just not wear them. I sat on the gymnasium floor with Gi as we babbled endlessly about the outfits we were wearing to the dance and what others were wearing.

"I have it on good authority that both Jess and Lauren will be wearing Angel costumes tonight." Gi said humorously as she expanded the white paper lanterns that I was splashing "blood" onto and leaving handprints of "blood" on. (Which was really just dark red paint that would look lighter once we lit it up.) The white paper banner I had laid out across the floor to catch the spray of paint and save the lacquered wood from an unfortunate fate would be hung up behind the DJ's booth and have the words "Halloween: Night of Fright" painted in blacklight activated lettering. Gi and I were the only ones setting up the inside of the dance, everyone else was setting up the haunted corn maze that would be optional, portions of it ran through the buildings that made up the classes, and teachers had offered to work it. Personally I found it alarming how willing some teachers were to scare the shit out of their students but to each their own.

"No! You've got to be joking! Angels!? In what world are those two heavenly?" I snorted as I looked at her, flicking more paint from my brush.

"That's just what I heard! I guess Mike is dressing up like a cowboy and Ben is a devil." She popped open the last few lanterns we had and began grabbing the dried ones to tie the strings to them. "Oh and Kevin is going as a secret agent apparently?"

"What's Angela going as?"

"She made comments about maybe Louis Lane, but there was also a possibility of supergirl." Gi shrugged and helped me sort the lanterns into the area they would be placed. "I'm just glad we are both going as Vampires, matching the decor we totally didn't plan ourselves."

"Oh yeah totally." I laughed and flung wet paint at her. She gasped and threw a whole paint brush at me. "Oh don't make me go Carrie on your ass!" I laughed merrily as I flung more at her. We eventually stopped after accidentally spilling a glob onto the unprotected floor. "Ooops. Let's just pretend it was always like that."

"I will gladly gaslight the principal if questions are asked." Gi agreed solemnly as she scrambled about with more of the decorations.

We finished setting up the dance, and might I say it was amazing, and then moved to the locker rooms to get ready. Everyone else headed home but Gi had packed food as a contingency for having to cut it close, and didn't see the point in heading home since we already had our stuff there. I however could only stomach apple juice if I wanted to make it through the dance without pain, so down the hatch it went. We got ready, doing each other's makeup while straddling the worn down wooden bench meant for putting your shoes on or taking them off.

Once we were both done we looked like vampiric sisters, both of us did our hair in half up half down style of an 1800s english barmaid, or at least what we imagined that would look like. Our eyes were blood red, and we had fake blood dripping from the corners of our moths which held some rather real looking vampire incisors. The dance still had another thirty minutes to kick off, so we began doing our rounds, ensuring that the DJ was set up, the faculty were all in their places and ready to begin the fright, and that the Deputies that would be working the dance for various safety reasons knew the areas that they could stand that didn't obstruct the flow of the dance. When the last five minutes before people were to begin showing up came, we did the final checks, and the double checks, then a triple check because I'm a Virgo and Gi just has control issues.

Everything appeared to be smooth sailing, so Gi and I sat ourselves at the ticket gate and waited for the first ones to arrive. It was the Cullens, the whole lot of them. I smiled sheepishly at Edward as he handed me his ticket, apparently Alice had already gotten them all a ticket in the first place. "Go on in, punch bowl is to the right, DJ to the left, and the entrance to the haunted maze is straight ahead." I handed him back his piece of the ticket and watched him walk away. He was dressed as a knight, wearing chainmail, a red tunic, and a scabbard that held a sword. The terrifying thought that all of the items he wore weren't only authentic but older than myself had stuck, and earned me a chuckle as he passed by.

Alice was dressed as a flapper, honestly very fitting for her, Jasper was dressed as what I could only assume was Gatsby, and the knowledge that they had both lived at the time Gatsby had been based also struck a familiar chord with me. Rose and Emmett stepped forward, Rose was wearing a wedding dress that looked as if it had been worn by a killer bride, and Emmett wore a suit that looked as if he had assisted. Part of me was curious about what significance these outfits had in their lives, had Rose been a murderous bride? The other part of me brushed it off, they were simply costumes to everyone else I could allow them to be costumes to me as well.

Once the tickets were gathered for the first twenty minutes of the dance we handed it off to the principal and his secretary, who had been going around checking to make sure all of our double and triple checks were good, which was mildly infuriating but I brushed it off and excitedly hopped up. Once I was inside and saw the fruits of Gi and I's labor, I was ecstatic. Angela came running up to us the moment we entered, she had come as supergirl, but had her camera draped around her neck and was snapping photos for the yearbook. "You guys! This is amazing, you did so well!" She grabbed my shoulders and excitedly shook me as she spoke. "Promise me you'll enjoy yourselves, and that you'll check out the haunted maze, we tried to hide the spooky stuff really well." She looked at both Gi and I.

"We will." Gi spoke up, glancing around the room. "First order of business is to find someone to dance with."

"I'm sure you'll have no trouble at all capturing the heart of someone." I bat my eyes at her, feeling my contact shift. "Ooo you sneaky bitch." My hand flew to my eye as I tried to stabilize it. "I have to go to the bathroom!" I felt the contact pop out into my hand and I looked up at Gi, who laughed hysterically at the sudden change in my eye color for my right eye.

I made a mad dash for the locker room, squeezing through the crowd of dancing monsters. Of course, Lauren and Jess stood in my way, their wings of entitlement acting as a barrier between me and the door. "Excuse me." I mumbled, but they moved closer together.

"Can I help you?" Lauren said with a snap, and of course Jess followed suit with a snort, she had the personality of a whiteboard when it came to Lauren and her whims.

"I need to get through." I gestured to my contact.

"I don't know why you're worried about that." Lauren countered.

"Doesn't make you look any less like a freak and a wannabe." Jess added.

"Look!" That was it, I had snapped, they were relentless and for what? "I don't know what your problem is with me!" I made sure to use my hand that wasn't holding my contact to gesture wildly at them. "But being bitches won't solve it, talk to me like a civilized human and maybe you'll see that whatever idea you got about me in the seventh grade when all this started is just as dumb as it is ridiculous."

"Oh so we are the bitches?" Lauren raised her eyebrow, and with that I had had even more of enough.

"Yes! I would say so, nothing but indiscriminate bullies who don't know what else to do with their time! You wonder why I don't have any problems with anyone else in this god forsaken school and why it's just you two!?" I balled my hand around my contact, I could feel my rage crashing through me now, and out of the corner of my eye I saw all of the Cullen's looking at me. I set my jaw and looked them both dead in the eyes. "Move. Out. Of. My. Way." Each word spoken through gritted teeth as the rage boiled and rolled in my body. Both of their expressions blanked and they simultaneously moved their bodies in opposite directions of each other, allowing me passage. I was out of the gym and before I knew it I was in the cool air of the night. I didn't know where I was going, I had planned on going to the locker room to wet the contact and place it back in my eye, but my feet had other plans. I was almost halfway through the parking lot when I felt a cold grip on my arm. It took me a moment to hear the words that were spoken while I spun around, it was like my ears were full of cotton.

"Arabella." It was just my name, but it was so distorted in my head as my eyes found Edward staring down at me.

"No." I mumbled, not sure of what I was saying no to but still trying to walk away from him. He was in front of me, both his hands on my shoulders now. "What!?" I snapped, almost instantly regretting it the moment the sharpness in my voice registered in my ears.

"Just take a deep breath, it's alright." His words became clearer and clearer as my rage ebbed away. My eyes flashed with recognition that I was not the one that was calming myself, and Edward laughed lightly. "We can't get anything by you can we?"

"Not a chance." MY jaw had finally unclenched and my hands relaxed, the contact had somehow survived the vice grip, and I stared at the red disk that lay in my palm. "I really didn't expect that to burst out of me. I just wanted to fix my contact and then dance." I could hear the music thumping out of the gym doors, it was a slow song threaded through a heavy bass configuration.

"I like your eyes better without these." He plucked the contact out of my hand and cast it to the side, fluttering to the ground to be lost to the pavement of the parking lot. Admitting defeat I popped the other out and also cast it aside. I watched as it fluttered to the ground, and felt Edward's hand coil in mine. Of course he knew I wanted to dance with him, but I wasn't sure if the parking lot was the scene of that desire. He pulled me into the light swaying of our dance.

"I wouldn't normally ask this, mainly because I make enough of those assumptions myself, but…" I looked up at his gleaming eyes. "What were they thinking?"

"They just wanted to give you grief, honestly they are jealous of you." He seemed amused by my curiosity. "Lauren thinks you are out to get her for some bizarre reason that even she can't explain, and Jess honestly doesn't have an opinion on you, just just knows Lauren doesn't like you and that seems to be enough for Jess." He rattled off the reasoning but it still didn't make sense. "Something clicked for Lauren when you mentioned the seventh grade, what happened then?"

"My mom died." I mumbled, looking away from his thoughtful eyes and instead turning my attention to the tree line just beyond the edge of the parking lot.

"Oh…"

"Yeah some stupid rumors started going around that I had caused the accident somehow, that I was mad because they weren't my real parents, honestly it was all bullshit and the rest of the school moved on but Lauren and Jess kept ahold of that one." I shook my head, I could feel myself beginning to ramble and immediately clamped my jaw down. "We should go inside… back to the dance."

"If that's what you want."

"Yeah, I worked really hard on it, the last thing I'm going to do is allow two bitches in mod podge and feathers ruin it." I backed away from Edward as the slow song ended, he smiled and didn't let go of my hand, instead he adjusted his grip and walked back inside with his hand in mine.

•••

The rest of the dance went on without a hitch, and I even convinced Edward to go through the haunted maze with me, of course he wasn't scared by any of it, though I was sure it had gotten him at least one time. We danced and had a great time, and Gi found her perfect dance partner in the arms of a sophomore by the name of Taylor, who was dressed as Cinderella. The dance cleanup was left for the remainder of the student council and the volunteers who weren't on set up duty, oddly enough they were all more than happy to stay to clean it. I found myself in the parking lot with Edward once more, now empty, my heels replaced by my sneakers from before, and my clothes a combination of the outfit I wore to the dance, and the hoodie I wore for setup. I appeared to look like a bizarre rendition of when past meets present. Edward had taken my bags and placed them in the car, before turning around and looking at me. "One final dance?" He held out his hand with a smile, and of course I took it.

"We don't have music, and it's already midnight." I laughed lightly, but he had of course already thought of this. His phone was already in his hand and a soft string of notes began to play. It was "The night we met" by Lord Huron. The music seemed to swell around us and when I turned my gaze to Edward, my eyes caught something fluttering from the darkness of the sky behind him. As it grew closer I realized it had begun to snow. The flakes fell down and rested gently on each of us, melting only after a short moment. As the final notes of the song slid out, and the snow grew in volume, Edward's face grew nearer mine. His lips touched mine as gentle as ever, and just like the snow, the kiss grew in intensity. Eventually it consumed my very being, and it wasn't until Edward laughed against my mouth and drew back did I realize my knees had gone weak.

He swept me up in his arms, earning an explosive and unpredicted laugh from me. He placed me in my side of the car before climbing into his side and looking at me with a smile. "I had so much fun tonight Edward."

"Good." He brushed some snow out of my hair and pushed the strands behind my ear. "I did too, I didn't think there was much left to be fun in the human experiences, but you prove otherwise all the time." My heart melted, and so did the snow under his tires as he peeled out of the lot. Once I was home, I found my father waiting for me with an expectant gaze.

"You're home late." He smirked knowingly. "Who's the boy?"