"You look nice," Charlie said, already gruff with suppressed emotion. "Is that new?"
"Yeah," I mumbled, trying to concentrate. "Alice gave it to me. Thanks."
Edward arrived just a few minutes after his sister left. It wasn't enough time for me to pull together a calm faade. But, since we were riding in the cruiser with Charlie, he never had a chance to ask me what was wrong.
Charlie had gotten stubborn last week when he'd learned that I was intending to ride with Edward to the graduation ceremony. And I could see his point - parents should have some rights come graduation day. I'd conceded with good grace, and Edward had cheerfully suggested that we all go together. Since Carlisle and Esme had no problem with this, Charlie couldn't come up with a compelling objection; he'd agreed with poor grace. And now Edward rode in the backseat of my father's police car, behind the fiberglass divider, with an amused expression - probably due to my father's amused expression, and the grin that widened every time Charlie stole a glance at Edward in his rearview mirror. Which almost certainly meant that Charlie was imagining things that would get him in trouble with me if he said them out loud.
"Are you all right?" Edward whispered when he helped me from the front seat in the school parking lot.
"Nervous," I answered, and it wasn't even a lie.
"You are so beautiful," he said.
He looked like he wanted to say more, but Charlie, in an obvious maneuver that he meant to be subtle, shrugged in between us and put his arm around my shoulders.
"Are you excited?" he asked me.
"Not really," I admitted.
"Bella, this is a big deal. You're graduating from high school. It's the real world for you now. College. Living on your own. . . . You're not my little girl anymore." Charlie choked up a bit at the end.
"Dad," I moaned. "Please don't get all weepy on me."
"Who's weepy?" he growled. "Now, why aren't you excited?"
"I don't know, Dad. I guess it hasn't hit yet or something."
"It's good that Alice is throwing this party. You need something to perk you up."
"Sure. A party's exactly what I need."
Charlie laughed at my tone and squeezed my shoulders. Edward looked at the clouds, his face thoughtful. My father had to leave us at the back door of the gym and go around to the main entrance with the rest of the parents.
It was pandemonium as Ms. Cope from the front office and Mr. Varner the math teacher tried to line everyone up alphabetically.
"Up front, Mr. Cullen," Mr. Varner barked at Edward.
"Hey, Bella!"
I looked up to see Jessica Stanley waving at me from the back of the line with a smile on her face. Edward kissed me quickly, sighed, and went to go stand with the C's. Alice wasn't there. What was she going to do? Skip graduation? What poor timing on my part. I should have waited to figure things out until after this was over with.
"Down here, Bella!" Jessica called again.
I walked down the line to take my place behind Jessica, mildly curious as to why she was suddenly so friendly. As I got closer, I saw Angela five people back, watching Jessica with the same curiosity. Jess was babbling before I was in earshot.
". . . so amazing. I mean, it seems like we just met, and now we're graduating together," she gushed. "Can you believe it's over? I feel like screaming!"
"So do I," I muttered.
"This is all just so incredible. Do you remember your first day here? We were friends, like, right away. From the first time we saw each other. Amazing. And now I'm off to California and you'll be in Alaska and I'm going to miss you so much! You have to promise that we'll get together sometimes! I'm so glad you're having a party. That's perfect. Because we really haven't spent much time together in a while and now we're all leaving. . . ."
She droned on and on, and I was sure the sudden return of our friendship was due to graduation nostalgia and gratitude for the party invite, not that I'd had anything to do with that. I paid attention as well as I could while I shrugged into my robe. And I found that I was glad that things could end on a good note with Jessica. Because it was an ending, no matter what Eric, the valedictorian, had to say about commencement meaning "beginning" and all the rest of the trite nonsense. Maybe more for me than for the rest, but we were all leaving something behind us today.
It went so quickly. I felt like I'd hit the fast forward button. Were we supposed to march quite that fast? And then Eric was speed talking in his nervousness, the words and phrases running together so they didn't make sense anymore. Principal Greene started calling names, one after the other without a long enough pause between; the front row in the gymnasium was rushing to catch up. Poor Ms. Cope was all thumbs as she tried to give the principal the right diploma to hand to the right student.
I watched as Alice, suddenly appearing, danced across the stage to take hers, a look of deep concentration on her face. Edward followed behind, his expression confused, but not upset. Only the two of them could carry off the hideous yellow and still look the way they did. They stood out from the rest of the crowd, their beauty and grace otherworldly. I wondered how I'd ever fallen for their human farce. A couple of angels, standing there with wings intact, would be less conspicuous.
I heard Mr. Greene call my name and I rose from my chair, waiting for the line in front of me to move. I was conscious of cheering in the back of the gym, and I looked around to see Jacob pulling Charlie to his feet, both of them hooting in encouragement. I could just make out the top of Billy's head beside Jake's elbow. I managed to throw them an approximation of a smile.