Stephenie Meyer owns all the lovely characters from the Twilight series.

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Chapter 5: Honey, I'm Home

(flash forward to finals)

BPOV

Finals were over. School was over. Graduation was tomorrow. We had practice in the morning, then the real thing at night. My mom couldn't make it out from Florida, since Phil had gotten an injury from playing ball. She apologized profusely over the phone, but I reassured her it was fine. I didn't even want to be there, why make her feel bad about not being able to?

I went to bed early, not wanting to increase my clumsiness from lack of sleep during the ceremony.

I woke up bright and early for practice. It went by quickly, ending early, so that the girls could go home and get ready. I didn't have much to do besides change into a skirt, maybe and brush my hair, so I decided to re-read, for the eighty millionth time, my tattered copy of Wuthering Heights instead.

I was in the last chapter when I heard Charlie come in early, calling out my name.

“Bella? Bella! Come down here. I need to give you something!” he shouted up the stairs.

I placed my book upside down on my nightstand and went downstairs.

“Bella. I thought maybe you'd wanna dress nice for graduation, so I picked up this dress for you. One of the ladies down at the station helped me pick it on her lunch break.” Charlie said, holding up a simple, delicate blue dress.

I had to admit it was cute, despite the fact that Charlie had basically been the one to pick it.

“Thanks dad, it's cute.” I said taking the dress from him and turning to go upstairs.
“You're welcome. Oh, and Bells, I'm really proud of you. I don't say that enough.” he said through a watery smile.

I felt my own eyes starting to water, so I smiled and nodded to him before I went back up to my room.

I slid the dress on and it was bright against my pale skin. I decided to continue my miniature dress up, in memory of Alice's dress-up days, since she was gone now. The thought of her gave me a small prick in my heart, but I fought to stick together, at least for one more night. I fought the tears and got ready.