I listened to the ominous sound of my father’s boots clomping up the sidewalk. The key rattled in the already open door. The sound reminded me of that part of the horror movie when the victim realizes she’s forgotten to lock her deadbolt.

“Calm down, Bella,” Edward whispered, listening to the acceleration of my heart.

The door slammed against the wall, and I flinched like I’d been Tasered.

“Hey, Charlie,” Edward called, entirely relaxed.

“No!” I protested under my breath.

“What?” Edward whispered back.

“Wait till he hangs his gun up!”

Edward chuckled and ran his free hand through his tousled bronze hair.

Charlie came around the corner, still in his uniform, still armed, and tried not to make a face when he spied us sitting together on the loveseat. Lately, he’d been putting forth a lot of effort to like Edward more. Of course, this revelation was sure to end that effort immediately.

“Hey, kids. What’s up?”

“We’d like to talk to you,” Edward said, so serene. “We have some good news.”

Charlie’s expression went from strained friendliness to black suspicion in a second.

“Good news?” Charlie growled, looking straight at me.

“Have a seat, Dad.”

He raised one eyebrow, stared at me for five seconds, then stomped to the recliner and sat down on the very edge, his back ramrod straight.

“Don’t get worked up, Dad,” I said after a moment of loaded silence. “Everything’s okay.”

Edward grimaced, and I knew it was in objection to the word okay. He probably would have used something more like wonderful or perfect or glorious.

“Sure it is, Bella, sure it is. If everything is so great, then why are you sweating bullets?”

“I’m not sweating,” I lied.

I leaned away from his fierce scowl, cringing into Edward, and instinctively wiped the back of my right hand across my forehead to remove the evidence.

“You’re pregnant!” Charlie exploded. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

Though the question was clearly meant for me, he was glaring at Edward now, and I could have sworn I saw his hand twitch toward the gun.

“No! Of course I’m not!” I wanted to elbow Edward in the ribs, but I knew that move would only give me a bruise. I’d told Edward that people would immediately jump to this conclusion! What other possible reason would sane people have for getting married at eighteen? (His answer then had made me roll my eyes. Love. Right.)

Charlie’s glower lightened a shade. It was usually pretty clear on my face when I was telling the truth, and he believed me now. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Apology accepted.”

There was a long pause. After a moment, I realized everyone was waiting for me to say something. I looked up at Edward, panic-stricken. There was no way I was going to get the words out.

He smiled at me and then squared his shoulders and turned to my father.

“Charlie, I realize that I’ve gone about this out of order. Traditionally, I should have asked you first. I mean no disrespect, but since Bella has already said yes and I don’t want to diminish her choice in the matter, instead of asking you for her hand, I’m asking you for your blessing. We’re getting married, Charlie. I love her more than anything in the world, more than my own life, and—by some miracle—she loves me that way, too. Will you give us your blessing?”

He sounded so sure, so calm. For just an instant, listening to the absolute confidence in his voice, I experienced a rare moment of insight. I could see, fleetingly, the way the world looked to him. For the length of one heartbeat, this news made perfect sense.

And then I caught sight of the expression on Charlie’s face, his eyes now locked on the ring.

I held my breath while his skin changed colors—fair to red, red to purple, purple to blue. I started to get up—I’m not sure what I planned to do; maybe use the Heimlich maneuver to make sure he wasn’t choking—but Edward squeezed my hand and murmured “Give him a minute” so low that only I could hear.

The silence was much longer this time. Then, gradually, shade by shade, Charlie’s color returned to normal. His lips pursed, and his eyebrows furrowed; I recognized his “deep in thought” expression. He studied the two of us for a long moment, and I felt Edward relax at my side.

“Guess I’m not that surprised,” Charlie grumbled. “Knew I’d have to deal with something like this soon enough.”

I exhaled.

“You sure about this?” Charlie demanded, glaring at me.

“I’m one hundred percent sure about Edward,” I told him without missing a beat.

“Getting married, though? What’s the rush?” He eyed me suspiciously again.

The rush was due to the fact that I was getting closer to nineteen every stinking day, while Edward stayed frozen in all his seventeen-year-old perfection, as he had for over ninety years. Not that this fact necessitated marriage in my book, but the wedding was required due to the delicate and tangled compromise Edward and I had made to finally get to this point, the brink of my transformation from mortal to immortal.

These weren’t things I could explain to Charlie.

“We’re going away to Dartmouth together in the fall, Charlie,” Edward reminded him. “I’d like to do that, well, the right way. It’s how I was raised.” He shrugged.

He wasn’t exaggerating; they’d been big on old-fashioned morals during World War I.

Charlie’s mouth twisted to the side. Looking for an angle to argue from. But what could he say? I’d prefer you live in sin first? He was a dad; his hands were tied.

“Knew this was coming,” he muttered to himself, frowning. Then, suddenly, his face went perfectly smooth and blank.

“Dad?” I asked anxiously. I glanced at Edward, but I couldn’t read his face, either, as he watched Charlie.

“Ha!” Charlie exploded. I jumped in my seat. “Ha, ha, ha!”

I stared incredulously as Charlie doubled over in laughter; his whole body shook with it.

I looked at Edward for a translation, but Edward had his lips pressed tightly together, like he was trying to hold back laughter himself.

“Okay, fine,” Charlie choked out. “Get married.” Another roll of laughter shook through him. “But . . .”

“But what?” I demanded.

“But you have to tell your mom! I’m not saying one word to Renée! That’s all yours!” He busted into loud guffaws.

I paused with my hand on the doorknob, smiling. Sure, at the time, Charlie’s words had terrified me. The ultimate doom: telling Renée. Early marriage was higher up on her blacklist than boiling live puppies.

Who could have foreseen her response? Not me. Certainly not Charlie. Maybe Alice, but I hadn’t thought to ask her.

“Well, Bella,” Renée had said after I’d choked and stuttered out the impossible words: Mom, I’m marrying Edward. “I’m a little miffed that you waited so long to tell me. Plane tickets only get more expensive. Oooh,” she’d fretted. “Do you think Phil’s cast will be off by then? It will spoil the pictures if he’s not in a tux—”

“Back up a second, Mom.” I’d gasped. “What do you mean, waited so long? I just got en-en . . .”—I’d been unable to force out the word engaged—“things settled, you know, today.”

“Today? Really? That is a surprise. I assumed . . .”

“What did you assume? When did you assume?”

“Well, when you came to visit me in April, it looked like things were pretty much sewn up, if you know what I mean. You’re not very hard to read, sweetie. But I didn’t say anything because I knew it wouldn’t do any good. You’re exactly like Charlie.” She’d sighed, resigned. “Once you make up your mind, there is no reasoning with you. Of course, exactly like Charlie, you stick by your decisions, too.”

And then she’d said the last thing that I’d ever expected to hear from my mother.

“You’re not making my mistakes, Bella. You sound like you’re scared silly, and I’m guessing it’s because you’re afraid of me.” She’d giggled. “Of what I’m going to think. And I know I’ve said a lot of things about marriage and stupidity—and I’m not taking them back—but you need to realize that those things specifically applied to me. You’re a completely different person than I am. You make your own kinds of mistakes, and I’m sure you’ll have your share of regrets in life. But commitment was never your problem, sweetie. You have a better chance of making this work than most forty-year-olds I know.” Renée had laughed again. “My little middle-aged child. Luckily, you seem to have found another old soul.”

“You’re not… mad? You don’t think I’m making a humongous mistake?”

“Well, sure, I wish you’d wait a few more years. I mean, do I look old enough to be a mother-in-law to you? Don’t answer that. But this isn’t about me. This is about you. Are you happy?”

“I don’t know. I’m having an out-of-body experience right now.”

Renée had chuckled. “Does he make you happy, Bella?”

“Yes, but—”

“Are you ever going to want anyone else?”

“No, but—”

“But what?”

“But aren’t you going to say that I sound exactly like every other infatuated teenager since the dawn of time?”

“You’ve never been a teenager, sweetie. You know what’s best for you.”

For the last few weeks, Renée had unexpectedly immersed herself in wedding plans. She’d spent hours every day on the phone with Edward’s mother, Esme—no worries about the in-laws getting along. Renée adored Esme, but then, I doubted anyone could help responding that way to my lovable almost-mother-in-law.

It let me right off the hook. Edward’s family and my family were taking care of the nuptials together without my having to do or know or think too hard about any of it.

Charlie was furious, of course, but the sweet part was that he wasn’t furious at me. Renée was the traitor. He’d counted on her to play the heavy. What could he do now, when his ultimate threat—telling Mom—had turned out to be utterly empty? He had nothing, and he knew it. So he moped around the house, muttering things about not being able to trust anyone in this world. . . .

“Dad?” I called as I pushed open the front door. “I’m home.”

“Hold on, Bells, stay right there.”

“Huh?” I asked, pausing automatically.

“Gimme a second. Ouch, you got me, Alice.”

Alice?

“Sorry, Charlie,” Alice’s trilling voice responded. “How’s that?”

“I’m bleeding on it.”

“You’re fine. Didn’t break the skin—trust me.”

“What’s going on?” I demanded, hesitating in the doorway.

“Thirty seconds, please, Bella,” Alice told me. “Your patience will be rewarded.”

“Humph,” Charlie added.

I tapped my foot, counting each beat. Before I got to thirty, Alice said, “Okay, Bella, come in!”

Moving with caution, I rounded the little corner into our living room.

“Oh,” I huffed. “Aw. Dad. Don’t you look—”

“Silly?” Charlie interrupted.

“I was thinking more like debonair.”

Charlie blushed. Alice took his elbow and tugged him around into a slow spin to showcase the pale gray tux.

“Now cut that out, Alice. I look like an idiot.”

“No one dressed by me ever looks like an idiot.”

“She’s right, Dad. You look fabulous! What’s the occasion?”

Alice rolled her eyes. “It’s the final check on the fit. For both of you.”

I peeled my gaze off the unusually elegant Charlie for the first time and saw the dreaded white garment bag laid carefully across the sofa.

“Aaah.”

“Go to your happy place, Bella. It won’t take long.”

I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes. Keeping them shut, I stumbled my way up the stairs to my room. I stripped down to my underwear and held my arms straight out.

“You’d think I was shoving bamboo splinters under your nails,” Alice muttered to herself as she followed me in.

I paid no attention to her. I was in my happy place.

In my happy place, the whole wedding mess was over and done. Behind me. Already repressed and forgotten.

We were alone, just Edward and me. The setting was fuzzy and constantly in flux—it morphed from misty forest to cloud-covered city to arctic night—because Edward was keeping the location of our honeymoon a secret to surprise me. But I wasn’t especially concerned about the where part.

Edward and I were together, and I’d fulfilled my side of our compromise perfectly. I’d married him. That was the big one. But I’d also accepted all his outrageous gifts and was registered, however futilely, to attend Dartmouth College in the fall. Now it was his turn.

Before he turned me into a vampire—his big compromise—he had one other stipulation to make good on.

Edward had an obsessive sort of concern over the human things that I would be giving up, the experiences he didn’t want me to miss. Most of them—like the prom, for example—seemed silly to me. There was only one human experience I worried about missing. Of course it would be the one he wished I would forget completely.

Here was the thing, though. I knew a little about what I was going to be like when I wasn’t human anymore. I’d seen newborn vampires firsthand, and I’d heard all my family-to-be’s stories about those wild early days. For several years, my biggest personality trait was going to be thirsty. It would take some time before I could be me again. And even when I was in control of myself, I would never feel exactly the way I felt now.

Human… and passionately in love.

I wanted the complete experience before I traded in my warm, breakable, pheromone-riddled body for something beautiful, strong… and unknown. I wanted a real honeymoon with Edward. And, despite the danger he feared this would put me in, he’d agreed to try.

I was only vaguely aware of Alice and the slip and slide of satin over my skin. I didn’t care, for the moment, that the whole town was talking about me. I didn’t think about the spectacle I would have to star in much too soon. I didn’t worry about tripping on my train or giggling at the wrong moment or being too young or the staring audience or even the empty seat where my best friend should be.

I was with Edward in my happy place.