Sanguine - Aro Volturi

Chapter five

I'd hardly slept. I'd spent hours attempting to fashion something acceptable from the concoction of my wardrobe, but it was tricky as most of my clothes were flannel shirts and jeans. The only item of clothing that was a contender was the dress I'd worn to dad's promotion dinner, but that had been four years ago and now the hemline was indecently short for s first date.

Even when I had finally given up trying to salvage something I hadn't been able to get to sleep, my mind was whirring crazily just imagining myself making every possible mistake I could and making Aro hate me for being useless and ruining his perfect night.

Perfect. The word kept echoing in my head, there was no way I was going to be perfect, nothing about me was perfect. I didn't have perfect clothes, perfect hair, a perfect face or body. Aro was perfect and for some reason he was interested in me, I couldn't work out why and it was making me more and more anxious by the second. The roses now in a vase on the kitchen table were more perfect than I ever could be and I felt the heavy pressure behind my eyes as the sorry thought.

"Celestine?"

"Huh," I finally came back to the room, we were sat around one of the tables in the canteen and when I looked between the faces staring at me I noticed that Bella, Edward and Alice were there.

"What do you think?" Jessica asks everyone else was staring at me; I'd obviously missed the question.

"Umm...yeah," I nod hoping that whatever the question was a yes would suffice.

"See," Jessica turns back to the others. "I'll make a great Valedictorian speech," she grins and taps her pen on the table.

"Were you listening to anything there?" Bella asks and I shake my head before grabbing a pear I hadn't remembered buying and forcing myself to eat it. "Well, Edward and I are going to Florida next weekend, to see mum, is that okay?"

I hadn't seen my mother in years, not in physical form anyway. Every Christmas she skyped me and we opened our presents via digital imagery, and she always sent me rather extravagant birthday presents as if trying to make up for not being in my life the way a mother should. Because Bella and I were less than a year apart, when mum and dad had split up they'd agreed to each take responsibility for one of us. Bella had moved to Arizona with mum, and I had stayed in Forks with dad, considering we'd had such different up bringing's it was a surprise that Bella and I were still so similar.

"That should be fun, maybe Edward can try and catch some sun, to stop him looking like such an albino, ouch!" Bella's elbow jabbed into my side, much harder than it ever had before.

"Why do you have to be so rude," she hisses.

"Hey, I don't like him," I argue and rub my sore side. "You shouldn't like him either, not after what he did."

"I have forgiven him Cel," Bella says bitterly. "If I've forgiven him then you should too."

I roll my eyes pretend to pay attention to what the others were saying. "Hey guys," Alice Cullen slides into a chair beside me and addresses the table. "I've decided to throw a graduation party, because you know," she giggles. "We only graduate once!"

"A party?" Jessica mouths. "At your house?"

Alice nods excitedly and Bella shifts uncomfortably beside me. "Another party Alice?" she asks. "They last one didn't go so well."

Alice's smile doesn't falter. "This will go without a hitch," she beams.

When the bell rang for the end of the day my heart felt like it was in my throat and I was battling the need to cry as I slid into the backseat of Edward's car and he drove Bella and I home. They hadn't let me drive this morning just in case I had any more random detours.