Welcome to the epilogue. I only own Ian, Amber, and Amelia, as always. Stephenie Meyer and Meg Cabot own the rest of them. This is shorter than I ever thought this story was going to be, but that has more to do with the fact that I was expecting to have to resolve the problems with Ian and Suze separately than the ending being unsatisfactory (at least, I like the ending).

Bella P.O.V.

For several weeks now, Ian has avoided us like the plague. I understand why he would, but it still shocks me that he would actually do it. But now he walks purposefully, if a bit nervously, through the cafeteria towards us. "Do you mind if I sit her?" he asks.

"No, so long as you leave if any of the teachers says our table is too crowded." I answer.

"They won't." Alice chirps across the table from me.

"Then it's fine if you sit here." I say.

Ian pulls up a chair and sits down slowly, slightly taken aback by how confident I am that Alice is right. He eats and watches as we rotate our trays so that Jake always has food in front of him. After several minutes of what seems to be an awkward silence for Ian, Jake says, "Just spit it out, man. There has to be a reason you wanted to sit all the way over here with us today, instead of with your usual posse of giggling girls." He then continues shoveling food into his mouth.

Ian hesitates. "I just wanted to apologize for how prying I was before you told be the truth. And thank you for trusting me."

Edward's reply shocks all of us but Alice. "No problem. You couldn't have known you were attempting to discover what amounts to be a potentially deadly secret. What normal high school kid has secrets like that, anyway? Not that any of the people at the table is exactly a normal high school student. No permanent harm done."

Edward accepting his apology is enough for the rest of us. We just nod in agreement, feeling that Edward's words properly sum up how we all feel. Eventually Ian says, "That's all, really. Except…"

"Except what?" I ask, a bit more sharply than I meant to say it.

"I was just wondering how you met my cousin?"

"Is that all?" I laugh. "We met at summer camp eleven years ago."

Ian is no longer a problem. Suze and I have become reacquainted and are close friends once again. Dr. de Silva and Carlisle are friends as well. More surprising is the fact that Jesse and Jasper are friends, too. That probably has to do with the fact that they were born at roughly the same time.

Oh, and Carlisle bought what is essentially a miniature bus. It can seat up to twelve. Driving it to school does draw some stares, though, let me tell you.