Chapter Twelve: Marriage is way worse than becoming an undead monster.

Alice is going to throw Bella a graduation party, and she doesn't get to say no. The only upside is that Edward wouldn't let it be a surprise party. This means there's going to be a huge bash at the Cullen place for graduation, with all of Bella's friends there! I guess they decided that this would be safe based on the overwhelming success of Bella's last birthday party. Maybe this time, Jasper can eat Mike "Fig" Newton!

Bella hasn't been keeping track of time very well; it's already June, and graduation is just around the corner. It also means she'll be losing her vampginity not long after. Suddenly, she's finally realized that maybe there are a few downsides to this. How does she say goodbye to her parents? What if she's bad at being a vampire? She's not very good at being a human, but at least she has some experience there.

But Bella insists she's ready. In fact, she thinks she has to be ready -- she wants to be safe if whoever was in her room comes back again. Edward has different, and more reasonable plans; Bella should be of sound body and mind when she makes the leap into vampirehood, so she has to wait until her life isn't in imminent danger before she becomes a vampire. Unfortunately, in the world of Bella Swan, that means never.

Bella starts to get the crazy idea that maybe Edward doesn't want her to become a vampire after all. Considering he's made that clear from the beginning, I'm not sure how this counts as a revelation, but when it comes to Bella realizing things, we have to take what we can get. Edward would much rather transform himself into a living, breathing human again rather than have her get all sparkly.

Since Edward was nice enough to explain why he didn't want Bella to become a sparklepire, he asks to know why Bella doesn't want to get married. It's a simple answer: she's not a hick who got knocked up the night of senior prom and has to get a shotgun wedding so that her family doesn't have to be embarrassed when they go to church. That's just not her style. It seems that Edward thought Bella was more excited about becoming immortal than being with him, which is quite clearly not the case, since Bella is an emotionally dependent wreck who can't live without her sparkle-god. Edward just grew up in a different time, where he would have proposed to Bella at age 9 or so, or something like that. The two sides agree to disagree, but it's clear that Edward won't be the one to take Bella's vampginity unless they tie the knot first. It's just how proper sparkle-gentleman behave.

So by the way, more and more people are being killed in Seattle -- 39 now, the majority of which have come in just the last ten days. On CNN, they're debating whether or not there's a serial killer on the loose, but not a single vampire representative is there to explain what's really going on. Meanwhile, over on FOX News, Glenn Beck's blackboard is working overtime to show how this has to be the work of ACORN.

In any case, the Cullens agree that they'll need to do something soon. Alice is frustrated, because she can't see what's going on; things are getting fuzzy and she's wondering if she's losing her touch. It seems that Jasper has some idea of what might be going on, but first he must pause dramatically to get Bella up to speed with his backstory, just like every other Cullen has had the chance to do.

Bella knows nothing about Jasper except that he came from the American South. Jasper shows Bella his scar, but this doesn't impress her like all the other girls; she's got one too. Then Jasper shows her the hundreds of others just like it.

Is that the introduction to a crazy backstory? You'd better believe it! But that's for the next chapter.