"Please, Alice, just let me go," I begged my aunt as she continued to pamper me relentlessly. "I don't have to look perfect. It's just Paul and Rachel's wedding! Truly, they won't notice any makeup on me."

"Oh, hush. I'm almost done," she promised for the twelfth time. She finished powdering my face with some cakey substance that I thought was entirely unnecssary. "You need a little color, Nessie. You've been looking a bit pale lately," she noted, smiling to herself.

I rolled my eyes, tugging at the uncomfortable satin of my dress. "I don't think any of this is going to help," I said. "No matter how much guck you cake onto my face, I'll still be the most pale one there." i paused. "Unless you try to convince my parents to go again."

Alice rolled her eyes as she got out what seemed to be an instrument of torture from the medevial times. She brought it to my eye, and I realized it was an eyelash curler. "I don't think any of my efforts would be successful," she said. Then came a faraway look in her eyes that I knew all too well. "No, wait. Scratch that. I know they wouldn't be successful. I've seen it."

I crossed my arms like a child. "Fine. I just hate feeling so alone."

Alice sprayed some foul-smelling product into my hair and sighed. "You have Jake, don't you?"

I sighed too. "Yes, but all of his brothers will be there. I bet he won't pay any attention to me."

She laughed, and the sound was like wind chimes. "I don't think he has that capability, Nessie."

I didn't respond. A few excruciating minutes later, and she was done. "There you are," she said, and spun me around to look in the mirror.

I didn't look at the makeup or hairstyle she'd spent hours on. I turned and thanked her, and then made the dreadful walk downstairs once again. There was a collective gasp from the onlookers, and I grimaced.

"Oh, Nessie," my mother said. Murmurs I didn't attempt to decipher circulated around, growing louder as I came farther downstairs.

"Renesmee, you look lovely," my grandmother murmured. My grandfather nodded in agreement at her side.

I got compliments from each member of my family, all of which I responded to with a hasty "thank you." Alice stormed downstairs, her quick movement somehow less graceful when she was angry. "And what about the person responsible for this beauty?"