Home wasn't the cherry black mahogany floor that creaked like crying birds beneath you, home wasn't the floral table cloth, ugly enough to make me lose my appetite at the dinner table. Home wasn't the rowdy children across the street with straight white teeth, and combed back hair, perfect slacks and perfect dresses, belonging to perfect people. No that wasn't home, at least not to me.
"Bella!" The voice of my mother rang through the house, the need of my assistance was clear in her warm honey voice.
Home was not a lot of things here, home was definitely not her. My mother.
I stood from my seat by the dining room window, I stood from my perfect view of perfect children. My eyes stayed down on the laces of my shoes, my head stayed bowed listening to the crying birds in the floor. Though she wasn't home, she was my mother. When she needed assistance I was to assist.
When I entered the living room my mother's eyes were on me instantly, I felt their sharp gaze on my head that immediately rose to look her directly in her sad hazel eyes, eyes like diamonds.
"Oh, I thought maybe you had left… It was so quite in here." She sat cozy on the couch her long golden brown hair like silk all rested on one side of her shoulder, an open book in her pale hands.
"No, I'm here." I stated simply, taking a seat in the rocking chair across from her.
"Don't be so quite child. Don't you speak?" She teased not so jokingly, her eyes sparkled with amusement but the grimace was clear on her perfect pink lips. I looked down at my lap instead of replying, I counted the small roses on my dress, and the lines on my fingers, the seconds it tool for her to open her mouth again.
"You know there is a man next door." She said at 12 seconds. The sigh that went through me shakes my whole body, makes chills climb my spine; it makes the birds in the floor cry with without anyone's weight on them.
"A nice man. He stopped by." She continued pretending not to hear the indifference in my sigh. I raised my head to watch her again, and this time she wasn't looking at me. Her head was turned so that she was looking out of the window behind her, she was wondering, thinking, it was clear on her face. It was like a picture out of a magazine, the sun came in through the window giving her a glow like a god that she could easily be mistaken for. I took a picture in my mind. Though I didn't think much of her as my mother, I did think she was beautiful.
"Why don't you go introduce yourself?" She suggested turning her attention back to me, I lowered my head once again counting the roses, lines on my finger and seconds.
"It would make him happy. Don't you like to make people happy Bella?" She sighed, suddenly looking very tired. From reading I suppose.
"I guess." I whispered standing from my seat on the rocking chair and excusing myself without taking anymore glances at her. I couldn't bare look at something so beautiful yet so ugly anymore.
The neighbor's house was an exact replica of ours. Nothing special about it. Nothing I would go into detail about of course.
2 floors, one balcony coming from the master's bedroom, a large window on the side of the house right across from my window and the similarities go on. The only difference was the hideous peach colored walls that almost looked orange from far away. I wondered why anyone would buy this house; I wondered why anyone bought a house. I wondered a lot of things that I would never ask out loud.
I counted my steps to his doorstep, and hummed a song I only slightly knew because I caught the ending of it when I was tuning the radio one night. I flattened out the wrinkles on my dress with the palm of my hand and sighed deeply as I reached the porch.
I knocked a total of three times, and then let my hand rest behind my back. The door swung open right as my knuckled had finished the third knock against the door, I jumped an inch back in surprise almost killing myself. I stumbled back, tripping over my own foot and stumbling over another, a hand reached out to me and caught me before I split my skull open on the cement.
"Whoa!" The voice seemed almost tiny, belonging to a fairy or an elf.
"Ow!" With the help of the strangers hand I pulled myself to balance, and held the arch of my back with my free hands. Holding myself up.
"Are you okay?" Big blue eyes filled with concerned watched me, and I stared back completely in awe. What a tiny creature she was, yet so beautiful and woman like, her beauty threw me off and felt a hundred time uglier than I already felt.
"Y-yes." I stuttered, stumbling forward once but catching myself. "I just came to introduce myself."
The tiny woman's eyes were filled with a million questions.
"I'm your neighbor ." I explained further.
"Oh!" Realization struck her, and she clapped her hands together rejoicing I suppose. Though my presence was nothing to rejoice about.
"I'm Alice!" She practically squealed sticking out her hand for me to shake. I gently put out mine accepting.
"I'm Bella." I smiled weakly, unable to shake the pleasantness about the tiny woman named Alice.
"That is so thoughtful of you to introduce yourself." She smiled widely running a hand through her slick black hair.
"My mother met your husband, I believe." I nodded towards my house briefly. "He stopped by himself."
"My husband? Well that's not like him at all!" She giggled. "This place must be getting to him."
I chuckled awkwardly, shifting my weight uncomfortably.
"Did you want to come in?" She stepped aside, but I was quick to decline this offer.
"No, no, I must be getting back. Maybe some other time." I smiled my most convincing smile, and Alice squealed in response.
"Of course! You must come over! I can already see us being the best of friends."
Alice made me smile today; Alice made me somewhat happy to be her neighbor. But when my mother asks I say she was okay. And I never change my answer not even when she asks me for the third time at dinner. Not even then.
A/N: Pleas Review, What do you think? Should i continue?