Bella, for all intents and purposes, is taking the vampire thing really well. It's dark in her room, save for the lamp, and she's looking at me like I've hung the moon. It's the first time I've seen Bella truly smile and she's laughing as I explain everything, leaned against her wall. It's the most human thing I've done outside of school.

"You… Are the most receptive human I've ever met." I let myself sit next to her on her bed, and I watch the blood crawl up her cheeks until she's biting her lip and looking away. "Why is that?"

"In the clearing, when Laurent talked about the Cullens? They're… They were a coven that lived here. Like, long-term lived here. They were here before I was and… I was involved with one of them, Edward." She flinches when she says the name, "And then they left. But I know about them, and about vampires. I just- I can't believe that I didn't see it before! It was right in front of my face that you're one, too, but I didn't see it."

"Do you think I wanted anyone to figure it out?" A grin crawls onto my face and we fall back against her pillows, "I put makeup on, even though I'm made to lure humans in. I have hand warmers in my pockets so I can have physical contact. I don't feed so my eyes are black, and not red. I do everything that I can to make sure that I blend in."

It's silent for Bella, but I can hear her father meandering around downstairs. I can hear her heartbeat, the wind outside. I can hear the racoon she's been complaining about digging through the trash. Neither of us speak, until Bella sits up on her elbow and turns to me. "You don't... Feed?"

"No."

"Not on humans?"

"No."

"Animals?"

"I've never thought to try."

"When was the last time you fed?"

"Seventy five years ago."

She looks at me with wide eyes, swirling with emotions. Her heart is racing, and I can feel my mouth filling with venom, waiting for blood, as I'm surrounded by her scent. I swallow it down, and ignore how it makes me feel. "What does it feel like? To not feed for so long."

I pause, trying to figure out how to explain the excruciating pain I'm in every day. There's no way to explain what it feels like to go against every instinct in my body. No way to tell her that I can see myself killing her every single time we're in school together and I have to breathe to seem alive. "It feels like… I'm burning alive from the inside out. Someone's lit a torch in my stomach, and the flames are trying to crawl out through my mouth. Every breath is eternal damnation, and every touch of human skin on mine is hell on earth." I smile at her, but it's sad. She mimics me.

"Edward never told me how much it hurt. He wanted to protect me."

"Perhaps if he wants to protect you, he should tell you. I won't lie to you Bella. I have no reason to now. You, and everyone in that damned school, make me want to kill myself." She's still leaning over me, haloed by the soft light of her lamp, and I can feel content rising in my chest. "Not that I don't choose it, of course. Every single day in Forks is a decision."

"The… The Cullens, they found a different way. You don't have to suffer; at least, not as much." Bella's moving then, quickly, and it would be fast as a flash to someone who wasn't… Well, me. I watch as she crashes into her desk, searching for something, and then moves to her closet. I sit up as she kneels to rifle through her things and a new scent overcomes me. It's sweeter, vampiric, but tainted with something.

And it happened when Bella stepped on a certain floorboard, one that creaks. She pays me no mind as I feel around it, fingernails digging into grooves so miniscule she wouldn't be able to feel them. I pull, gently, with all the force of a human, and the floorboard pops up and off into my hand. It hides a book, a shirt, pictures. I bring the shirt to my nose, inhaling, and I'm met with a myriad of images. All of Bella, through the eyes of someone else. A strange fire erupts in my belly, I'm dizzy, and so much venom pools in my mouth it begins to drip down the sides of my chin.

Bella's attention is drawn when I collapse backward, frantically trying to wipe away the burning liquid. "Greta?" She looks at the objects strewn around me, "What's this stuff, where did you find it?" But I'm still dizzy, and her scent is still swirling around me, and I can't breathe. Not that I need to, but something is sitting on my chest, collapsing my hardened lungs. Bella's scent.

It's intoxicating, and I can feel my body coiling, readying for the attack. "I have to leave," I choke out. Then I am gone, landing on my shoulder halfway across her yard and scrambling, vaguely human-like, into the tree line.