2 AM and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake,
Can you help me unravel my latest mistake,
I don't love him, winter just wasn't my season
Yeah we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes
Like they have any right at all to criticize,
Hypocrites, you're all here for the very same reason

'Cause you can't jump the track,we're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button girl,
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe, just breathe,
Woah breathe, just breathe
-Breathe by Anna Nalick-

"What the hell are you doing?"

I used the mirror to look behind me, mom was standing in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, staring at me like I had grown an extra head.

"I got bored."

"You got bored?" She repeated my words slowly, as if she was trying to figure them out. "So you're dying your hair because you're bored?"

I nodded, a bit of the dye slid down my face, I quickly wiped it off. "It was either this or I get something else pierced, and since you weren't home I couldn't do that..."

She sighed. "What color?"

I smiled. "Red..."

"How red?"

I smiled. "Firetruck red of course."

She shook her head. "Can you go a week without altering your appearance at least once?"

I shook my head. "Where's the fun in that?"

She smirked. "What no streaks?"

I shrugged. "I'm already pushing the school rules with this hair color..if it was summer I would have done black streaks, but you know..."

"It's amazing that your hair doesn't fall out."

I stuck my tongue out at her. "You're just jealous because you can't do wild colors in your hair!"

She laughed. "Oh yes, I miss the days of pink hair and nose rings."

I gave her a funny look. "You still have your nose ring..."

She shrugged. "But not the pink hair."

I laughed. "Get out, you're distracting me and if my hair turns out different colors I'm so blaming it on you!"

"I need vodka!" She stomped her foot and whined.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Do I look like I'm in any shape to make a alcohol run?"

She laughed. "No, I'm stating the fact that you drank the last of it, so where is your money, you're buying the next few bottles."

"Oh fuck you, how many times have you smoked my last few cigarettes."

"I'm the mom."

"That means jack shit in this house and you know it."

"Damn, you're right...but where's your purse?"

I sighed. "On my bed, I think I have a few twenties, if not take my debit card." She gave me a smirk and turned and skipped out of the bathroom. "My therapist is right! You're way to immature to be a mother!" I yelled back.

She just laughed.

-1 Hour Later-

I walked out of the bathroom, my hair dried and now a bright red. My mom walked through the front door carrying several large paper bags. She put them on the table and I walked over quickly.

I looked down into one of the bags and pulled out a bottle of wine. "What the fuck is this? You did not use my money to buy pussy drinks."

She glared at me and took the bottle out of my hand. "It's for if we have guest, not everyone likes the hard stuff like we do." She walked to the cabinet and placed the wine in it.

I faked shock. "They don't? Wow, and here I thought all the margarita's and martini's were just for show."

She walked back over to the table where I was standing. "You threatened to stake my boss."

I nodded. "Yes I did."

"He called me while I was out, apparently he came by last night around 8:30 and found you at the piano with a knife."

I nodded. "Yes he did."

"You were going to cut..."

"Yes I was..."

She put up her hands and waved them spastically. "Okay, stop with the yes I did and yes he did shit, it's really getting on my nerves. Elaborate more!"

I sighed. "He wouldn't leave, so I threatened to stake him."

She shook her head. "Okay, you do not threaten mommy's boss, any harm comes on him, it affects us!"

I laughed. "I didn't have to hurt him, he left."

She took a deep breath. I heard her counting backwards from ten. "He was worried about you, he still is worried about you."

I laughed and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels. "He's worried about me? Why does it matter to him what happens to me? It's not like I'm one of his precious freshies..."

"No but he considers you a friend. And you don't seem to get that."

I walked over to one of the cabinets and pulled out a glass, I poured myself a good measure of whiskey. "No, because I don't see how I can be friends with someone I barely talk to, these last few days it seems like we've spoken more than ever, normally he just, I don't know, acts like I'm not there, but since last year I noticed he's been watching me, just not saying anything...I don't know, it's weird."

"He's worried about you, he did after all save your life last year."

"Damn, I never did send that thank you note."

She glared at me. "There is nothing wrong with him worrying about you."

I shrugged. "I don't like be worried over, I don't even like you worrying over me, hence the reason why I like being alone a lot."

She narrowed her eyes at me, then grabbed a one of the bottles of Grey Goose and walked to her room. "I'm going to bed, school starts in four hours, I expect you to be there."

I gave her a sarcastic salute. "Ey, ey captain!"

She flipped me off and continued to her room.

-Two Hours Later-

I had two hours until school, and I had yet to go to sleep. So what was my black mustang doing outside of Josef Konstantin's house? Good question.

I'm not good with numbers, that's probably why I can't remember the gate code to get in. I killed the engine and got out of the car quietly. The lights in the house were on, I knew he was still awake. I looked up at the gate, trying to figure out if I could climb it.

I threw my purse over the side of it and slid off the three inch heels and dropped them over the gate, I heard them land with a loud thud and hoped to God above that the heels didn't break.

"Now or never."

I jumped and grabbed onto the iron bars and tried to work my way up. I got to the top and threw my legs over and landed with a small thud on the ground. My knee gave out and I fell on my butt.

"FUCK!"

I pulled my knee to me and felt the all to familiar pain.

I slowly got to my feet, my knee would take my weight. I grabbed my purse and my heels, and limped my way up to his door.

I rung the door bell and could hear someone moving around on the inside. I stood there, feeling like an idiot, out of breath and in pain.

When the door opened Josef looked at me in shock. "What the hell are you doing here?" He looked past me and saw the gate still closed. "And how did you get in the gate?"

I sighed. "I climbed it and jumped over, which is the reason my knee, the one that I've had three surgeries on, is throbbing and probably swelling..." He stared at me in amusement. "Well are you going to let me in?!"

He stepped aside and I limped my way into the house. It hadn't changed much since I was last here. I guess when you're 400 years old you're pretty set in your ways.

I fell back on the couch and propped my leg up on the coffee table. I pulled up my blue jeans with a sigh, and of course, my knee was swelling and I could already see fluid in front of my knee cap. "Oh, cause you know, things don't suck bad enough already."

Josef didn't say anything, he just walked out of the room, I heard something going on in the other room, when he came back he had a zip-lock bag of ice, he handed it to me. "What are you doing here?"

I gently put the ice on my knee and looked up at him. "I dunno."

He sat opposite of me. "You don't know..."

I shook my head rather spastically. "No, I don't know, I couldn't sleep, and mom was asleep, and I was lonely...and well...I got in my car for a drive and before I knew it, I was here."

He stared at me. "You were lonely so you came here? Don't you have some high school friends you could go to?"

I shrugged. "They don't exactly appreciate me waking them up at 4 o'clock, and I knew you would be awake...and they weren't the company I was wanting..."

He stared at me for a second, like he was trying to figure out his words carefully. "What do you mean by that?..."

I shrugged. "Take it the way you want."

He stood up and walked over to me, then leaned down to where our faces were inches apart. I thought he was going to kiss me. But instead he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them back they had turned that beautiful silver-blue. "You're bleeding and you're drunk." He grabbed my wrist before I could pull it from his grasp. He slid back the sleeve roughly, the once white bandage was now soaked through with blood.

"Wow, look at you go, super-vamp you are."

He glared at me. "It's not funny Belinda! Why did you do this?"

I smiled. "Because it felt good...I just wanted to feel good."

He stared at me and shook his head. "No Bella, this is not how you feel good! This is dangerous! You could have bled to death!"

I pulled my wrist from his grasp. "I'm so sick of everyone telling me how awful it would be if I died! Don't you guys understand?! I wouldn't hurt anymore! I wouldn't hate myself anymore!" I stood up, ignoring the pain in my knee.

"What are you doing?!"

"Leaving, you're just pissing me off even more."

He grabbed my wrist again, not realizing it, his fingers dug into the cut. I cryed out. He quickly adjusted his hand so it was holding onto a different part of my arm. He pulled me back to where I was standing in front of him. "You're not going anywhere."

"Correction, I have school in less than an hour and a half."

"You can't go to school drunk."

I shook my head. "I'm not drunk, I had little glasses of whiskey, that's nothing compared to my normal amount."

I looked down at my arm and noticed the blood was coming out from under the bandage now.

"You need stitches."

I sighed and pulled from his grasp again. I turned and started walking down the hall, Josef followed close behind me. I went into the freshies 'sick room'. I pulled open the cabinets and pulled down the materials for stitching.

"What the hell are you doing?"

I pulled off the bandage and cleaned up the cut. "I need stitches."

"Well you're not going to do it yourself!"

"Why not? If I go to the hospital they'll tell my therapist which will up my anti-depressants...which means I will be drugged up all the time. No thank you."

He walked up and stood next to me. "Have you ever done it before?"

"Nope, but I figure, I've watched it done to me so many times, how hard can it be?"

"You're not using any pain killers?"

I gave him a look that screamed 'are you really that dumb.' He just continued to stare at me.

"Josef...you do realize that I inflicted this pain myself, which means that I actually cut my own skin myself, and I enjoyed it...why would I deaden the area before I stitch it up, I might miss out on more 'warm and fuzzies'.

I dug the curved needle into my skin, and didn't even flinch. He shook his head. "I can't just sit here and watch you do this."

I continued. "Then leave."

He sighed and glared down at me. It took me a little while to finish, but once I did, looked down at my arm with a smile. "See, good as new."

He shook his head. "You're even crazier than I thought."

I smiled and lifted my arm to him, there was still blood on my arm. "You wanna do the honors? I mean all this good blood has already gone to waste."

He stared at it for a second, then looked back up at me. "That's just wrong."

I laughed. "Why?"

"You're taunting me, I'm gonna get a small taste now, what if I like how you taste? I'll never get to drink you again."

"Well, if you like what you taste, maybe we can arrange something..."

"Oh that's awfully nice of you."

I smiled. "I do try."

He gave me a smirk, then gently grabbed my wrist, he brought my arm up to his mouth, I felt his tongue slide over the newly sewn stitches. I shivered, a small laugh escaped his mouth.

"Fuck you Josef."

"Well if you really want to..."

He dropped my arm, I stared at him for a second. Fighting the urge to jump him.

"My, my, you got awfully quiet all the sudden...the comment a little to real for your liking?"

I glared at him. "You wouldn't fuck me even if I said I wanted you to."

"Oh really, why not?"

"Because, I'm still 'little Bella' in your eyes...you still remember me when I was eight and afraid of the boogeyman under the bed."

He shook his head. "You haven't been little Bella in my eyes in a long time."

I stared up at him, biting my bottom lip. He just smirked at me.

He pulled me closer to him and whispered in my ear. "You pretend you're all tough, but I know what you really feel. You're scared shitless about life and that's why you're constantly hurting yourself. You haven't had sex, you're afraid to, you think that it will only bring bad memories. That's understandable Bella, don't think that you feeling that way is wrong, there is nothing wrong with it at all. What happened to you was wrong, it's probably something you'll never get over, but you have to at least try to move on, when you're ready."

"Even if I was ready, I don't trust anyone enough..."

He smiled. "You will one day."

I took a deep breath, and just stared up at him. He kissed my cheek, I wanted to kiss him on the mouth but was scared to. I guess he knew what I was feeling because he trailed kisses down my jawline and slowly met my lips.

When he pulled back I just stared at his chest and licked my lips. He laughed.

"I...I need to get to school..."

He nodded. "Yes you do...this time how about I open the gate for you?"

I smiled. "That would be great."

He put his arm around my shoulders and walked me out of the room.