I am just getting ready for bed, it's not like I put much effort in the routine or anything. I just like to stare out at the direction of the meadow whose dark expanse is veiled in shadow. I have my bedroom window open. I like to stand in the dark until I can no longer feel my toes. When I do this I feel as if I am floating. Until numbness fills my being and I am being embraced by both the cold and the dark. Like death. My favourite part is where I feel my lips turn up into a smile and I run into the bed under my covers and shiver waiting for the warmth of life.

Bella has been here for a year now and the only normal thing in my life is this nighttime routine. Everything feels as if it is changing and I loathe it. This, this moment, right here is everything. I am aligned with life as I stand in the dark.

My body is shocked into apathy by a knock on the front door. My mother is not home, she is out with this guy named Laurent, he sounds like a fashion designer. I never met him and I don't want to meet him.

I walk into the hallway and see Bella open her bedroom door, "Did you hear that?" she whispers. Her dull brown eyes remind me of a scared mouse. A mouse who is trembling with fear and will be petrified with the stillness of its quaking cells. Frozen in the primal grasp of the ancient beast that is as big as an elephant and makes one feel as small as a mouse.

"I'll go. You stay here," I tell her in a low voice above a whisper.

"You're naked," Bella states.

"Right," I murmur with a shrug.

"Aren't you going to change?"

"I can't change my skin Bella. Look whoever is out there is not supposed to be there. My birthday suit will either scare them away or make them forget why they are there in the first place which will give me a few seconds to slam the door in their face," I tell her in a flat voice.

"What if it's someone who needs help?" Bella asks.

I roll my eyes, "Since when do you care about helping people."

"Just put a robe on Hazel please," Bella tells me as she tosses a yellow robe.

The knock interrupts our whispered conversation like knife through bread. I throw the cotton robe over myself and go to answer the door only to see a bouncing Alice on the front steps. Her short brown hair glistens in the dull light. Her eyes shine like golden nuggets in a dark mine.

"It's cold," she whispers, "Let me in."

"How are you cold. You're dead," I tell her as I unconsciously open our wooden door wider.

"You haven't changed Hazel. It has been a year and you haven't changed. Huh, I didn't think yellow was your colour," Alice retorts with a smirk that makes my stomach twinge and my breath quicken with desire?

"It's not. I wanted to answer the door naked, but Bella wouldn't let me," I tell her.

"Bella? She's here!" Alice says with a smile and I swear her dead topaz gleamed.

"Yeah, she's been living here. What are you doing here?" I ask with my hands in the oddly fuzzy pockets.

"I came to tell you Happy Birthday," Alice says with a soft smile making my mouth go dry. What is wrong with me!?

"That isn't until tomorrow," I tell her and I can feel my inner caged bird tweet with happiness at the lightness that I feel from Alice.

"It's midnight Hazel," Alice says with a husky voice.

"Right, thank you for the wishes. You can go now," I tell her as I walk back to the door. Proud of myself for slamming the door on two birds.

Wait, why isn't she leaving? And why am I experiencing waves of regret.

"I don't like how I left you," Alice whispers and I know that if she could cry she would be a blubbering brook right now.

"It's fine," I tell her as I stare at my toes.

"It's no…"

"Alice is that you!?" Bella says with a squeal that reminds me of a dying mouse.

I wince at the sound and ignore the envy that is twisting in my gut at the hug they share, a hug of friendship and love.

"Where's Edward?" Bella asks, and I can feel the hope shining off her like a painful sunrise.

I sneak up the stairs and huddle under the covers for the five thousand four hundred and seventy fifth time in fifteen years. Happy Birthday to me.

"It's a new beginning Hazel," my inner demon whispers.

I slam the doors of darkness, of knowing, and of living as I slip away into the midnight realm of sleep.