Dia Cullen

She's 15. She's half-vamp. And she's running with the Cullens.

I knew that the room I woke up in this morning was the farthest one from down the hallway. I distinctly remembered it-didn't take a genius to get that one right. I didn't understand why Bella had to be so concerned about it. And what was that she said about my room being the only room with a bed again? As I passed by the other door-shut rooms, my curiousity increased in heights that bothered me too much. I ended up running as fast as I could-and I went really fast. "This is awesome," I said to myself.

By the time I closed the door, I decided to put my new half-vampire powers to the test. Running down the hallway was already exhilirating. I bet running outside the house would be so much better. But I was tired. I tried one more thing-I jumped from the door to my bed and with one leap-I was there. I was laughing to myself now. This was pretty cool. If only I was not too tired, I would have pushed my powers more. Maybe I would as soon as I'd wake up.

I did around noon. The clock next to my bed said so. After a few minutes, I heard the door open quietly. I didn't hear footsteps but I knew someone was in.

"Alice?" I said and she smiled.

"I brought your bag up. I put everything back in it," she told me as she placed the bag on a table.

"Thanks."

"No problem. You like your room?"

"It's great," I told her and looked around it, examined the little details for the first time. There was big brown teddy bear sitting by the corner. She-as she was wearing a bow on her head and a polka-dotted skirt-held a balloon that said "Welcome to the Family, Dianara". It was handwritten but the penmanship was very neat. Right above it was a window and a pretty pink-laced curtains draped over it. To my left was a big closet and to my right was a small side table with a simple clock. It was a very small room and the walls were painted white. I looked around and eventually noticed the 5 simple bulbs up the ceiling.

"We'll go shopping some time for new things to fill in your room," she said as she wrinkled her nose.

"Okay. That'd be nice," I smiled and her face lit up with my response. "Really?"

"Well, yeah. I like shopping but I never did much shopping back home. Dad didn't ..." I trailed off. My dad. And my mom. And even my annoying younger brother. I would never get to see them ever again. The thought came to me earlier but I didn't know talking about them would hurt me this much.

"I'm so sorry, Dia," Alice said and she sat on the foot of my bed.

"Nah, it's cool. I'm cool with it," I told her which was actually a half-lie. I smiled reassuringly.

"I'll have your lunch up in a jiffy."

"I can go down. I'm not sick or anything."

"No, no, you just stay here and be a good girl," she said and walked out of the door with a smile on her face.

Having meals brought up reminded me a lot of school breaks back home. Dad would just go down for 30 minutes and come back up with food set in the upstairs living room. And then we would eat together.

I should distract myself with other thoughts. Remembering things about my past life, the life I can never go back to, was just unhealthy.

A knock came. "Dia?"

I recognized Rosalie's voice and she came in with a tray containing a glass of orange juice and a plate of what looked like spaghetti and meatballs.

"Hope you like spaghetti and meatballs," she said, echoing my thoughts.

I grinned. "Who doesn't?"

"I don't. None of us do," she joked and put the tray at the foot of my bed.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"Alice couldn't come up?"

"She has something to do downstairs."

"Oh. Like tidy up the house a bit? Even if it's spotless?"

"Something like that."

I moved a bit to get the plate of spaghetti and picked on the meatballs first. "Didn't you ever like spaghetti?"

"Of course I did. When I was a kid I used to eat it a lot. My mom made the best spaghetti," she grimaced. Did she have a hard time talking about her family, too? After many years of being a vampire?

"No. My mom made the best spaghetti," I told her and regretted it as soon as the words came out. I really shouldn't talk about my family anymore. It only made me sad.

"One day, everything will be better and talking about her and the rest of your family will be easier, too. It happened to all of us-except Alice-but one day, you'll see," Rosalie said. She must have read my expression.

"Except Alice?"

"Yes. When she was changed, she couldn't remember anything about her human life. It's really sad."

"Poor Alice," I said and slurped in some noodles.

"Boy, it sure is dull around here," she said and looked around my room the way Alice did earlier.

"It's okay, I guess. Alice did promise shopping."

"I wonder if Carlisle will allow that one."

"We need his permission? Do you think he won't allow?"

"I'm not really sure, Dee. You haven't fed yet. You might end up killing the shoppers, salespeople, managers ..." she laughed.

"That's scary. Can't I choose to not drink blood?"

"As Carlisle said, you'll still need blood but you won't have to feed as often as we need to. And you have nothing to worry about because we're vegetarians."

"Vegetarians?" I asked. I was halfway to finishing my spaghetti already and decided to gulp in some orange juice. Yum. It had some pulps in it. And ice.

"We drink from animals and not from humans."

"That's great. So we don't have to kill humans, right?"

"Right."

"That's a relief," I sighed and she laughed again.

By the time I finished my lunch, I told her I wanted to go down and help out in the cleaning.

"You still look exhausted. You should really stay up here."

"I'm bored here. I'd rather sweep floors or wash windows."

"Well, I don't think Esme would want to see you in a maid's outfit. Why don't you watch tv in my room? Of course, Emmet's going to be there but I'm sure he'll give you the remote."

"Emmet's going to be there?"

"You don't like Emmet very much do you?"

"It's not that. He'll probably call me Catholic Schoolgirl again."

"He won't. I'll tell him not to. So you still want to go?"

"Sure."