I do not own Twilight or anything affiliated with it.

The Cullens

I'm not a vampire. I'm not a human. I'm not even a hybrid. I'm more like an 'immortal human'. Which wouldn't be too much of a bad thing if I wasn't stuck in a thirteen-year-old body. Oh, and the fact that I'm a HUMAN. You see, vampires are cool. They have perfect memories, perfect skin, they can jump dozens of feet in the air like they're flying, they have almost perfect hearing and sight, tremendous strength, and they are basically invulnerable. But not me. I still have to sweat, sneeze, cough, and pee. My eyesight and hearing suck. I'm clumsy as an ox and I can still get sick, hurt, and almost die.

There are some pretty cool things about me though, I guess. If call being a limitless blood fountain for every vampire in the world 'cool'. But that's not the only reason why I'm so often hunted down for favors. I was lucky enough to end up with a special ability of my own. But I'll tell you more about that later.

But what I will tell you is that a very long series of both fortunate and unfortunate events has brought me to where I am now. I wont start at the beginning, because I'm not even sure when that is. So I'll start with the first day I met my family. The one I have now. The Cullens.

"Are we almost there, Edward?" I asked impatiently, sitting in the backseat of his Volvo. "This is the longest driveway I've ever seen." The only thing even somewhat cool about me right now is that I can read other human's minds. That's how I found out about the Cullens in the first place. Bella kept talking about some mysterious guy at school, so I went with her one day to investigate. Strangely enough, I can't read any other vampire's mind except Edward's. I still haven't figured out why. I'm guessing it's because he's a mind-reader himself.

He chuckled. "It's just over this hill."

I'm not too sure about going with Bella to meet her boyfriend's family. After all, they ARE vampires. But, because of my terminal health condition, I can't be left alone. You never know what could happen or what I might do.

You see, I have brain tumors and at some point they're going to reach certain parts of my brain and I'm eventually going to lose it. Literally. I'm going to have a form of dementia and no one knows when or where it will start. But sometime in the next 6-9 months I will start forgetting things, every day things like how to read and do simple things for myself. Even where I am and who people are. And I gotta tell you, I am NOT looking forward to that!

"Are you sure your mom doesn't mind watching me?" I asked for what was probably the fifth time.

"Yes, I'm sure." He said, smiling. "She's looking very forward to it."

"I don't know why." I said, more to myself than him. "She doesn't even know me."

Edward had asked his mother if she could take care of me (I hate saying baby-sit) while he and Bella spend some time alone. Something they rarely get to do, since Bella has to keep an eye on me all the time. He had promised me from the start that she would love to do it. He said it in a way that made me think he was keeping something from me, but I can't figure out what.

By then we were driving up to the house and while Edward was coming around the car to open Bella's door for her, I grabbed my backpack from the seat next to me, opened my own door and got out. I followed behind them up the stairs and through the front door.

"It's so big." I said aloud to no one imparticular.

Bella seemed equally impressed. "Wow. This is incredible!" She told Edward, who was helping her out of her jacket. "It's so light and open, ya know?"

"What did you expect?" He joked to her. "Dungeons, coffins and moats?"

"Not the moats." She said back to him. I giggled at that.

"Not the moats." He repeated.

Bella and I kept looking around us at the beautiful house . As we started up the grand staircase, he turned around, looked at us and said, "This is the one place where we don't have to hide." As we continued up the stairs he, smiling, informed us, " I told them not to do this."

"Do what?" I asked, just as the delectable aroma filled my nostrils. MMMM!

Getting to the next floor, we entered the kitchen and a gorgeous women with caramel-colored haired came up to us smiling. "Lanie! Bella! We're making Italiano for you." She specifically looked intently at me and it was like she was pleased with what she saw or something.

"Oh." Bella said, looking nervously at Edward. She made us both eat earlier because she figured we would both be here for awhile.

"Grazie, Mrs. Cullen!" I thanked her. She seemed so nice. . . . and familiar.

"Well, Prego, Lanie." She said, smiling to me and putting her arm over my shoulders affectionately. She reminded me of my mom and I suddenly started to miss her real bad. I quickly dismissed those feelings. I didn't want to think about it.

"Buongiorno?" Bella said nervously.

"Molto bene!" Mrs. Cullen returned. I had no clue what they were saying.

I took a good look at the kitchen and noticed it was filled with brand-new appliences and freshly empty boxes. Did they seriously buy all this stuff just because Bella and I were coming over? Wow. This must be a big deal for them. I wonder if a human has ever even stepped inside this house before.

"Bella, Lanie, this is Esme, my mother, for all intents and purposes." Edward introduced us.

In the kitchen behind Esme were three faces that were already familiar to me. A beautiful, angry-looking blonde girl I knew to be Rosalie, a big, friendly-looking, dark-haired guy waving at us with a knife in his hand, I knew was named Emmett, and a kind-looking blonde man that I knew was Dr. Cullen. He had taken care of Bella when Edward saved her from the truck incident. I had seen them all around town and at Bella's school. I know there was two more of them. Where were they?

"You've given us an excuse to use the kitchen for the first time." Dr. Cullen said, dropping what he was in the middle of and walking towards us.

"Glad to be of service." I said, sounding a little sarcastic, even though I didn't mean to be.

He just looked down and smiled at me the same way his wife did.

"I hope you're hungry." Mrs. Cullen said, hopefully.

"Yeah. Absolutely!" Bella told her. I was glad she lied. I didn't want them to know we just ate and have all their hard work go to waste. They seemed like such sweet people.

"They already ate." Edward told her. How dare he! I glared at him. Bella also seemed bothered.

CRASH! There came a sound from the kitchen and we all looked up to see the glass bowl of food Rosalie was holding on the floor shattered to pieces. Even though I was just now getting used to Edward, I was stilled amazed how she could do that. Everyone in her family seemed annoyed by her reaction. Almost as if they were expecting her to do something like that. She stepped over her mess and looked at us.

"Perfect." she said with angry sarcasm. Emmett went over to her to either support her, calm her down or a little of both.

"Yeah, it's just, because I know. . . I know that you guys don't eat. So, . . ." Bella stammered.

"Of course." Mrs. Cullen interrupted, saving Bella from too much awkwardness. "That's very considerate of you." Then turning to look disapprovingly at Rosalie.

"Just ignore Rosalie. I do." Edward said, more to Bella than me. I didn't know what she was so mad about.

"Yeah. Let's just keep pretending like this isn't danderous for all of us." She said, sounding like she was trying to control her anger, but not doing a very good job.

"I would never tell anyone anything." Bella told her, shaking her head, mortified at the thought.

"Never in a million years." I added, agreeing with her . "Wild horses couldn't drag it from me."

"She knows that." Dr. Cullen tried to assure us.

"Yeah. Well, the problem is youto have come public now, so . . ." Emmett spoke for the first time attempting to explain Rosalie's rash behavior. He acted like he didn't want to continue what he was saying.

"No. They should know. The entire family will be implicated if this ends badly." She seemed genuinely concerned. I could understand that. I sure didn't want anything to happen to them.

"Badly? As in . . . we would become the meal." She said tenatively. Everyone gave an uncomfortable laugh.

"Well, if one of you decide to . . . do that, pick me instead of Bella since I'm going to die anyways." I volunteered. That may have sounded strange to most people, but I was serious. Bella looked at me really bothered. She hated when I said stuff like that, but it was true. I noticed that Dr. and Mrs. Cullen looked at me really sad too. I guess that means Edward already told them about me. Darn him! I HATE being pitied.

"Actually, we would, except that your blood doesn't smell very good to us." Emmett said to me. I remembered Edward had told me that a few weeks ago. The only reason he could find that made any sense was that I had leukemia. The tumors I had had somehow tainted my blood and gave it to me. (Aren't I lucky?) So my blood had no appeal to vampires at all whatsoever.

"Oh, right. Sorry." Was all I could think of to say.

"You're apologizing to a vampire for not smelling appealing?" Edward asked me skeptically.

"Stranger things have happened, Edward. I'm sure of it!" I said, with mock enthusiasm. He just shook his head at me.

Just then we hear a sweet, high voice coming from the balcony. "Hi, Bella! Hi, Lanie!"

There they are! Alice and Jasper just jumped off a tree branch that was overhanging the balcony and walked towards us. Where exactly did they come from?

"I'm Alice." She told us as she walked over to hug me and then Bella. "Oh! You do smell good!" She said, looking at Bella.

I couldn't help it. I started laughing out loud. First, because of what she said and second, because of Edward's reaction to it.

He gave his sister a what-the-hell look and said, "Alice, what are you. . . ?"

"It's OK." She assured him, looking at Bella and putting her hand on my head. "We're all going to be great friends." She seemed very confident of that.

After a short moment of awkward silence, Dr. Cullen said, " Sorry. Jasper's our newest vegetarian. This is very difficult for him."

And you could sure tell it by looking at him. He looked like he was in tremendous pain. Poor guy. Alice had gone over by him and was smiling affectionately at him.

"Pleasure to meet you." he politely told Bella and I, looking like he was trying to restrain himself.

"It's OK, Jasper." She assured him. "You wont hurt her." I noticed she said 'her' and not 'them'. Apparently, my blood wasn't a problem for anyone.

Once again, I couldn't help but laugh at the look on Edward's face. The whole ironic situation, really. I was actually glad to be apart of it. It's not like I had all that much time left and I might as well make the most of it.

"Alright." He said to Bella, sounding a little disgusted at his family's behaviour. "I'm going to take you on a tour through the rest of the house." Then started walking away with her and, remembering I was there, turned back around and looked like he was trying to figure out what to do with me.

"I'll just stay here." I told him, relieving him of his awkward moment. He smiled, nodded and I watched him walk away with Bella.

"Well, I'll see you soon!" Alice called to them.

"OK." Bella responded. Edward rolled his eyes at his family behind her back.

"So cute!" "I know" I could hear Alice and Mrs. Cullen say, giggling, behind me.

"I think that went well!" Dr. Cullen said, optimistically.

I turned around to see Mrs. Cullen pointing to the mess Rosalie made and telling her, "Clean this up, now."

"I'll help you!" I volunteered, heading for the shards of glass.

But before I could make it two feet, Dr. Cullen had grabbed my arm and said to me, "I don't think that would be very wise."

"Why not?" I asked.

"You could cut yourself, dear." Mrs. Cullen, said.

"No I wouldn't." I told them. "Besides, what difference would it make if I did? My blood doesn't even smell good."

"Let's not take any chances." Dr. Cullen said, still holding my arm and leading me away from the glass and into the kitchen area.

So, Lanie!" Mrs. Cullen asked me, smiling. "What would you like to do today?"

Normally, I would have a lot of homework to do, but I don't go to school anymore. (a lotta good that would do me right now) I figured she would be bored with anything else I wanted to do. Besides, I didn't want to inconvenience her with my presence.

"Well. . . . what would you normally be doing if I wasn't here?" I asked.

PLEASE REVIEW SO I KNOW IF I SHOULD CONTINUE!