New Girl

You Can't Catch Me

One who's always crazy
Never calls me baby
That's the one that I want
All you boys are not him, not him

- Gingerbread Man, Melanie Martinez

Christmas was a small affair. Charlie and Bella came over and they all spent the day together, listening to Christmas songs on the radio while they cooked together in the kitchen. Jessica and Bella had been working on a gingerbread house the past few days which had become an all-consuming project as they built their dream holiday house. They also made gingerbread men to inhabit their creation.

Jessica jokingly made a gingerbread man that looked like Edward Cullen to make Bella laugh complete with yellow gummy button eyes and red licorice hair. She used icing to make his grumpy eyebrows and frown. She was giggling too much as she drew on some vampire fangs that came out crooked.

"He doesn't have fangs," Bella corrected. Their parents were watching TV and not paying attention to them so they could talk without worry.

"He doesn't?" Jessica was genuinely surprised. "But don't vampires have fangs? How do they eat?"

"His teeth are sharp. They just, um, don't turn into fangs."

Jessica frowned and left her Gingerward creation alone.

The visual seemed so wrong. She tried to imagine Edward biting into a deer with his flat teeth and it looked so silly she had to stop herself from laughing. What else was different? Emmett had told her sunlight couldn't hurt them and Rosalie confirmed their skin was practically indestructible.

"Bella," Jessica started. "Do they not turn into bats?"

The brunette blinked. "Um, not...not that I know of."

"Do they sleep in coffins?"

Bella shook her head. "Edward doesn't even own a bed. Vampires don't sleep."

"At all?" Jessica was genuinely horrified. "Do they not need to rest? Does Edward never just want to lie down?"

Bella shrugged. "Alice and Jasper own a bed. But they're, you know, married." Her face was bright red. "I don't know if they need to rest but they don't sleep."

Jesus Christ. No wonder Edward was so grumpy all the time. Maybe that was why his siblings were so unhinged. They haven't slept in so long, they must all be delirious. Jessica once stayed up two days straight working on a school project and was barely coherent by the end. She couldn't imagine a century of no sleep.

And having no bed? Just because you weren't married and having sex didn't mean you didn't ever feel like lying down. Did Edward Cullen have his existential crises standing up? Or just in the bathtub?

Jessica had so many questions and they all made vampirism seem less appealing by the second.

She looked at Bella and asked, "Are you sure you want to become a vampire, Bells? It doesn't sound that much fun to be a vampire. If you can't run around with a cape and terrorize locals with dark magic then what's the point of it all?"

"The Cullens don't wear capes."

"Bela Lugosi did."

Bella bit her lip. "Carlisle said Dracula was never a real vampire."

Jessica sighed. "You know, the worst part of meeting the Cullens wasn't learning that vampires exist. It's learning that vampires are real and actually kind of lame. Sure, they're pretty and they're rich, but you can get that outdated WASP culture anywhere." She picked up Gingerward and broke off his arms. "You saw their house. Who needs the minimalist Swedish architecture over that classic and gothic Victorian aesthetic? Where's the drama, you know?"