Annora |E. Cullen|

EIGHT

I heard the cries in my sleep, I thought I had been dreaming of them without being fed a visual feed. After another moment, I shook awake and sat up rather quickly.

"Morgan," I breathed and scrambled out of bed.

"She's not even-" Emmett was cut off by the sudden shriek and the cries that followed from my baby sister. "How did you even know?"

"I heard her crying in my sleep," I groaned as I wrapped my cardigan around myself and checked the baby monitor that was hooked to the wall, no one had come to grab her yet.

"She wasn't crying, Annora," Emmett explained, but I was already out of my bedroom and walking up the two flights of stairs that it would take to reach her.

I walked into the nursery and immediately picked her up. She quieted her crying as I talked to her, asking her what was wrong even though I was fully aware that she would not understand, nor would she respond. She faced towards my clothing and started to lick the arm of my cardigan, so I carried her downstairs and prepped a bottle of formula.

I rocked her in my arms so that she wouldn't cry and I fed her once the bottle was prepped. When she ate with me, she ate as much as she needed to in a short amount of time. When she ate with her mother, she didn't get enough food and she took over half an hour to feed. On some level, I felt bad for Brit. No matter what kind of person you are, you don't deserve the crushing feeling of not being able to provide food for your own child. On another level, I was glad that Brit's breast milk was insufficient, she was too unhealthy to be feeding an infant anyways.

After Morgan finished eating, I trudged up the stairs while burping her. She took a minute, but the gas was expelled from her system and she fell back asleep quickly. I reached her room and placed her down in her cradle gently after swaddling her. I rubbed her hand quickly and gently before returning back down to my own bedroom.

I shut my door behind me, my eyes were hardly opened, and I dragged my feet across the floor on the way to my bed. I let myself fall face first on my bed and I sighed before I decided to ask questions.

"What time is it?" I asked without moving my face from the blankets.

"06:15," Emmett answered and gently rubbed my shoulder.

I groaned loudly, "What do you mean she wasn't crying when I woke up?"

"She was sound asleep when you woke, she hadn't even moved. As soon as you put your sweater on, she started to cry," he responded.

"That's creepy," I mumbled into the blankets.

"Hey, I'm going to go get a fresh change of clothes, I'll pick you up at the normal time, okay?" He pet my hair.

"Mhm," I groaned and didn't lift my head.

"Get dressed, get some breakfast, it will help," he sounded sympathetic.

"You haven't eaten in a century, how would you know?" I laughed.

"Don't start with me," his booming laugh resonated around the room, "I'll see you soon."

A few minutes after he vanished, I forced myself to wake up, get up, and walk to my closet. I changed into my classic jeans and tank top and then found some Vans to wear with it. After pulling my hair up into a messy bun, I put on my necklace and earrings and then walked up the stairs.

I greeted my dad in the kitchen and noticed he was putting together a bottle. "No, don't do that," I warned. "I fed her a few minutes ago," I told him just before he placed the first scoop of formula into the bottle.

"Oh, really?" He sounded surprised.

"Yeah, I heard her crying so I just took care of it," I answered.

"You didn't have to do that, we could have gotten her," my dad laughed lightly.

"It's fine, it's not like I mind holding her and taking care of her, you know that," I started making coffee for the both of us.

"I know," he got quiet after that.

I started on eggs and toast as I waited for Emmett to come back. I scrambled two eggs and put them on top of a piece of buttered toast for my breakfast. It seemed to be perfect timing because just as I finished, Emmett rang the doorbell. My dad scurried off to answer it, so I rinsed my plate off and placed it in the sink.

"Thanks for picking her up and giving her rides. With the baby, we just haven't had time to visit the dealership yet," my dad shrugged as I handed him his coffee.

I mixed an appropriate portion of creamer into it as Emmett responded, "It's really no problem."

"Are you ready to go?" I asked and looked up, sure as anything that there were still bags under my eyes- I could almost pass for a vampire if my skin hadn't been so tan.

"As soon as you are," he smiled at me which warmed me up.

I put a top on my coffee cup and grabbed my school bag from the storage area where we kept them. Brit came downstairs while holding Morgan, so before I left, I grabbed my keys, wallet, and kissed Morgan's forehead.

"Bye honey," I waved at her, knowing she wasn't able to see me yet as her eyes weren't nearly as developed as mine.

I followed Emmett out to his Jeep after he said goodbye to my family. His siblings were in the back seats, allowing me to have shotgun. As soon as I sat down and shut the car door, I turned my body so that I was facing Emmett and was able to see Alice and Jasper in the back seat.

"Hi, Annora!" Alice greeted me with a bright and cheery smile as we left the driveway.

"Hello Alice, good morning Jasper," I smiled at the both of them.

"Mornin' Annora," Jasper grinned at me.

"I can't believe Spring Break is already here," I smiled as today was the Friday that started the Easter holiday. "Well, actually, I can. Psychologically speaking, it makes sense that the time feels like it has gone by faster as I've been introduced into a new environment with new factors and I've had to adjust to them while also caring for my infant sister."

"Very good point," Emmett nodded at me.

"Do you do that with everything you say?" Alice cocked her head to the side.

"Not everything, for example, when I use sarcasm I often disregard the numbers as my sarcasm is usually adverse of a numerical or statistical fact," I answered.

"So that's why no one laughs when you tell a joke," Jasper nodded, "I thought it was just because you were an old soul," he and his siblings were usually the only ones that understood my humour.

"Unfortunately, no. It's more than likely because my humour requires an education level much higher than the average high schooler. Considering that the average US Adult's reading level is at an eighth-grade level, my humour is actually above the majority of any adult's comprehension, as well. You guys understand it as humour because of how long you've been studying and how you can recognise the absolute absurdity of a comment after it's been made," I nodded.

"I guess you learn something new every day," Alice chimed which caused Emmett's booming laugh to flow through the car as we pulled up beside Edward and Bella.