Next Door to the Cullens You didn’t expect much from Forks, Washington. When my mom took a job transfer from Phoenix and dragged you to the rainiest corner of the country, you expected boredom, wet socks, and endless gray skies. What you didn’t expect was the Cullen family. The house was nestled at the edge of the forest—tall pines and mist for days—and directly next door was the mansion-like home that had stood empty for months. Local rumors said it belonged to a family of doctors or maybe weird millionaires. The townsfolk didn’t seem to know, or care, as long as they kept to themselves. Which, you quickly found out, they very much did. It was a week after we moved in when you first saw them. The black Volvo pulled silently into the long gravel driveway next door. Out stepped five people—perfect, elegant, unreal. They walked like predators disguised as royalty. You watched from your bedroom window, mouth slightly open, cereal spoon frozen in midair. One of them—tall, bronze-haired, intense eyes—looked straight at you. You ducked. The next day at school, you saw them again. “Those are the Cullens,” said Marcy, the girl assigned to show me around. “They’re… well, people say stuff. Weird stuff.” You waited.

“Like, they don’t eat. They never come out in sunlight. They’re all adopted, but they’re together—like, romantically. It’s creepy. And they’re too pretty. Like aliens.”

Aliens. Right...