A New Beginning

Emma

It was Sunday evening, and Shane lay sprawled out on his bed working on homework while listening to heavy metal music and texting Shania in between. He wore his usual backwards cap over his dark hair, a sweatshirt, and dark blue jeans. His muscles ached from participating in a football game yesterday, and all he wanted to do right now was sleep, but Shane knew he needed to complete his homework before tomorrow or it wouldn't get done.

Just then, in spite of the music that was blasting loudly on his speaker set, Shane heard a knock on his door. That can only be one person, he thought resentfully as he quickly replied to a text from Shania. "What do you want?" he shouted above the noise, knowing that the person who stood on the other side of the door was his sister Heidi.

Heidi's voice sounded from the other side, but Shane couldn't make out what she was saying. "You need what?!" he yelled, growing increasingly frustrated.

Just then, the door flung open, revealing Heidi and one of her friends. Heidi was dressed comfortably in a T-shirt and yoga pants, with her blonde hair tied back in a braid behind her head. Her friend, however, wore a skimpy white dress, which showed most of her bare back and dipped quite low in front as well. Her collarbones stuck out drastically and there was a large thigh gap between her thin legs. 

"What the hell, Heidi!" Shane yelled. "Did I say you could come in here?" Grabbing the remote for his speaker set, which was lying on the bed beside him, he pressed the power button, turning off the music.

"Well, you couldn't hear me out there!" Heidi retorted, putting her hands on her hips. "So I figured I'd come in so you can!"

Shane sighed loudly, slamming down his pencil and got up from the bed. "I'm not in the mood for your bullshit," he muttered, walking towards Heidi with a glare on his face. "Tell me what you want or get out."

"We need to interview you for a school project," Heidi repeated.

"And how long will that take?" Shane demanded, folding his arms across his chest.

"How am I supposed to know?" Heidi whined. "Can we just get started please?"

Shane rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he snapped, sitting back down on the bed, quickly replying to a a text from Shania and shoving his phone in his pocket. "Let's get this fucking thing over with."

"Okay," Heidi began, shuffling through the papers she held in her folder. "What does history mean to you?" she read.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Shane muttered, pulling his phone out of his pocket and texting Shania once again.

Heidi rolled her eyes. "You see what I have to put up with?" she said, turning to Emma.

During this time, Emma had been standing in the corner awkwardly, listening to the bantering between Heidi and Shane. She politely nodded at Heidi, but said nothing in return.

"I didn't know you kept an anorexic bitch as a friend," Shane commented, eyeing Emma with a slightly mocking tone to his voice. "She looks like she hasn't eaten in weeks."

Upon hearing this comment, Emma started shifting her weight from one foot to the other, as if she was embarrassed. Tears filled her eyes as she stared awkwardly at the ground with one arm crossed in front of her. "I'm not anorexic," she muttered, holding back her tears as she avoided Shane's gaze.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Shane retaliated. "I can see your ribs coming out of your damn body! If that's not anorexic, you can shoot me in the fucking head!"

Emma continued to shift her weight around as the tears leaked out of her downcast, blue eyes and slid down her sunken cheeks. Suddenly, a sob escaped Emma as she quickly covered her face with her hands as if to hide it.