Tessa took a deep breath and walked through the door.
"Tessie darling! I'm so glad you finally made it!" yelled Mrs Black with excitement.
"You look so grown up!" shouted Mrs Dark at the same time. Smiles lit up both their faces as they looked down on the niece they hadn't seen in years. The two women had both married men who lived abroad but neither had wanted to leave the other, so here they were. Neither had ever had children and both were now too old to become one. It was a shame because they were both so kind and motherly.
"Nate your sister is here!" they called up the stairs simultaneously, laughing together as a result. Hiding a smile Tessa looked up the stairs. On the stairs was a boy she hardly recognised as her brother. He had shaved his beard and cut his hair into something relatively modern. Gone was his long emo hair and tired eyes.
"Nate?" Tessa asked, squinting her eyes "Is that you?" she rubbed her eyes wondering if she was dreaming.
"Tessie. How did you get here?" he asked.
"Well when my perfect brother didn't show up within 2 hours I got a cab." She said sarcastically.
"You mean a taxi?" he asked. At this Tessa's brow furrowed. One year in Britain and he barely understood her American slang? How does this work.
"Of course. A taxi." Her mouth stumbled around the odd word "Where were you anyway?"
"I was with Jessie, we had a study date." Nate ducked his head, a slight blush on his cheeks"
"Who is Jessie and why the hell is she more important than your little sister!" Tessa exclaimed.
"Language!" chided her aunt.
"Umm… well… Jessie… she's… well…."
"Spit it out!" yelled Tessa.
"Jessie's my girlfriend!" Nate shouted. "It was our one year anniversary, I wanted it to be special." He stomped of up the stairs, slamming the door.
Tessa turned around to see her aunts both staring at her with equal amounts of disappointment.
"what?"
"Jessie is very important to your brother and we expected you to have more respect for him than that."
"Ok. I'm sorry." Tessa realised that she was perhaps a little harsh on her brother. Maybe he had actually changed.
"Don't apologise to us apologise to your brother. He's the one you upset. You should go up anyway, you need an early night. School starts tomorrow!"
"Ok" she wished her aunts a goodnight and left to find her brother.
"Nate?" she pushed open the door.
"What do you want brat?" he said, putting his phone down.
"I came to apologise. I'm sorry. If Jessie is that important to you then I'll forgive you" she told him.
"Of course Jessie is important to me. The sex is the best. And that means a lot if you take into mind how attractive I am."
"Wow leaving your sister stranded for sex. You deserve a brother of the year award."
"Shut up virgin. Get out of my room."
"I genuinely thought that you had changed. How wrong was I?"
"I haven't changed, Tessie." Somehow he managed to make her childhood nickname sound like an insult. She spun around and disappeared to her room. Taking refuge in alphabetizing her books and placing them onto her new bookshelf. Sadly it wasn't big enough. She took out her battered old laptop and blogged away. Soon she went to sleep no less angry and no more prepared for starting a new school.