I've retwritten this story because I wasn't happy with it. I've done a little more of it, and changed it quite a bit. Some names are different, as well as the plot. :) I'll get to writing Little Less Obvious soon.

Shawn Léone was unhappy.

She was barely off the plane before fiercely needing to fight uncontrollable screams ripping through her veins in an attempt to force her body to pivot on her heels and march back towards the aircraft she’d just previously exited. She wanted to be home. She wanted to be anywhere but here.

The only thing that kept her size seven feet firmly planted was the sight of her brother, Kiel amongst the rest of the eager relatives whose eyes were too busy searching for their loved ones to realize that they were shoving Shawn around like a lifeless marionette. Reluctantly, her body moved her feet one in front of the other. The shift of weight from each leg to the other was oddly excruciatingly painful. Kiel seemed like a thousand miles away, and each step didn’t seem to be bringing Shawn any closer to her brother.

Kiel seemed to see her almost instantly, though, and began shoving his way towards her effortlessly. “Shawn Scarlet,” he called, spotting her amongst the crowd of nearly identical heads. Her own head jerked up with the sound of her name rolling off her brother’s tongue and she winced at the use of her full first name. However, she didn’t get to snap back, or say anything, for that matter, because Kiel yanked her into a bone-crushing embrace, squeezing almost all oxygen from her lungs as he lifted her from the earth. Shawn dropped her suitcase from the pressure of his arms around her, the handle clacking loudly as it smacked the tile floors of the waiting room.

He seemed to notice her pain and dropped her to the floor instantly, backing away with slight alarm. He scratched his head sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she replied brightly. Too brightly.

Kiel didn’t fall for her fake over zealous voice and grimaced. “You should way too happy for someone who doesn’t want to be here,” he said, bending over to pick up the luggage handle. While Shawn looked like she had been hauling a boulder through the crowd of people, Kiel pulled it behind him like he was taking his pet feather out for a walk.

Shawn grunted in response, not even bothering to give him a more enthusiastic reaction. Kiel knew her well enough to know when she was pulling fibs, and Shawn knew better than to keep lying in his presence. If there was one person that Shawn could absolutely not lie to, it was Kiel.

She followed her brother through the airport, glancing out the window. The sky was already a dark blue, streetlights glowing dimly in the distance. A white drizzle hovered overhead, visible through the orange burn of the lights. She was starting college this year at the same university that her brother had graduated from.

It felt kind of exciting to be going to the same school that her brother had been attending for four years. It was like she was following in his footsteps. It was a warming feeling up until about a week before she left. The fact that she wasn’t going to be going back to her home in sunny Hawaii for four years – or more – hit her all at once. She didn’t have the extra cash saved to fly back during summer or the holidays, so she was spending the next couple years trapped in a dreary prison.

Shawn had a feeling that she wished she had listened to her mother for once, and stayed at the University of Hawaii.

Kiel clicked the button that unlocked the door to his girlfriend’s eclipse and Shawn slipped into the passenger seat, sinking into the leather interior. Slightly impressed at the car of the girlfriend she had never met, Shawn just decided to keep her mouth shut about Zion – the said girlfriend – for now. It would come up eventually. Kiel couldn’t shut up about Zion.

Kiel dumped Shawn’s outrageously heavy suitcase into the outrageously tiny trunk with relative ease, and then slid into the driver’s seat, grinning as he started the car. Like he had read her mind, Kiel turned to her and said, “Zee is looking forward to meeting you.”

Zion had been Kiel’s girlfriend for more than four years now, since they had met in their freshmen year. But since they met at the university, and Kiel never came home during breaks, Shawn and Zion never had a chance to meet face-to-face. Shawn had never even seen a picture of her before. During Kiel’s college graduation last year, she had been too far away to see. Shawn had said hello to her on the phone, and chatted with her over the Internet, but that had been the maximum of their conversation.

Shawn felt an empty pang in her chest and she realized suddenly that she was nervous about meeting Zion. Kiel had said so many great things about her, and he was actually really serious about his relationship with her. For a moment, Shawn wished that she could be like normal younger sisters and be eager to criticize any woman her big brother dated.

I don’t like the way she talks.

Her boobs are too small.

She isn’t smart enough.

Her smile reminds me of Barbie.

But Shawn couldn’t ever imagine herself saying anything like that about Zion, even though she had never met her. It was like she wanted so badly to like Zion for Kiel’s sake that she couldn’t help but be afraid that she wouldn’t like her.

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting her, too,” Shawn said over the mixed CD that her brother was playing on the stereo. Kiel smiled slightly, grateful.

“What did Mom say about you coming here?” he asked. Kiel was never one for awkward silence, even if the airport was five minutes away from the apartment where Shawn was supposed to be living with him.

Shawn scoffed. “You know how Mom feels about me. She was pissed.”

“But you left anyway.”

“But I left anyway.”

Kiel laughed. “That is so like you, Shawn Scarlet. I’m proud of you, though. Way to declare your independence.”

Shawn felt a glimmer of gratification spark in her chest. Kiel was proud of her. “Thanks. How have you and Zion been?”

“Great,” Kiel answered as he pulled into the driveway of a little Victorian house. He twisted the key and pulled it out of the ignition, the car dying beneath them. “She wants to meet you,” he said again as he pushed open the door and practically flew out of the automobile.

Chuckling to herself, Shawn reclined her chair, waiting for her brother to get Zion so Shawn could meet her before going to Kiel’s apartment.

But Shawn felt the car lift up slightly, relinquishing the weight of her suitcase as Kiel pulled her suitcase from the trunk. He was halfway to the front door of the house when he realized that he had forgotten something. He backtracked, stopping at Shawn’s door. Her fingers closed on the handle and she pulled, then pushed the door out, staring at her brother quizzically.

“Uh, you aren’t going to come inside?”

“No?” It was more of a question than a statement.

Kiel laughed. “So, you’ll be sleeping in the car, then?”

She paused and thought for a moment. Her eyes widened with dawning realization, and Kiel’s eyebrows sagged in confusion as she spoke. “You live here now?”

Kiel winced, frowning slightly. “I thought Mom told you. I guess she was trying to keep you home with any way she could,” he mumbled, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Look, I know you’ve been wanting me to back to Hawaii after you graduated. But I love it here. Zee and I just put a down payment for this house before the summer started; I’m staying here for good. I can’t go back home. I’m not welcome.”

“Of course you can go back home,” Shawn insisted childishly, furrowing her brows like a five-year-old. Her fingers shifted from the door handle to the recliner as she pulled herself up to get a more serious view. “You’re always welcome back home.”

He laughed a dark, empty laugh that she had never heard before. “I doubt that.”

But before Shawn could present another argument – acting as though one sentence would make her brother pack his things and bring his whole lifestyle back to Hawaii – Kiel had already started up the front steps to the little house, as though leaving her to decide whether or not she wanted to spent the night alone in his cramped eclipse. Shawn sighed in temporary defeat and took her sweet time unbuckling the seat belt, even when she heard the door to the house click as it unlocked. Shawn could feel her body move in slow motion as she opened the door and swung her legs to the cement.

Life resumed normal speed as she edged her way up the steps to the front door to where her brother was already stepping inside the house. “Zee,” he called into the empty space.

Almost instantly, a head poked out from the kitchen. Zion smiled. Shawn couldn’t help but grimace. Not because Zion was hideous, but because she was so gut-wrenchingly beautiful that everyone else that Shawn had met in her lifetime looked sickeningly ordinary in comparison.

Zion’s long, ebony hair cascaded perfectly around her heart-shaped face, contrasting with her milky skin. She flashed her small, subtle dimples upon noticing that Shawn was standing there, Zion showing off her Colgate-commercial-worthy teeth, the smile crinkling the corners of her big dark eyes. Her skin had no blemishes – save a scar peeking out from the sleeve of her shirt – and every strand of hair, eyebrows included, were perfectly in place. She looked more like a super model than the doctor she was trying to become.

“Oh, Shawn,” she greeted, scuttling over to where Shawn was trapped in her world of awe. Zion pulled Shawn into a hug. Her skin was cold, but where she touched Shawn’s skin, she was burning hot, like she had a couple of Icy-Hot patches instead of palms. It was an empty kind of embrace, like Zion was trying not to touch Shawn while hugging her, like she was afraid of crushing Shawn beneath her thin arms.

What, is she a body builder in disguise? Shawn thought somewhat bitterly, sour from having to live here. But she just ignored her thoughts and hugged back, regardless of the fact that Zion didn’t want to touch her.

Zion pulled away quickly, but held Shawn’s hands in hers. Shawn felt like she was holding her hands over a campfire. “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” Zion said, still smiling. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ll be staying here with you and Kiel.”

“It’s no problem. I’m excited to be here,” Shawn lied, smiling politely. Kiel stood in the background, observing, his eyebrow twitching with the tone of Shawn’s lying voice. He looked shameful and embarrassed, knowing that the first sentence that his sister had uttered to Zion was an obvious lie. And a bad one, at that. But like Shawn had ignored Zion’s distancing, she ignored her brother’s looks of disapproval.

Zion turned to Kiel, still smiling. It was like that smile was glued there. “She looks just like you, Kiel.”

Shawn turned her eyes to her brother and realized for the first time since she saw him what a blatant lie that was. Kiel was almost twenty-three, but he looked like he hadn’t aged a day since he left Hawaii almost five years ago. In fact, he looked younger, if that was even possible. His skin was milky white, like Zion’s, having paled slightly from the lack of Hawaii sunlight, and in comparison to Shawn’s beach tan, looked almost albino, save the black hair falling into his dark eyes. He was a foot taller than Shawn with a defined jaw line and a defined nose, while Shawn stood as a measly five-two, with a smaller nose bridge and high cheekbones without a sharp jaw. The only thing they shared was their naturally long dark eyelashes and light brown hair. But Kiel had done his to resemble the colour of midnight, traces of one of the only traits he shared with his sister invisible.

“Yeah.” Another lie. I didn’t realize the words had even come out of my mouth until Kiel glanced at her with a hint of sadness in his eyes. Shawn used to love looking like Kiel; they used to have the same wavy hair and be recognizable on the spot. In high school, Shawn had taken pride as being known as “Kiel’s Sister” by the upperclassmen. It was a sense of belonging, a title that she actually didn’t mind. They used to look so much alike that it was difficult to not be able to tell they were related. But things had changed so much since she had last seen him that it was like meeting him all over again.

Shawn felt her stomach clench. She hated that.

She turned to Kiel as though searching for some kind of confirmation that he felt that, and he hated it, too, but he just laughed slightly, playing off Zion’s words as a joke.

Feeling some sort of tension, Zion lead Shawn into the kitchen where the scent of food was almost overwhelming. Shawn didn’t know why she hadn’t smelled it before. Her stomach rumbled and she realized that she hadn’t eaten on the eight-hour flight. She hadn’t been hungry then – the only thing overwhelming was the wave of regret washing over her as she flew farther and farther away from the only place she called home – but she was starving now.

“You can have all you want, sweetheart,” Zion said, laughing as she noticed Shawn’s ravenous expression. Her little giggle was like the sound of wind chimes. She handed Shawn a bowl and instantly, Shawn was at the stove, greedily scooping some kind of spicy smelling spaghetti.

Before Zion and Kiel realized that she was there, Shawn was at the table, scarfing food down her throat like she hadn’t eaten for weeks. It was too delicious to stop. Zion had used some kind of twist of tomatoes, jalapenos, and oranges in the salsa, the flavour even soaked into the noodles.

Zion sat across of Shawn and her brother beside her, watching her eat. She suddenly felt uncomfortable, and looked up at them uneasily. “You guys aren’t going to have any?” she asked, lifting her fork to point at the pot of spaghetti. How they were resisting this amazing food was completely beyond Shawn. “This is really good, Zion.” A compliment wouldn’t hurt, especially when it was the first truth that Shawn had spoken since she had met Zion.

She just smiled kindly and lifted a glass of red wine that Shawn hadn’t seen her pour. Kiel had one, too. “Thanks, Shawn. But I’m all right; I had something to eat earlier.”

“I ate before I picked you up,” Kiel said.

Shrugging, Shawn turned back to her food, deciding that she liked it better when the two of them left her to eat in peace. In a few moments, she whirled back to the stove for seconds, and then back to the table again to eat in silence. She couldn’t really find anything interesting to talk about. She just enjoyed Zion’s amazing cooking.

“So, hm, are you excited for college?” Zion’s harp-like voice asked as Shawn was halfway through her second serving.

Shawn swallowed. “I guess. It’s just school.”

“Are any of your friends going to be going to the same school?”

Shawn shook her head. “I don’t think so. A lot of them just decided to stay home.”

Zion laughed slightly. “Well, making new friends is nice, too. The people here are friendly, for the most part.” That sentence was a little relieving to Shawn. She had actually been worried about her social life here. She just didn’t like showing it in front of her brother and his perfect girlfriend. A part of Shawn felt like she needed to find someone to share forever with, since Kiel had done the same thing his freshman year of college. “Oh, and I don’t think I mentioned this before, but I love your contacts,” Zion added, gesturing to Shawn’s face.

Shawn immediately cast her head down, sweeping her hair out of her face in embarrassment. “Oh, um, thanks.”

Shawn had given up trying to convince people that the dark lavender colour of her eyes weren’t prescription contact lenses. She had tried real contacts of every shade to make her eyes a normal colour, but none of them had worked. Her eyes burned every time she put them in, and she had to take them out immediately or risk losing her eyesight from the unbearable burn. If people asked her where she had gotten the purple “contacts”, she made up a name of an optometrist and dropped the subject. Even if Shawn told the truth, no one would believe her.

Zion stood up and opened the refrigerator as Shawn finished off the last of her second helping. She leaned back in her chair, patting her bloated stomach in satisfaction. Despite the fact that she had a feeling she was going to resent living away from him, Shawn knew she was going to love living in this house. Shawn had a hunch that the “freshman fifteen” wouldn’t be coming from her school cafeteria, but from Zion’s incredible cooking.

As if on cue Zion pulled out a huge chocolate cake and set it down in front of Shawn, who immediately sat up straight. She could almost taste the sugar from its place on the table and lit up like a child on Christmas morning. Suddenly, Shawn wasn’t hungry anymore. Shawn looked up at Zion, who smiled warmly.

“Welcome home.”