"Sorry," Sabine apologized, "Sorry for everything. First, the drink. Then, the car accident. If I hadn't run, you wouldn't get hurt." She started sniffling.
Gloria pulled an opened pack of tissues from her white handbag and offered one to the other girl. "Why did you do it? Why did you spike my drink?"
"Because of Connie," Sabine replied. She accepted a tissue and dabbed her nose. "She said you'd turn back to being nasty if we didn't punish you."
"Punish me?"
"You weren't a very nice person." Sabine dried her nose again.
"What did I do to you?" Gloria asked softly. She needed to know what Annie had done.
"You said bad things." Sabine blinked twice. "You spread rumors, you make me feel bad. You called me a Nazi."
"A what!?"
"It's true, Grandpapa was a Nazi foot soldier."
"Sabine, the Nazi is an organization that someone joins, it's not hereditary," Gloria explained, "You don't become one just by being related to one."
"But... you said," Sabine uttered.
Gloria shook her head. "Never mind what I said." What Annie had said. "I was being nasty." Annie was the nasty one. "I was twisting the truth." Annie again.
Then Gloria remembered her discussion with Jill on the bridge some time ago. "Besides, have you checked why your grandfather joined in the first place? Did he have a choice?"
Sabine looked at her helplessly.
"You are not one if you don't choose to be one." Gloria smiled. "Talk with your parents. Maybe they can help you understand your grandfather better."
Sabine looked at the tissue in her hands. "You're nice now," she said, "I'm really sorry I did all those things to you."
A moment passed and Gloria's thoughts turned to the redhead. "Do you know what's going on between me and Connie?"
Sabine looked at her. "You don't know?"
"I... can't remember," Gloria admitted.
"You can't?"
"Ever since I returned from the hospital last semester, I had trouble with my memory." Gloria paused. "Connie and I aren't really friends, are we?"
"No, the two of you were always fighting," Sabine said, "You're nice and polite to each other in front of everyone but really, you two hated each other."
Sabine twisted her smeared tissue. "You made me do things to Connie. Connie made me do things to you. Like putting that whiskey in your drink."
So it was a war between Annie and Connie and poor Sabine was caught in between. Who knew what horrors she had endured and had been forced to commit. Now her brown-haired friend was stuck in court because she was forced to take part in a conflict that she had wanted no part in.
"But didn't we used to go out together?" Gloria asked.
Sabine nodded. "That was part of your fight. You would flaunt your money while Connie would look for a way to hurt you."
"Have I ever shoplifted? Was that part of our fight?"
"Yeah, Connie urged you to steal from a drugstore in Miss Megamall." Sabine blinked. "You got caught once. She was very happy that day when you got scolded by the guard."
Gloria had suspected this much. Annie had probably wanted to show off by stealing while Connie had hoped that she would be caught. Connie had played the good girl. Annie had been the bad girl.
"When you came back to school in January," Sabine continued, "Everything stopped. You stopped asking me to hurt Connie. Connie stopped asking me to hurt you. I thought it was over."
No comments:
Post a Comment