Once they were in the room, Marie switched her computer on. Then she took her camera out of her handbag and waited for the computer to be ready.
Marie had a corner room. There were two layers of curtains at each window guarding her privacy from the outside. The layers of thin white curtains had been drawn completely close while the thicker ones on the side of the room were just slightly parted.
There were books on shelves and on the writing desk, which was separate from the table with the computer. A mirror was attached to the door of one of the cupboards in the room. There was only one stuffed toy, that of a cat, sitting at the corner of the bed, next to a couple of pillows. On closer inspection, Gloria saw that the cat was the same design as the one she had in her room, only this was black instead of orange.
Marie had only one chair, though, so Gloria remained standing.
Once the computer booted up, Marie linked her camera to it via a wire and started uploading the pictures. Through the room wall, the muffled sound of the shower could be heard from their shared bathroom.
"Gloria, do you remember I told you that you were in the hospital four times?" Marie asked quietly as she looked over her shoulder.
The younger girl nodded. "Yes, I do."
Marie slowly got up from her seat and faced Gloria. "The first time you, no, Annie was there, it was because she was bleeding badly from her head."
Gloria thought for a moment. "It was an accident. She fell against your desk," she recalled. She pointed at the corner of Marie's writing desk. "That desk."
"That was the lie we told everyone else," Marie admitted softly, "That time, she was shorter than you are now. Falling from such a height wouldn't have hurt her that badly."
Gloria searched deeper into her memory for details of the event. Dread grew within her even as she remembered the truth.
"I threw her against that desk," Marie confessed. She took a long breath. "Back then... back then, I really disliked her grabbing my breasts all the time. That one time, I got so mad, I pushed her hard."
Marie rubbed her hand over the corner where Gloria's, no, Annie's head had hit. "It was horrible," Marie continued, "She was bleeding everywhere."
Gloria took Marie's hand and gently pulled it away from the desk. "It's okay, that's in the past."
"Since that time, I could never refuse her." Marie voice quivered. "Once she realized that, she... she took advantage of it. She made me do all kinds of things for her."
Things that Marie obviously did not want to recall. Gloria chose not to look into Annie's memory for that information.
Annie was unbelievable. Not only had she bullied her friends, she appeared to have done the same with her elder sister. She had taken advantage of her sister's guilt and used it against Marie.
So that was why Marie had acted strangely in the past whenever she was alone with Gloria. She was truly afraid of Annie, of what the younger sister would demand. It must have taken a lot of trust for the older girl to disclose something as painful as this to Gloria.
"It's okay, Marie," Gloria told her, "Annie's gone now."
"Yeah," Marie agreed, "It's just... in spite of all she is, was... Annie's my sister and I loved her. I just wished I could do more for her, you know?"
Gloria shook her head. "There's no more you can do for her," Gloria advised, "But you can forgive yourself. Yes, you did wrong but you shouldn't dwell on it. You'll always feel this guilt unless you let go. It's time to stop punishing yourself."
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