journal as a best friend, sister as an unexpected confidant

"You were never supposed to find out."

"If that was really true, why would you write it down?" Never write something down unless you expect it to be read, Mom had always tried to impart that on the girls, but Andrea was the only one who took her mom's word as gospel. Michaela had always been the more rebellious of the two sisters, but that rebellion turned into outright trust issues in their teenage years. Whatever Mom said, Michaela was determined the opposite had to be better.

Andrea for years didn't understand why Michaela had acted like Andrea herself also couldn't be trusted. Not until she had found her sister's teenage diary and let curiosity and the misguided belief taught by their mom that anything written down was meant to be read control her actions. Andrea read the journal, and was now at her sister's lonely apartment, confronting her.

"I write to process my emotions since I'm trash at singing and didn't have friends in high school other than the ones you lent me. That journal was my best friend. I know, its pathetic."

"No, what's pathetic is that you watched your rapist walk me down the aisle. What's pathetic is that you wrote about these horrific crimes occurring at night, in the bedroom next to mine, and never once thought maybe -" Andrea didn't actually believe this was pathetic, it was actually unbelievably courageous but she was furious with herself for not knowing and Michaela for apparently having actively decided Andrea was not to know, was 'never meant to find out'. Did she honestly believe Andrea was horrible enough to not believe Michaela? Was Andrea that horrible? As a teenager, she might have been. She didn't want to believe that, not when she could instead aim that selfish anger at her sister.

"If you read the journal, you'd know just how damn often I thought about telling you."

"No, I read it. You just worried about if it was happening to me and when it became obvious it wasn't, you didn't want to ruin our family. You let me live a lie for years."

"What choice did I have?"

"Oh, I don't know, tell me? Literally any point in the last ten years you could have told me instead of leaving me to find out by housesitting while Mom and Dad left for their cruise around the world. If I hadn't found the journal, were you ever planning on telling me? Or would you have just let me bring Ben over to visit Mom and Dad without letting me know what Dad could have been teaching my little boy?"

"How are you still able to turn my assault into something about Ben? Dad adores your little boy,"

"Yeah, but he adored you, and still..." Andrea's jaw clenched as she let the sentence trail off. How had their life turned into this?

"Yeah but he's homophobic, he wouldn't dare do something like that to a boy, let alone your little boy."

"Yeah but he could teach Ben to think the way he does, and that's not the kind of man I'm okay raising. That's not the sort of man I would want to be raised by. I hated that about Dad even before I learned this, this has just made it all so much worse." Andrea was the one close to tears, which didn't feel fair to Michaela. She had been the one who suffered. Andrea had a beloved husband and son, an actual family she could trust and retreat to even now that she seemed likely ready to cut off their parents, which Michaela had done years ago despite being completely alone.

"Did you ever wonder why I stopped talking to Mom and Dad?"

"You always said you never wanted to talk about it, but I'm guessing this is why, right? Wait, did Mom know?"

"Yeah. She had to - when I was seventeen, when you were in university, she had to take me to an abortion clinic."

"Shit. Shit. That's - I'm sorry you needed that."

"Yeah, I know."

"Have you ever had a consensual relationship? Like since Dad?"

"No. I haven't exactly tried very hard, but also nobody else has shown interest except that one guy." The sisters both knew who that one guy was referring to. Michaela had a guy friend in university who had apparently decided her sharing a poem she had written about someone else, a mutual friend they both had, was a sign she secretly actually had feelings for him.

"God, I hated that guy. That really is shit though."

"You don't need to pretend you haven't been judging me for the past decade over not being nearly as successful as you in dating. It's not any less pathetic just because you now know I'm not entirely inexperienced."

Andrea took a break from the conversation, as crying had left her in need of blowing her nose. She also was for once at a loss for words, as she secretly had always viewed Michaela as less successful and somewhat pathetic for having never been in a relationship. Now, she viewed Michaela's isolation differently, as a form of possibly trying to protect herself. Andrea hated her past self for having always been so pushy, so unable to believe her sister when the younger insisted she was happy, that her friends were all the social life she needed.

"No, I was being a bitch when I judged you, and I think I've always known that was true on some level."

"You're a bitch even when you're not judging me, And." Andrea scoffed, relieved that somehow the conversation had returned to safer territory. Talking about their feelings had always been not a skill they were great with, at least not serious talks.

"Yeah, yeah, you know what I meant. Want to watch something? Or we could go to our parents' place and have a dance party like we did back when you wrote this?" Andrea gestured with the journal.

"Watch something. I'm not in the mood to go back there right now." Andrea nodded, returning to the front door of the apartment where her bag, which had her laptop in it, was. The pair would watch one of their favorite movies from when the journal had been written, Bend It Like Beckham.