Disclaimer: I'm only saying this once: I do not own anything. If I did, why am I using Fanfiction?

Whitney's POV

Annabel's radio was on again. I don't know why she started to listen to these unusual, though sometimes good, songs on the radio every Sunday morning at seven. I just knew that when she did she woke me up too; even though she didn't mean to. So I listened with her.

When it was almost eight o'clock I heard Annabel either a) talking to herself or b) talking on her cell phone to someone else who was up at this ungodly hour. It seemed to me that they were planning on meeting up somewhere for breakfast. But I could have been wrong since I could only hear one side of her conversation. At about eight-twenty I heard my little sister trying as hard as she could to leave the house quietly, as to not wake me up. She did a pretty good job and I was glad to not have someone force me up so I could gag on some food that would taste like cardboard to me.

I planned to fall asleep again, like I normally tried to do after listening to that radio show with Annabel, but this time I decided to get up and get myself a glass of water. My throat felt like it was burning. On my way down the hallway I glance towards Annabel's room on habit. I liked to know where everyone in my house was so I always checked the open doors. But when I looked inside I saw something that wouldn't normally attract my attention: a notebook. Sure I told myself that it was probably school work but I couldn't help myself and walked into her room to see what was inside. It turned out to be a diary so disregarding the early entries I went ahead to see what was written recently and skimmed the pages that I flipped over. I knew that looking through her diary was wrong; I knew that she would never invade my privacy like I was doing to hers. But I needed to know why my little sister had been acting like a scared little rabbit ever since summer.

I kept on skimming until something caught my eye. It wasn't different from most of her entries during her freshman and sophomore year, except to me it felt different. Annabel had written that she, Sophie, and Emily were going to the end of the year party. I couldn't explain to myself why I felt like something bad would happen as I read. I found out why I felt like that when I read the next entry. My baby sister, Annabel, was raped by her "best friend's" boyfriend. Not only that, but she was labeled a slut, a whore, and cheap by Sophie and everyone else who sided with that bitch.

No wonder she was scared and wanted to be alone all summer.

I felt horrible for not noticing that the baby of the family was hurt. I felt horrible being a better sister. And I felt horrible for the fact that Annabel had no one else to turn to since she had isolated herself. I stopped reading then, not wanting to learn something with my eyes when I should have been able to learn it with my ears. I set Annabel's notebook down then and started to walk down the stairs, stretching as I went. I thought that Annabel wouldn't be home for a while still so I went to check on my plants in the window sill. Stupid plants. I still didn't understand why Moira wanted me to grow those herbs in the winter.

As I was walking back to the stairs I saw the front door opening, it was Annabel. She was also wearing a guy's jacket that looked three sizes too big for her. She looked happy at that moment. Maybe it has something to do with whose jacket she's wearing, I thought to myself. "Where were you?" I asked.

"Breakfast with Owen and Rolly," she replied. Like I knew who Owen and Rolly were. I nodded slightly and barely moved out of the way for to walk past me. I knew that it was mean but I wanted her to tell me more. I wanted to know who her two friends were. But talking a lot just wasn't me. If I had something important to say, then I would say it; if I didn't, then I usually kept it to myself. As she walked past I got a huge disgusting whiff of bacon. It seemed as if she was in a meat locker or something.

A while later, while I was working on my history for Moira I suddenly knew who Owen was. Sure we only met once but I remembered him. He was the kid, who did not look like a kid, who delivered our pizza. He was friendly to me, though he seemed a little to into to music; but he was Annabel's friend. Probably her only one from what I had read earlier that morning.

That night, when the two of us were watching TV in the living room, I tried to get her to talk to me about Sophie. Albeit not in a very forward way. I had asked her what happened to Sophie. The girl who used to come to our house so often before I had to move back. The only answer that I had received has a vague one: they had had a fight; an ugly one. I wanted to ask her if the fight was about Will Cash, her rapist. But since I didn't want to push her, I didn't say anything else.

Over the next few days I wanted to tell someone what I knew. But I couldn't. If I did I knew that Annabel would deny that anything had ever happened; that she just had a falling out with her friend. Nothing more. Another reason why I couldn't tell was because I had invaded my sister's privacy. If anything that would give her justified grounds to never want to talk to me again. And so my anger festered. My anger at myself for not telling anyone what I knew and for taking what little attention Annabel had; my anger at Will Cash for hurting my sister; My anger at my mother and father for noticing the difference in their youngest daughter; and anger at Annabel for not telling someone, anyone, what had happened to her. But the one emotion I felt the most was sadness. Sadness for Annabel for thinking that no one would believe her, for not telling our mother that she hated modeling-even I could see that-, and sadness for her having to keep everything that she felt locked away.

I followed my family to the mall for Annabel's fashion show. But I stayed away from them as to not be seen. But that didn't matter since the object of my attention for the past few days had emerged. She kept her eyes straight ahead and saw me leaning against a wall. She was shocked, I could tell, but being there was the only way that I could show my support for her. And being there on my own gave me a small burst of independence.

The same night Annabel had come home with tear tracks staining her pretty face and immediately went up to her room. I knew that she was supposed to be with Owen, the delivery boy, but something had happened. Something big from what I could guess. But I decided to let her be; that was what I had wanted when I was upset. The next day Annabel tried to act like everything was normal. She didn't act well enough to fool me though. I could tell that she was hurting and afraid. Afraid of what, I didn't know. Annabel cut herself off from the world again that week. She went nowhere other than to school and modeling jobs.

I was scared for her. Then one day, when I was at the market looking for something organic to cook for dinner one night, I saw Owen. He was walking around holding a basket in one hand and a list in another. Being the bold person that I am I walked up to him and said hello.

Even at my height of five feet-ten inches I had to look up to see his face. "Hi," he said back. "You're Whitney, right?" he asked. Since we haven't formally met I understood why he was confused. I think he knew what I wanted to know, but I couldn't be sure. In the midst of my thoughts he asked me how Annabel was. He seemed concerned for her, but also like she aggravated him in some way. I didn't know if she told him and I wasn't going spill everything to him if she didn't, so I chose my answer carefully. "She's back to the way she was."

He seemed to understand what I was saying and seemed sadden by the news. After that we said an awkward goodbye and parted. That was early December. Somehow though, the Annabel that had come out when Owen was in her life was slowly breaking out again. I didn't know how she was doing it, I was happy all the same. She still listened faithfully that radio show every Sunday, too. Then one day she dropped a bombshell on the entire family (excluding me since I already knew). She told us what had happened to her and that a friend of hers was also raped by the same guy.

She told us that her friend, Emily, was pressing charges against Will, and that the assistant D.A. wanted Annabel to testify too. In the end, she did. She told her story and Will Cash was put behind bars. But what was the end of one story was the beginning of another for Annabel. Because the day that she went to court was also the day that she fell in love. She might not have known what she was feeling as she and Owen kissed by the fountain with the entire family watching, but I did.

And because of her I am stronger.