Anne was bored, she had finished her homework, watched the latest episode of her favourite show on tv and now she was rattling around the empty house. She had opened the fridge door at least a dozen times, opened the cupboard almost as many but she wasn't hungry, just bored. She considered reading a book, something she hadn't done in a long time. Browsing the books on the family bookshelf there was nothing she wanted to read, everything was juvenile, little kids books or at least written for very young adults.

At sixteen she considered herself above those books, far preferring something a bit more risqué, something with a love interest or a horror twist.

She sighed and resumed her wandering of the house, it was eight o'clock and her parents wouldn't be back from her younger sister's swimming competition until after nine. She had already eaten the dinner her mum had left in the fridge, and the last of the ice cream.

She wandered down the hall, the plush pile of the new carpet squeezing between her bare toes. She decided she was going to be nosey, creeping quietly, she let herself into her sister's room. Being careful to leave everything exactly as she found it she rummaged. She had no idea what she was looking for, in fact she had no idea what her twelve year old sister would have that was worth snooping at but she was bored and if she could find some blackmail material perhaps she could make her sister do the dishes for her.

There was a weird smell in the bedroom, like unwashed socks covered up with cheap little girl perfume. The room was a mess, she thought she must be an adult if she was complaining about someone else's mess!

She checked the hiding places she had used herself, under the bottom drawer of the dresser, behind the bed, under the mattress and eventually found a tiny diary stuffed into a sock in her underwear drawer. 'Amateur' she thought.

She sat down in the pressed steel chair beside her sister's desk. Flicking through the diary she had an epiphany, her sister wasn't an amateur, she was a genius. That or she was very very boring. The diary was a journal of homework she had done, padded with boring snippets of club meetings and peoples birthdays. She was convinced there was another diary, this one was a decoy!

She carefully returned the diary to the sock, making sure it was oriented the same and that the sock went back to exactly the same place in the drawer. Once that was done she sat down and thought, where could she hide things, places that may not be available in her own room? Her eyes roamed to the built in closet, a feature missing from her room.

She opened the closet and rifled through the pockets of the jackets hanging in there, when that didn't turn up anything she grabbed the chair and checked the very back of her top shelf. Still nothing. She checked the shoe boxes at the bottom of the cupboard too, weirdly they contained shoes.

She was putting the lid back on the last box when she noticed that the lid was far more worn than the others, opening it again she removed the shoes from the box and instantly realised one was heavier than the other. Eureka!

She returned to her reading spot, intent on finding her sister's dirty little secrets.

She was still reading half an hour later, her sister had poured her soul into the pages of the book, each page filled with neat careful tiny handwriting. At first she thought the admissions on the page were rife for teasing, feelings and hopes that seemed ridiculous but then there was an accusation and an admission, a secret that rang true in Anne's mind. It seemed simple but seeing her sister had written it down made her think, was it anything but?

Her sister wrote 'I think I am like Anne, I prefer the company of girls.' it was on one of the first pages and she had almost ignored it but then she thought, 'of course I like girls better than boys, they smell nicer and aren't… boys.'

There were other entries, young meaningless complaints about how dumb boys were but then there was one which triggered a memory, 'I was at the pool today, getting changed after practice and for some reason I couldn't stop myself staring, I think I'm a pervert. Perhaps I should stop swimming.' Anne recalled the last time she swam, it had been years ago, she recalled that same feeling, she also recalled wondering if the other girls felt the same looking at her body. That was the main reason she had not returned, fortunately she had never been a great swimmer and no one had really challenged her about it. She did on occasion have to shower at school after PE but it was different, the showers there had stalls and there were less girls roaming the changing room with nothing on, enough that she could avert her eyes after only a quick look. She had always told herself that she was just comparing others bodies to herself, seeing other girls breasts and comparing the size and shape, seeing which girls shaved, occasionally watching someone towel dry their hair and realising her eyes were lingering.

It wasn't until a comment in the later pages that Anne felt she was intruding, her sister had admitted she liked a girl and had intentionally gone swimming on the weekend just to see her naked. It was less the admission, more the comment after that made her feel bad, it had said 'I think I should talk to Anne, she has had more time to come to terms with these feelings, perhaps she can tell me how to start a conversation with a girl about their sexuality without losing them as a friend.'

Anne thought about her own friends and whether she could have had that conversation, she had never imagined kissing them, but then had never imagined herself kissing boys either. She had seen porn on the computer, hell she had likely been about her sister Kelly's age when her best friend had shown her on her tablet a video from the internet, giggling constantly. She had not been impressed, or she thought, aroused. 'Perhaps if it had been two girls' she thought, but couldn't imagine that either, 'perhaps I'm just a late bloomer.'

Realising the time she carefully returned the diary to its shoe, making sure everything was the same as she found it, returned the shoe box to the cupboard and left the door ajar at the same angle as when she entered.

She snuck out, knowing there was no need to be furtive but it felt right considering what she had been up to.

Not feeling like doing anything else she took a long hot shower, thoughts of naked girls whizzing through her head. She dried herself on the oldest, coursest towel in the house, the one that actually dried your skin rather than moving the water around. Then she stared at herself in the mirror as she brushed her teeth, hoping her sister didn't ask for advice. At that moment she was considering the opposite, her sister seemed to know more about her sexuality than she did, perhaps she should do the asking.

She put on her pajamas and sat down on the closed toilet seat. It sort of made sense, she didn't like boys, saw no attraction to them. She had never sought out pornography but perhaps she should, perhaps if she looked she might find something that she was attracted to?

No, she was sure if she looked she would be caught. Her dad was in control of all the devices in their house and she knew he could see what they were looking at.

She decided to just go to bed, it was about time for her family to come home but she wasn't sure she could meet her sister's eyes just then. She retired to her comfy double bed, crammed into her bedroom that it only just fit into. She lay in the bed, staring up at the Pink Floyd poster she had pinned to the ceiling when she had been her sister's age. Naked women with body paint. Perhaps there was something to her sister's comments.

It took her hours to sleep, she heard her parents return, and listened to her sister brushing her teeth. The house was silent by the time she had made a plan and settled her mind enough to drift off. She was going to ask for advice, for her sister's sake she told herself.