“Rachel! Rachel? Do you even hear me?”
Her tone was grating, and Rachel placed her hands against her ears to stop the noise. But it was not enough to shield her.
“Stop that,” Letitia chided. “Are you trying to tune me out?”
“I should be trying harder,” Rachel muttered under her breath and then added a little bit louder, “What do you want?”
Letitia rolled her eyes and looked around the room, turning up her nose in disgust. The room was spotless, of course, but Letitia just had to make a show of how it was not up to the standard of the rest of the house, just to make Rachel feel bad about herself.
It was a tactic that she employed to make Rachel feel smaller. It did not faze her anymore, for she had grown accustomed to it.
“Will you stop being lazy?” Letitia groaned. “You should be awake by now, not lounging in bed like this. What makes you think that you deserve that? Tell me, do you think you deserve to rest like this?”
“Rest is an essential need,” Rachel said, though it was taking everything in her not to snap.
“For people like us, yes,” Letitia nodded. “But not for peoplelike you.”
That was another thing that Letitia loved to do. In her eyes, there was a marked distinction between the two of them, and she loved to remind her of it at every moment.
“What do you need, Letitia?” Rachel pushed herself upright, blinking sleepily. “Why have you bestowed upon me thehonorof your company so early this morning?”
Letitia ignored the sarcasm entirely and instead made a dramatic gesture towards herself.
“You have eyes, do you not?” she taunted. “Then can you not see that I am gravely sick?”
“You look the same as you always do to me,” Rachel muttered under her breath, but Letitia was too absorbed in her own theatrics to catch on.
“I have been afflicted by some dreadful malady,” she continued.
Rachel could only regard her sister with suspicion. She was plump, as she usually was. Her cheeks were rosy, and her complexion seemed normal. In comparison, Rachel probably looked sicker.
“I am not sure if I see it,” she muttered.
“That does not matter,” Letitia said impatiently. Rachel had long since learned the futility of contradicting her half-sister and did not argue.
“Well, I am really sorry to hear that you are poorly.” Rachel got herself out of bed. “Did you come here only to tell me this?”
Letitia waited patiently.
Rachel sighed. “What would you like me to do?”
If she were to get rid of her, then she was going to have to ask her this. It was a tactic that Letitia used whenever she wanted to get something done, which was often.
“Well, since you ask so graciously…” Letitia smirked. “I have prepared a list of tasks for you. They require your full and urgent attention.”
Even though they had staff working in the house, Letitia made it a point to make Rachel do most of her work. It was her way to assert her dominance in the relationship.
“Go on.”
“My room needs to be freshened up,” Letitia said. “You should write these down.”
“I will remember.” Rachel rolled her eyes. There was no limit to her absurd requests.
“Fine. Then I also need you to make sure the sheets are changed,” she said. “I cannot sleep unless there is fresh linen on the bed.”
“Sure.”
“And then also make sure to fold my clothes,” Letitia said, oblivious to how awful she sounded. “You know that I like them to be a particular way, so make sure you do not cut any corners.”
