Twice Over

Chapter Two - Metamorphosis

metamorphosis
noun
1. a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one.

I wake with a jolt, my heart racing a million miles an hour. The garage door slamming open echoes through the house creating an instant panic attack. I bolt up to sitting, frantically looking for intruders, checking windows and access ways, instantly scoping my exit points and egress if there is an intruder in the house. The old lounge room and kitchen comes into view and I remember that I'm not being chased any more. No one is after me. My step sister's goon squad haven't found me and at this point, the squad doesn't even exist.

I place my hand over my thumping heart and remember that I've come back in time. I'm OK, in a safe environment. For now.

"Sorry honey, I didn't mean to wake you. I went out to the supermarket. Don't worry, I checked your temp before I went and you seemed a lot better so I didn't think it would be bad if I left you on your own while you were sick." She passed the back of the couch with an arm full of groceries. I nod and try to regulate my breathing. I don't want to show my freak out to my mother or she may have me committed. Wouldn't be the first time.

She passes me a bottle of water and a packet of pills on her way back past, then heads back towards the car to collect the rest of her shopping.

"Take two tablets, Lills. It should help settle things in your gut."

"Thanks, Brooke... ah Mum..." I murmur then do as she instructed and lay back down again thinking about things.

My mum is Brooke Twice, recent widow, soon to be Brooke Overmeyer newly married, except I'm not supposed to know that just yet. That's something she'll only let me know after they tie the knot this coming week. Brooke is in her forties but looks like she's in her thirties. Wavy brown hair and grey blues eyes, she has always been a stunner.

When she married my father, Umbre Twice, I believe she really did love him, but mostly I think she loved the security his big real estate business brought to the table. Wallace wasn't a rich man after college so my mother found better pastures. But when my dad got sick five years ago with lymphatic cancer, it was my mum who took over his position at the company as acting CEO. Unfortunately, in about three years she will run the business into the ground when she crashes after her son is killed.

That's when her new husband will take over and everything will get signed over to the Overmeyers and I'll pretty much lose my father's legacy that he wants me to build when I graduate.

But, Goddess, I was so clueless. I refused to go into business management studies, refused to even take realtor business studies, then bloody well expected them to just hand everything over to me when I realised I couldn't find work with an arts degree. By that point, the company was being run by a board of directors and they had lost faith in me fairly early on and refused to hand anything over, not even a low position job. Actually, no, that's not quite true. I lost pretty much everything.

But the few months before I was killed, I had managed to spend a huge amount of quality time alone just thinking about all of my life choices and I had come to the conclusion that if Jack hadn't died, my mother would have carried on my father's legacy perfectly well.

So that's one of my first major events that I will refuse to let happen again. It was actually my step sister that caused the events leading up to the tragedy to happen, but because I was on kid sitting duty that day, I was blamed for everything. So, no Jack dying so Mum can keep the company.

And I'm not allowed to fall into all the shit traps and trips that I was caught in thanks to Eyva Overmeyer, the belle of Mt Sommers Private High School, aka my soon to be step sister and the most evil person I have ever had the un-privilege to ever meet.

Oh, don't get me started on that two face little white witch lotus pond sucking worm scum... Huff huff huff...

I take another drink from my water bottle, and watch my mother bring in the last of the groceries while I try to distract my thought processes away from the most deadly person on the face of this planet. OK, she's no Starlin or Hitler, but the personality traits are all there, just waiting to explode.

I lie down again thinking about all the major events that lead up to worse events that snow balled into a fracking huge shitty mess. But I shake my head when I realize that it all started with the first week that we moved into the new mansion with the Overmeyers. I think three major conflicts were in play at that time.

Firstly, my mother had an affair with Wallace just after my father was diagnosed and Jack was born. How did I not know of my little half-brother's biological existence? My mother went on a 'business trip' in her later pregnancy and had him without my father and I knowing. The guilt of the secret tore at her, I think and within a month of the new marriage, her relationship with me was already fairly rocky.

Secondly, The White Lotus Eyva didn't help things. There will be a series of little conflicts that Eyva will use to paint me in a poor light. I will come across as the petty and cruel step sister who isn't adjusting well to the move and Eyva the victim will ask everyone to forgive me and my poor manners, my stingy attitude and my malicious and devious little actions. It will be fairly easy to get around all her little shit games she liked to play back then. And it wont be hard to take up a little acting on the side to spoil her fun and games.

Thirdly, school will be a little difficult. She's in the core circle, a group of rich popular kids, and I will be asked to accompany her as she ridicules me and my poor choice of fashion sense, all in the name of being a loving and caring older sister. I thought I was in heaven when I first sat at her lunch table that first week. She was so kind, and caring, and funny, and I had no idea she was mocking me with every sentence she said. I think it is going to be fun to pay her back. Hee hee hee...