Twice Over

Chapter Ninety - Driven

driven
adjective
1. operated, moved, or controlled by a specified person or source of power
2. relentlessly compelled by the need to accomplish a goal; very hard-working and ambitious
3. of snow, piled into drifts or made smooth by the wind

"She looses her memory and I have to forgive her for everything, just because?" I ask my mum, who brought me into an empty family room on the VIP ward. Lounge settees are spread about with coffee tables, a drinks dispenser and a large TV along one wall. It is a very flash comfortable hospital family room.

"I am so angry mum. She is a horrid, selfish little witch." I want to pace up and down the large space, but my knee wont allow me to. I have to sit and stew in my emotions instead. Mum takes a seat beside me.

"If it makes you feel any better, I think we're all feeling a little upset about how things went down after your birthday, and you've every right to be angry. But how about seeing the silver lining around this cloudy matter?" My mum patted my hands that I was scrunching together, causing the skin on them to turn red.

"What silver lining? That she will most likely get away with almost killing my little brother? That she will get away with the actions and influence she has on others that cause them to go flipping mental and kidnap me? That she will..."

"Enough, Lily." She pulled a hand loose and held it firmly between both of hers. "This isn't like you, Honey. You're stronger than this." She looks in both my eyes, trying to read my emotions and help me settle down.

"I'm not that strong, Mum. She has been my antagonist for such. A. Long. Time." I drop my head, not wanting mum to see the anger, hate and the terrible need for revenge in my eyes. What will happen to me if I don't get that revenge? If I'm unable to pay back everything she did to me? What will my life amount to if I no long have any reason to become powerful? To fight her and lay waste to her domain with my own resources? If Eyva is no longer my mortal enemy, why the hell should I bother trying to work so hard, to strive for power and control so I can beat her at her own game?

"What will become of me?" I whisper the last part out loud, and my mother squeezed my hands. After a long time she spoke again.

"After your father died, something in you changed. A strong need developed in you that has caused you to grow up so fast. Gone is the little girl who used to follow me to work on weekends so she could draw on the recycled paper in the staff room. I remember you would run out of scrap paper, and because I'd made a rule about not using the new stuff, you would go around to every office in the building asking if anyone had any old paper they no longer needed." She smiles as she recounts the silly little story from my childhood. "In the end, a kind aunty came to work with a blank notebook for you to use. She was the first in a long line of team members at Gemini who would bring you art supplies when you came in on the weekends."

"I remember that. I think I still have a few of those books in storage somewhere. I couldn't throw them out." Mum nodded.

"The point is, you were so resourceful, even back then. You loved your sports and you loved your art. Those two things we could always count on. Then when your father became so sick, you stopped coming into the office. You no longer needed to scrounge around for paper, no longer needed to pester the office staff for scraps that you could use."

"I stopped drawing and painting. When he got sick, I didn't want to dream any more if he couldn't be apart of those dreams. He promised me to open an art gallery one day for my work. Did you know that? He promised." I spoke quietly.

"I didn't know that. Is that why you wanted to go into fine arts, Lily?" She asked.

"Yes, I did. But not any more. I think..." I had a think about why my motivations had changed, even without the whole being reborn with a powerful need for revenge. Then I realised what my mum was helping me do. Finding what drives me, what makes me get up in the morning, what has always fuelled my dreams, even before my life was messed up so irrevocably during my first timeline.

"I think the fabric designs and sleep wear designs is exactly what I love doing." I looked up at my mother and gave her a little smile. Even in my need for power, money and revenge, a little part of my base personality still pressed on through and that creative outlet was born. It also seems that my level of art and design has flourished as a result of the life experiences I'd had, coming up a whole new level.

"I also want to design canisters for a range of my own Fairtrade teas and coffees. I'd like to open a tea house, but if this doesn't happen that's OK. I'll still sell my own teas and coffees. I think too, in the future I want to eventually open an art gallery, in honour of dad. Is this OK?" I asked, hope returning, directional course laid in. The needle of my compass pointing north again, no longer spinning aimlessly in a magnetic storm of trouble.

"Yes, and I'm certain you will also come up with many more ideas for your business to grow and develop."

"But Eyva..." I didn't want to let go of... all of that.

"Even if she never remembers who she was, what she's done, you will still have to move on with your life, or you may as well give up now, Lily. Don't let this eat you alive. Don't let it become the bump in the road that you cannot get over, otherwise you will fail to move on, stagnating in a mire that you chose not to climb out of."

Oh, it is so easy for mum to say this. She didn't have her step sister ruin her life, time and time again and then run her over with her own car, boyfriend at the wheel. But what if? What if Eyva never remembers anything anyway? Is it finally time to move on? Can I move on?

I don't know.