Jean, Driven but Haunted by the Past

For Jean, today was going to be a busy day in college. Though, she and her brother took some of the same classes, they also took different ones and this reflected in their schedules. Today, Stewart had fairly little to do while Jean would be in the college most of the day. Usually, that would have annoyed her a little. It irked her to know that her brother was off having free time while she was stuck working, but today it was something that she was thankful for.

The weight of the ring on her finger difficult to put out of her mind. It filled her thoughts and shaped her feelings. The metal felt cold against her skin, no matter how long she wore it, it never seemed to heat up. She was aware of it at all times, and was it just her imagination or was the tiny metal snake looking up at her? When no one was looking, she turned it this way and that, wondering if she would see it move. It was so very life-like. But it never did. She knew she was being silly, and if there was one thing that Jean disliked, it was being silly.

She was a serious person. A driven person. All her life, she'd worked to be the best that she could be. She was smart, and she knew it. But the thing was, the secret to being smart wasn't being born with high intelligence. That was just what people who didn't have the diligence to push themselves said to make themselves feel better. Instead, all one had to do was to apply yourself. Not just to one thing, but to everything. That was how Jean had been raised, the oldest of the twins by a few minutes, she wore her status like a rank or a title. From the very first moment that she could walk or talk, she'd been expected to be the oldest, the smartest, the better of the two.

It had not been easy. in fact, her early life had been a misery of sorts. She could still remember long sessions late at night, studying over books that hadn't even come up in her official education. She'd had tutors, people had come in all the time to help shape her into an intelligent and responsible young woman. Or at least into her father's idea of what such a thing looked like. She'd been tutored from an early age, her time in school had been almost a secondary education to her, an easy respite from the trials at home. Her father had been strict, her home-schooled teachers stricter. Merely not failing had not been enough, success was not expected, it was demanded. And success was the lowest rung of the ladder! She was told to aim for spectacular success, and then for flawlessness.

She'd always been treated as a genius in school because no one ever saw just how much effort at home went into crafting her into one.

Natural talent, in Jean's opinion, did not matter one iota when it came to intelligence. All one had to do was be willing to suffer for it.

By the time she'd moved out of the house and into the flat with Stewart, it had become internalised. No longer was it her father's words driving her on, but her own. Her drive for victory and success burned inside of her, allowed her to do nothing less than give one hundred percent when it came to everything she did. It wasn't enough merely to be good at one or two subjects, she had to great at them all. She had no real time for friends outside of a few close ones. She spent her free days working, researching, learning and preparing for university and life beyond that. College was but a passing fad, one of the stages she was expected to go through before assuming her ultimate, adult form. She felt sometimes like the weight of the world pressed down on her, but at other times, she felt that this had made her into a diamond. The stress, the pain, the agony and the back breaking work had made her into someone who had no idea what a normal life was even like.

Jean wondered what she would be if she was not who she was now, and she had no idea. The closest she could get was to be someone like her brother, who had been brought up in a more relaxed way. Almost care-free, Stewart had had little expectations placed on him. He'd been given money and freedom where Jean had been chained to her books and told to learn. When she'd asked about it, her father had looked at her as if she was stupid.

'Of course he can do what he wants,'' _the old man had said. ''Boys are naturally gifted. Girls like you need to work at it. For all you do, Stewart will always simply be better.''_

That was the first time she had realised just how toxic her father could be, and why she had been raised without a mother.

But all of that was in the past now, she wrenched herself into the present with a **** of will. She was standing outside the gates to the college campus; a large collection of buildings dotted around two or three central areas. There were dorms for those students who came from far away, and shops had been set up as well. Trees lined the streets leading to the main facilities, and students hurried back and forth. Stewart had always wandered away without even a backwards look at her, true to his nature. She tried to be annoyed, but really it was what she expected of him.

Besides, she was happy that he wouldn't be around today. The ring she was carrying returned to her thoughts, and she churned inside.

Yes, she was intelligent, well educated and driven. By all metrics, she was the superior twin, no one could doubt that. But there was one thing that she had never been able to get for herself, never dared to reach for. You see, Jean was something of a contradiction deep down. She was driven, powerful, she had learned never to show weakness or to settle for being anything less than the absolute best. It was a sort of defence mechanism, prove to herself that she really did have worth.

But she also had another side to her. A side she didn't like to explore, which made her feel ashamed of herself. Her whole life had been about gaining power. Power represented control, and control was something that she had never been given by her father. Her goal in life from childhood to now had been to amass as much of it as possible.

How could it be that part of her also wanted to give it away?