Tais-Toi

Chapter Forty-One

Hi, Heather. What are you doing here? Don't you have a big mission to prepare for? Anyway, can you make it quick because I have to go to the-

"I have a mission indeed, but I'm here for you, darling. You're training way too hard. What about your mother's case? Do you remember why you're actually here?"

I have to train. To be better. I say, full of confidence.

"I understand, but it's not healthy. You've lost a lot of weight."

I have to do what's necessary. Stubborn as always. Like my mom, right?

"What for? What do you want to accomplish here by training this hard? To be better than the agents? You're not an agent here, Willow. You're here to work on your own little mission. You train so you wouldn't sit on your desk all the time. You will never go to the field, Willow. I'm sorry for saying it like this, but this isn't for you."

I'm not planning to go to the field! I want to feel like a real agent. To feel what my mum felt. I want to fit in.

"You want to fit in? Really?" She asks while raising her eyebrows. I know she doesn't believe me, but I can't tell her the truth. I can't tell her that I do it because I want to show agent Talin that he's wrong. I want to be better than him. I can't tell Heather what happened in the cafeteria. He humiliated me in front of all his friends. Everyone was laughing at me because I didn't fit in. I wasn't an agent. I never will be. I can't fight, I can't think like an agent and I'm not going on missions. That never was the purpose, but... yeah... It should have helped me, a future career, maybe? Until now. That dream is shattered by Heather's hard words.

Yeah...

"Willow, you're never going to be like them because you're special. Do you think your mother ever fitted in? She never did, and that's what made her a legend. So don't try to be something you're not."

There's this click in my brain and I know I have to change it all. A switch makes me see the light. It's wrong what I'm doing indeed. Heather's right. I'm wrong. I did lose a lot of weight because I ate less and trained more. And I haven't found anything new in my mother's case files. I haven't found anything because I've been thinking too much about what other people thought of me. I left it on my desk, literally. I have to remember why I came here for in the first place: answers. My biological father is somewhere in those files and I have to find him.

Heather leaves and I shower while thinking about what I really want. My decision is made. I go to my desk, sit down and open a file.