01 - Willa Danvers

You don’t expect anything to be different when you wake in the morning, other than the fact that it’s light, a new day. You expect that you will have the same life you had when you went to sleep. And that is normal. And that normal life belongs to every one sleeping under this roof… except for one whirring mind. That mind didn’t get the knowledge that everything would be fine and normal in the morning.

Not in the same sense that her siblings were able to feel. That sense of normality and safety that her parents acknowledged on a daily basis. That was not going to be a feeling that Willa would be able to feel again for a long time, possibly ever. And that scared her.

Willa lay in her bed silent, listening to the soft breathing of her sister. It was calming, almost. It took everything Willa had to not burst into tears, she wanted to tell someone, she wanted to tell her sister… but she couldn’t take away the peace from her sister’s breathing. So she kept silent.

She kept silent and turned her mind to focus on her breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Ignore the pain, just breathe. Not long after, Willa heard Theo’s car turn into the driveway. It was loud. And there was another car soon after. This pricked at her curiosity.

She peeked out of the sliding door, hoping to see something. She could hear voices; she couldn’t see where they came from. Willa glanced back at her sister before quietly opening the door and stepping into the cold breeze on the small deck. Squinting her eyes, Willa could only just make out the silhouettes standing in the driveway. Two people. Theo, and someone else.

“Hey Willa!” Theo called out, the silhouette closest to the sleep out, waved in her direction. Willa waved back silently, her attention on the stranger. Her brother barely ever brought friends around to the house, he said that his siblings always made his friends feel uncomfortable.

‘Who is that?’ Willa picked up on the words being swapped between the two down below. She contemplated going down to talk to her brother, and decided to do so when he signalled for her to come down to the cars. Door closed, locked, cardigan on. Methodical, that was what Avery made Willa do every time Willa went out to the deck at night.

The stairs creaked as Willa slipped down them, the small light by her parent’s room flicked on. Willa didn’t bother to freeze; her parents already knew that Theo was late by the sounds of the car. It wasn’t like Willa would be in more trouble than Theo at this point.

“What happened to your car?” Willa peered under the bonnet of her brothers ever-breaking car.

“Why are you still awake?” Theo nudged his sister out of the way of the light so his mate could see what he was meant to be fixing.

Willa kept quiet, her brother didn’t really care why she was still up, he was just avoiding the question. Instead, she focused her attention on the body muttering, swearing, attempting to fix the heap of a car. She could tell it was a guy, and she could see that he had muscles in the dim light. This peaked her curiosity tenfold, her brother didn’t bring attractive guys to the house at night because claimed they would take advantage of his two sisters.

“Dude, this car is fucked. Stupid piece of �" “He stopped when she raised her eyebrow at him, daring him to continue. He glanced at Theo, then back at Willa.

“Piece of shite car you have bro, you should buy something worthwhile next time”

“What happened?” Willa repeated her original question, this time aimed at the boy she did not yet know.

“You wouldn’t understand young one” Clearly the guy thought she was younger, maybe the age of her younger sister.

“Dude, she’s older than you” Theo laughed as he turned his car off and headed towards the sleep out.

“Doubt it - she looks like 15”

“She is right here a*****e. Dude, Theo, Can’t you ever have any nice friends?” Willa scowled at her brother, her arms crossed across her chest.

“Crossing your arms to make your b***s seem bigger is not going to make me think you are any older Chica” Willa punched the friend in the arm before storming back into the main house. She didn’t know why the a*****e had to make fun of her, belittle her, make her seem so unimportant. Willa was able to make herself feel like that, she didn’t need someone else doing it also.

“Dude, what’s her problem?”

“You just insulted her. She’s a girl. They’re always like that” Theo watched as his sister slammed the door, winced when the noise echoed. Their parents would yell at her in the morning for that.

Socks weren’t the best thing to be wearing when one wanted to run up polished wooden stairs, but Willa couldn’t care less. She felt so angry, so little, so much of everything that she just wanted to go to sleep and not have to wake up. She calmed her actions as she got up the stairs, the twins could be very scary when they were grumpy in the morning, and that was not something Willa could imagine would make her parents happy. Not after she slammed the front door at 3 in the morning.

Willa had no doubt in her mind that Theo would come asking questions later on. Usually, Willa could insult with the best of them, and she never took anything personally… but tonight had clearly been different. Theo knew that, Willa knew he knew that, and she hated herself for it.