could it be worse?

"Thanks for letting me stay... again," Anna mumbled as she sat her backpack on the floor of Willa's bedroom.

"No worries," Willa simply said, "You don't mind that Ollie's coming over later, do you?"

"Your house, your rules." Anna smiled at her friend. She lay flat on Willa's bed, staring at the ceiling. "Damn, those things are still there?"

Willa looked to see what Anna was looking at, her eyes landing on the dull green glow-in-the-dark stars above her bed. She and Chad put them up what felt like ages ago, and she'd yet to remove them despite how much she'd changed since then.

Feelings of nostalgia filled Willa's body, almost enough to where she could feel tears forming in her eyes. She just shook her head, looking back down at her homework. "Meant to take those down," She said.

"Hey," Anna said, catching the blonde's attention. Willa hesitantly looked over due to the fear of their conversation heading toward Chad, but a sense of relief quickly filled her as Anna said something entirely different. "I know you've got that... thing going on with Marcus and all, but is there something going on between you and this Oliver kid?"

Willa's face scrunched, her cheeks turning a pink color. "I can be someone's friend without anything going on. He's quite lovely."

"I mean, I know you think he's adorable." Anna smiled as she rolled onto her stomach, "Don't think I forgot the conversation from the first day."

"I'm with Marcus, and Oliver is my friend. It's not like that, and it won't be." Willa firmly told the girl.

"I know, I know." Anna gave in with a sigh, "Just messing. He single though?"

"Aren't you into my brother?" Willa deadpanned. One eyebrow rose, and Anna covered her face.

"Jesus Will!"

Before the conversation was able to continue any further, the sound of knocking at Willa's bedroom door was heard. She sent Anna a knowing glance before getting up to check it, a smile covering her face as Oliver stood on the other side.

He waved as he entered, similarly greeting Anna. Anna waved back, continuing to hide her pink cheeks.

It wasn't long before the three were hanging out, sharing a bag of gummy worms as Anna and Oliver got to know each other more.

"What's Wes doing?" Anna asked.

Willa bit the top of the gummy worm in her hands, tugging at it until it tore into two pieces. She glanced over to see both Anna and Oliver waiting for her response, and she finally shrugged.

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Anna jokingly threw a gummy worm at Willa. "He's your twin, don't you have like that telekinetic shit or something?"

Willa scoffed, throwing the gummy worm back at her. "That's not real. And I'm glad it's not because I don't need to know that much about Wes' personal life."

Anna shrugged, "Just curious."

Oliver stayed silent during this interaction, as it wasn't any of his business. He hadn't been around Anna much - but he was quick to catch onto her crush on Willa's brother. He supported it, even though he didn't know much about her.

"We should do something," Anna then changed the subject. "This is so boring."

Willa shrugged, "Not much to do on a Sunday night."

"What's everyone else up to?" Anna then asked.

"Wes is with Chelsea - no shocker there," Willa started, sitting further up. "Which basically cancels out any of his friends."

"What about MJ?" Anna asked.

"Something about going out with Jo and Christian?" Willa made it sound like a question, "Which is odd in itself because Christian and Jo aren't that close."

"Bet it was a double date," Anna said.

Willa shrugged, "None of my business. Noli is doing something - not sure what, and Mira had to go out with her godmother or something."

"What about Alicia?" Anna then asked, "Don't know her too well but I know she's friends with the others and all."

"Don't really know her too well. She's just in our friend group, she doesn't talk to me much." Willa answered. "I wouldn't mind hanging out with her, but I don't know about inviting her over when it's not a group thing."

"I guess that makes sense," Anna sighed.

Just as Willa opened her mouth to say something else, the sound of the door downstairs caught their attention. She looked at Anna before sending a glance to Oliver, standing up.

The boy looked at Anna, who had a confused look on her face as well. This caused him to begin to worry since he hadn't heard the noise, his body moving before he could question his friend on what was going on.

Willa walked out of the room, Oliver hot on her trail. This had left Anna alone in the room, but after contemplating it for a moment she jumped up from her seat.

"Yeah, hell no. I'm not going to be the helpless victim tonight."

Willa cautiously walked down the stairs, the noise now coming from the kitchen. She was so slow that Anna was able to catch up with them easily, her hands unintentionally grabbing the back of Oliver's t-shirt as a way of calming herself down.

The three walked in a single-file line, stopping right before the wall ended. This would reveal the kitchen to them, and although Willa knew everything was most likely okay - she still had that faint worry deep down that it was an intruder.

Glancing around, she noticed a side table with a tazer in it. It was the one her mother forced her to carry around - yet she didn't half of the time since she didn't think anything would happen to her.

She grabbed it quickly, glancing once at Oliver and then at Anna. Without waiting for their reactions she jumped out, holding the tazer at arm's length.

Wes jumped at the reaction, dropping the piece of cold pizza he'd been holding. "Willa, what the fuck?" He asked, looking between her and the tazer.

"I could have tased you!" She exclaimed, dropping her hands to her sides.

Noticing her reaction, Oliver and Anna decided it'd be okay to come out. They looked to see Wes picking up the pizza from the ground, Anna's cheeks immediately growing red at just the sight of him.

"Well I'm glad you didn't," Wes responded as he stood up. He tossed the piece of pizza in the trash, moving to grab some wipes to clean the sauce off of the floor.

"What are you doing home?" Willa asked, tossing the tazer back onto the table. "What happened to Chelsea?"

"Had to stop somewhere on her way." He shrugged.

"Wait- wait she's coming here?" Willa asked nervously, holding her hands together.

"Is that a problem?" Wes asked, looking at her. "If- if you need me to cancel on her I can-"

"No!" She quickly exclaimed, cutting her brother off. "No, it's okay. I just didn't realize you guys would be..." She paused, looking around. "Here. At our home."

"Whole group's coming over. Well not everyone. A couple of them couldn't make it. Amber, Tara, Alice, couple others were too busy." Wes said, "Didn't think to say anything because I didn't think you'd be home."

"I'm always home, especially on Sunday nights," Willa told her brother, following him into the living room.

Oliver and Anna shared a look before following her as well, their focus on the conversation the twins were having. Anna watched Wes more than anything, whereas Oliver focused on their expressions and their mouth movements.

Wes sat on the couch, "Sorry, I didn't think about it. It was Chelsea's idea, actually."

"Not surprising," Anna muttered.

"What?" Wes asked, looking at the brown-haired girl.

"Nothing!" She quickly exclaimed, her cheeks growing a dark pink color.

"It's okay, really." Willa cut in, glancing from her friends to Wes. "We'll just probably-"

Willa couldn't finish her sentence as the door swung open. She jumped, but quickly slumped down as she watched the blonde walk through the door with a smug look on her face. She felt defeated and looked at Anna only to see she looked just the same.

"Oh hey, you're here sooner than I thought," Wes mumbled, not moving from his spot on the couch.

"Turns out the sketchy corner store closes early on Sundays," Chelsea spoke. She then looked to see Anna, Willa, and Oliver sitting in the living room as well, her smile falling. "What are they doing here?"

Willa looked at Wes before back at Chelsea. "I live here."

Chelsea began to say something, but once her eyes snapped to Wes, she realized she couldn't say what she had in mind. "I didn't mean it rudely! I just meant it as in I wasn't expecting you, that's all."

Willa rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest. Wes believed Chelsea's lie - which she didn't understand how - and only smiled at his girlfriend.

"You could've helped us carry the rest of the stuff in, you know." Another voice was heard.

Willa looked to see Chad struggling to carry cases of different drinks through the door. His eyes landed on Willa and everything in his arms immediately dropped to the floor. "W-Wills, hey." He said, clearing his throat.

"Jesus Christ, Chad!" The sound of another person behind him said, and it wasn't long before Willa saw Liv struggle to step over everything Chad dropped.

Chelsea rolled her eyes but went and sat next to Wes instead of saying what was on the tip of her tongue.

Willa looked between Chad and Liv, her emotions running wild. She hadn't spoken to him since he'd last been at her house, and she'd done so good at avoiding him by being gone when she knew he'd be over.

But because Wes hadn't said anything, she had no idea he was coming. And it'd be too obvious to try and run now.

Willa and Liv's eyes met, and Liv's narrowed as she shot a glare toward the girl. They hadn't spoken since she began to date Chad, mostly due to Willa beginning to ignore her after she heard the news.

"Clean this up," Liv told Chad, tapping his shoulder.

The boy just looked from Willa to his girlfriend. He blinked a few times before seeming to register what was happening, and he nodded before listening to what he was told.

"We'll just be down here," Wes said, bringing his sister's attention back to him.

"Cool. We're going upstairs." Willa coldly said, crossing her arms over her stomach.

"What- you don't want to hang out?" Wes asked, leaning forward.

Chelsea glanced from Wes to Willa, then back to Wes. "What- she said she doesn't want to, don't force her."

"Yeah. Don't force her." Liv continued to glare.

Willa took in a deep breath, gripping her stomach tightly. "I'm okay."

She didn't wait to hear another word before booking it up the stairs, Anna and Oliver closely behind. Nobody said anything until they were in the room with the door shut and locked, preventing anyone from getting in.

"That... was intense." Anna was the first to break the silence, nervously glancing between Oliver and Willa.

"I didn't catch all of it," Oliver spoke. He knew that Anna didn't know sign language, so he tried to speak or write things down more often so she understood what he was trying to say.

"You got the gist, right?" Anna slowly asked. Oliver nodded, causing her to nod in return. "Then you get it."

Just as Willa tried to think of a response to shove the topic away, the sound of her phone ringing prevented her from doing so. She sighed as she grabbed it from her bed, groaning when she saw the caller ID.

Marcus.

"Girl, you can't catch a break, can you?"

++

Simple and short chapter, just because I needed a quick filler <3

Next chapter is when the events of 5 begin, btw. So expect lots of that plus extra coming up!