Damned if I do | Damned trilogy #1

Chapter Two: Wren

As I heard the toot of the horn, I checked my tie in the mirror one last time. As I tugged on it, my eyes slid to the picture tucked into the frame and I smiled as I ran my fingers over it fondly.

The horn blasted again, more urgently this time, and I laughed as I grabbed my bag and ran out of my room.

"She's been sitting out there for hours," my older sister whined from her perch at the breakfast bar, hands wrapped around her coffee cup like caffeine worked by osmosis. I knew she'd had a late one the night before, complete with too many shots.

Ah, the life of a uni student.

I chuckled as I grabbed my travel mug and kissed her cheek. "I suspect she'll think the same thing." I pointed at the coffee in her hands. "Only works if you drink it."

Tilly grunted like it was supposed to be words and shooed me out of the room.

Pulling the front door closed behind me, I waved to my best friend who was glaring at me from the driver's seat of her car. I shrugged unapologetically as I wandered down the front path and I saw her putting the window down.

"So help me, Wren! If you're not in this car in two seconds, I'm leaving without you," she snapped.

I smirked. "Oh, come on, Harm. We're not even late."

"Says you. Now, let's go!" She reached over and threw open the passenger door.

I dropped into it and that's when we saw the moving truck pull into our street.

"No one's sold lately, have they?" Harmony asked as I put my seatbelt on. She wrapped her hands around the steering wheel as she leant forward and squinted despite the glasses perched on her nose.

I looked back up to the truck and tried to work out which house it was going to stop at. "Not that I know of."

We sat watching and I tried not to laugh.

"I thought we were going to be late?" I hedged and Harmony frowned.

"Shut up," she muttered as she got the car started and we drove off without waiting to see where the truck stopped.

Harmony drove us to school, like she did every morning, and she couldn't stop talking about the moving truck. I got every possible scenario her mind came up with for what was in the truck, where it was stopping, why whoever had moved, and more. Most scenarios involved someone dying tragically and/or horribly – Harmony's favourite.

School wasn't my favourite place in the world. But then again, how many soon to be eighteen-year-olds thought it was? I wasn't particularly bad at school. I didn't mind learning. I had people I considered friends. I just felt...disjointed.

Everyone else had known exactly what degree they'd wanted to apply for. Everyone else knew what they were doing with their lives. Everyone else fit. I wasn't unhappy, I just felt like something was out of place and I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

That day, Harmony mostly took my mind off it by still going on about the moving truck while I avoided running into people and failed to pay proper attention to where I was going or what I was doing. She shared her theories with our friends, who offered their own theories as well. There was the inevitable good-natured joke about my old neighbour moving back in and all the jokes that followed on after that.

I really shouldn't have been surprised that such a thing would hold their excitement and over-active imaginations all day. And Harmony was apparently still going on about it on the way home.

"The moving truck!" Harmony yelped.

"You still obsessed with that truck?"

"Um, yeah. Especially when it's pulling out of your neighbour's place," I heard Harmony say and looked up.