The Witness in the Window

We are back with the next chapter of The Witness in the Window! If you were not here to read the first chapter, we had some complications with the link to the second chapter so it will be shown separately. As a recap, a girl named Abby who lives in the fourth story of her apartment building witnessed her neighbors across the street have a terrible fight through her bedroom window.

The Witness in the Window

Chapter Two

“I… Hate you.” Margaret said softly and sat up from the light post. She emphasized the word hate, I could tell why, it seemed like this man was the reason for the black circle covering half her face.

Margaret backed away from Tom slowly toward her car. She kept her eyes on him like she was making sure he wouldn’t do anything. I looked at Tom, trying to see the expression on his face, anger, worry, confusion. He looked as if he might snap right there, he might’ve broken down in tears or punched a wall to relieve anger, but it felt like something might happen. 

Tom flinched a little, Margaret unlocked the car handle and started opening it, not taking her eyes away from Tom. That’s when it happened, he had a sudden burst of anger like a bull seeing red. He grabbed Margaret’s hand and threw her to the curb. She screamed and quickly picked herself up. He walked toward her slowly, angrily. Margaret ran to her car and hopped inside in a state of panic before Tom could grab her again.

Margaret drove away. Tom stood in silence watching. And then he snapped again, his eyes started watering up and he took a gasp of air before his face let go and his eyes streamed with tears. Tom walked back to his house and slammed the door. I sniffled and felt a tear roll down my face, I wiped it with my finger, backed away from the window, and closed the curtain. What just happened!?

I woke up the next morning as the sun did, although I didn’t really wake up because I didn’t go to bed that night. How could I? I reached under my bed to find one of my many old jewelry boxes, I emptied it and at the bottom found my Polaroid camera from when I was younger. This camera was going to be how I found out the context of the fight I saw between Margaret and Tom. Snap. I took a picture of the front door and shook it out. Snap. I took another picture of the street that it happened on and shook it out.

School was easy, as always. It was boring and somewhat depressing, as always. I didn’t have many friends, I never had many friends for a matter of fact. My one friend was Chloe, a tall, skinny, blonde, and pretty girl. But with that came her popularity, the same popularity that kept her from me. She was always with a different group of girls, they were all the same pretty, mean, brats. The worst was Eloise. She was another mean girl, skinny, tall, with tan skin and light freckles. A lot of people say she’s nice, but she’s not, I can see it in the way she looks at people with disgust.

“Hi, Abby!” Chloe came skipping over to me with her smile that brought the sunshine with it. I greeted her and we started walking to the library when I heard the same old footsteps behind us.

“Hi, Chloe!” It was Eloise, she and Chloe exchanged smiles and then she looked at me. Her face said everything, “I think you’re weird and I don’t like you”. I always imagined her saying that to my face, I knew she wanted to.

I walked home by myself because my brother was too lazy to pick me up in his car. I got to the intersection that crosses to the apartment building across from mine. There was a large gathering of people on the street forming a circle, the cars were honking like crazy and nobody thought to move. I went into the crowd and pushed my way to the front, then I saw it. Cop cars, sheriffs, and most importantly the girl lying on the ground with her body twisted and her hair tangled in knots. She was dead. Probably a hit-and-run. One of the cops walked up to her to zip her up in a body bag. Her head moved in the direction of the crowd. It was Margaret, lying there, like a doll that had been stepped on, dead.

The next chapter will be out next month!

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