❝ 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑵𝑬𝑽𝑬𝑹 𝑺𝑨𝑾 𝑶𝑵𝑬 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑶𝑻𝑯𝑬𝑹 . . . ❞
❝ . . . 𝑫𝑰𝑫 𝒀𝑶𝑼? ❞
. . .
THE BELL RANG. causing all the students in the classroom to get to their seats. maddie looked up at jacob before walking past him, making her way to her seat at the four person table. he sat next to her, both of them instinctively looking out of the window. she glanced towards the time on her phone, silently noting when it would be ten minutes so she could excuse herself. in the distance, there were sirens wailing, and a cop car sped past the front of the school. it wasn't too odd, it was probably just something down at the station. she'd ask her dad when she got home tonight.
david windsor, as well as a father, was also part of the sheriffs department. he worked with crime scene analysis. he would know what was going on.
class started, although madeline wasn't exactly listening. her eyes stayed glued to the window, watching cop cars still fly by. then there was an ambulance, then another one. her eyes only left the window when she went to check the time. three minutes until she would excuse herself and finally find out what the hell was going on with her friend beside her.
beside her, she could hear the talking of the other three at her table. an attempt of a that's what she said joke by jacob. maddie was about to raise her hand to ask to go to the bathroom, but a loud alarm beat her to speaking.
a lockdown drill.
"alright, students, keep quiet. i can't hear the announcements," the teacher said, going to lock the door. all the students rushed to the window. maddie felt a hand on her shoulder, which she quickly deduced to being jacob's. her own hand came to meet his, watching as the amount of officials practically doubled outside of their school.
the group was moved to a place where you couldn't see from the window of the door. the blinds to the window's had shut and all the teenagers were on their phones. jacob, from beside her, started to call his dad to see if he could get any information. maddie reached for her phone and was about to dial her father, hoping that there wasn't some crazy shooter in the building. but another call came through from her brother. she quickly answered it.
"adrian, what the hell is going on? do you know? did dad-"
"they found a body. in the woods near our house."
"not funny, stop that. this isn't the time to joke around."
"i'm serious, i called dad as soon as i started to see the cop cars. it's, oh my fucking god i think i'm going to throw up."
"dri, breathe, who is it? do you know?"
"mads, it's ben rifkin. he was murdered."
the world began to spin.
madeline wasn't exactly sure what happened next. at some point she had ended the call, and then at some point she was falling to the ground. her heart was racing, faster than it had ever done before. a mixture of sadness, anger, and the most concerning emotion in this moment : relief. her eyes shut and she was out cold.
. . .
maddie's brown eyes fluttered open. she wasn't in her classroom anymore, sitting in that group next to jacob. she was on a medical bed, and from the sounds of calls coming in, she realized that she was in the nurses office. she sat up, groaning at the spike that seemed to jam into her head once she did so. her vision blurred before stabilizing once again. a hand was felt on her own, an older one, probably one of the nurses. a voice called, but she couldn't hear it. it felt as if the whole world was underwater.
then all at once, everything came back. she could hear and see again, even though her head was still pounding.
"miss windsor, can you hear me?" the nurse asked. the old woman looked at her with concern in her eyes. she quickly grabbed a glass of water and gave it to the blonde. "you were out for a few hours, must've been the stress of the lockdown" if only that was it "it's okay" is it really? "here's your phone. we already contacted your parents, but i think they should hear from you."
her phone was shoved into her hands and she wearily looked down at the screen. twelve missed calls. some from her mother, father, brother, nat, and jacob. her finger hovered over each contact, wondering which one to call first. she decided on her mother, clicking her contact and hearing the line ring. the nurse had walked out of the room, probably to give her some privacy while she called.
"madeline? thank god you're alright. we came to the school, they told us that you needed to stay there until you woke up. they let everyone out early, there's a really big emergency-"
"mom, please slow down. you're making the headache worse," maddie said, using her fingers to pinch the bridge of her nose in an attempt to suppress the ongoing headache.
"sorry. just get home as quickly as you can, i already picked up your brother earlier," her mother said, and then the phone hung up.
with much discomfort, the blonde made her way off the bed and began to make her way out of the building. her bag was sitting on the chair in the waiting room, which she grabbed and searched for her key's. the front door was close to the office, so it wasn't long until she was outside of the school and making her way to the parking lot to her white car. the fresh air felt nice, and it alleviated some of the aches she was feeling. her eyes hung low, keeping to her feet as she walked. there weren't many cars left, meaning it was easy to get there. maddie looked up once she got to her car, seeing a figure leaning against it. she jumped, until she realized it was jacob.
"jesus, you scared the shit out of me," maddie said. "how long have you been waiting here? the nurse said i was out for a bit."
jacob shrugged, pulling out his headphones and pushing them into his jean pocket. "long enough."
she unlocked her car, opening her door and asking, "do you need a ride home?" he didn't say anything, but he opened up the passengers seat and got in.
turning on the ignition, maddie let her thoughts roam back to before she blacked out. it was the elephant in the car, you could say. ben rifkin, being dead. if it had been anyone else, maddie would've been fine. but it wasn't just anyone else, it was ben.
to say that the boy had been a hassle towards madeline windsor would be the understatement of the year. he terrorized her, would not leave her alone for the life of him. it first started out as a harmless crush, he would do stupid acts to try and get her attention, until it took a turn for the worse. she had rejected him, which made sense, maddie didn't like ben that way. she thought that it would be as simple as that : she would tell him that she didn't want to go on a date with him and then he would leave her alone. only it wasn't that simple, ben didn't let up. that's when the terrorizing started. the blonde didn't know if it was a sick way of trying to get her attention, or he had fully committed to making her life a living hell.
she sat in her car, hearing the radio play music softly. she felt like she couldn't move, like she was paralyzed. that's how she always felt when ben was around, it was like he was still here, his claws still around her neck. "ben's dead," she whispered, almost too quiet to hear.
"i know."
maddie turned to face jacob, seeing the bored expression on his face. "how are you not freaking out about this? ben is dead, as in not living anymore. someone killed him."
"you act like he was your best friend. you hated the kid and you know it."
"it doesn't make it less wrong, jacob! despite what i think of the boy, he's still fucking dead!"
her eyes squinted, realizing something. "i know that you walk that way to school. hell, i've walked that way to school with you. did you-"
"did i do what, maddie? kill him? are you insane?"
"then what did you need to tell me before school today? the time you sent that text . . . you would've still been walking that trail," maddie asked, her eyes scanning his face, looking for a hint of an answer to her question. did jacob have something to do with this? no, he couldn't have. he didn't have a violent bone in his body, as much as ben rifkin bullied him, there was no way that he could've done something so terrible.
"i saw his body, in the woods. while i was walking. i didn't know who it was until i saw a part of your flannel in his hands. i know that you went to his house after you left my house, what was he doing with your flannel?" he asked.
maddie felt her heart drop. she had forgotten that she mentioned to Jacob that she was going to ben's late last night. she was finally going to confront him, alone, so he didn't have anyone to hide behind. no one else new about this, except for jacob, because now the only other person who knew was dead.
"you can't mention anything, jacob if they find out-"
"find out what? that it's your flannel? mads, your father is a fucking investigator. he's going to take one look at that and know that it's yours."
"why are you telling me this?"
"because, they'll find a piece of your clothing at a crime scene. on a dead body."
"i think i'm going to throw up," maddie said, resting her head on the wheel. jacob put his hand on her cheek, pulling her to look at him. was her heart racing because of the overwhelming situation, or because of the contact of her best friend touching her? she decided on the latter. her own hand came down and held his other one.
"just breathe, okay? i won't tell, i promise."
"jacob, that's withholding evidence, you can't-"
"they'll find out soon enough. in the meantime, just go home, you look like hell. it's going to be okay. you didn't have anything to do with this, you were with your family, you couldn't have done anything," jacob said, his thumb wiping the tears that had welled up and fallen onto her face.
"i know that, but you, you don't have an alibi. the only alibi you have is a dead person," maddie worried, realizing that her friend could be in deep shit.
"i'll be fine, don't worry about me right now, okay?"
easier said than done.