The Framing

Ten.

December 26th, 12:30pm. My room.

Yesterday was Christmas and it was pretty awkward. My brothers got a bunch of presents and I had to sit there and watched as they opened them which made me feel horrible. I begged my dad to give me my phone back as my only Christmas present, and to my surprise he actually did.

I was sitting in my room scrolling through different YouTube videos. I had been thinking about texting Nate so we could talk about our fight, but I don't think he wants to hear from me. As I was laying in bed, I heard I knock on my bedroom door and I told them to come it. It was my brother Logan.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Mom told me to tell you that she wants you to get the mail," he said. I told him I'd do it once I got my shoes on.

I went downstairs and walked outside to the mailbox. As I walked back into the house, I looked over the letters and saw that one was addressed to me. But it didn't look like it was sent through the mail because there wasn't a stamp or my address on it. It just said "Ally" on the front of the envelope.

I hid the letter that had my name on it under my shirt and brought the rest into the kitchen. "Here's the mail," I said. No one said anything back to me so I went back up to my room to open the letter.

I was pretty nervous as I opened it. I had no idea who it could be from, but I narrowed it down to two choices. It could have been a letter from Nate telling me to fuck off, or it was from the person trying to frame me. I opened it on my bed and read it to myself.

Ally,

I know you know where the gun is and I know you know I'm watching you. I don't care where you put it, but just know much worse is coming. I won't stop until something bad happens to you.
Also, if you tell the school or the police about this, I'll make sure the people you care about never speak again.

I read it a few times just so it could process in my head. I had no idea why anyone would write something like this to me. I took a picture of the letter and sent it to Alex.

This came in my mailbox this morning.

Do you want to come over and talk about it? He asked.

Yeah but I know my parents aren't gonna let me go anywhere because I'm grounded.

Just tell them it's for a school project.

I went downstairs and saw my parents sitting on the couch watching TV. I thought about leaving without telling them because I don't think they'd notice if I left, but I told them anyway.

"I need to go to Alex's house to help him with a project," I said.

"That's fine, but I want to see a picture of this project when you come home."

I didn't know how I'd do that last part but I knew I'd figure something out. I went back up to my room to get the letter and my keys. I texted Alex that I was on my way over.

I drove to his house as quickly as I could. He saw me walking up his driveway and opened the door. "Did you bring it with you?" He asked.

"Yeah," I said. I took it out of my pocket and showed it to him.

"Damn that's pretty scary. Did you tell your parents?"

"No," I said, "they'd freak out and pull me out of school or something. Plus I don't want many people to know because of what it says at the bottom."

"Do you want to tell Thomas about it?" He asked.

"I mean he knows about the gun so I guess he can know about this."

Alex opened his kitchen window and yelled at Thomas to come over like he did last time. When Thomas got here, we showed him the letter.

"Damn," he said.

"And it's even more terrifying because whoever is doing this knows where I live."

"Who do you think hates you enough to do this?" Thomas asked. I was honestly tired of that question because I don't know.

"I mean, Nate probably hates me now, but when this whole thing started we were best friends."

"Actually, I kind of have an idea as to who it might be," Alex said, "you and I were both in English the day you were first called to the office."

"So?" I said.

"Well I didn't really know you at the time so I didn't think much of it, but after you left, Mr. Douglas seemed... kinda happy. Like he knew what was going on."

"Does Mr. Douglas hate you?" Thomas asked.

"Well I was in poetry club freshman and sophomore year which he sponsors but I stopped doing it this year. I knew he was really upset that I quit, but I don't know why it would prompt him to do something this extreme."

"It's still a motive," Alex said, "and since he's a teacher it means he has access to your locker combination and could be there after hours to put a gun in your locker. It also means he can lookup your address and send you the letter."

"Yeah I guess that makes sense, but how would we ask him about it?"

"Next time you and I have a Saturday tutoring session we'll go over to his classroom and do some snooping," Alex said.

"We could do a stakeout too," Thomas suggested.

"How would we know where he lives?" I asked.

"I'm on it," Thomas said.

"Damn I kind of feel like a genius for figuring this out," Alex said.

"I think I found something," Thomas showed us a picture from Mr. Douglas's Facebook page. It was him standing in front of a new car he bought. "Look at the building in the back."

"It's the apartment complex by CVS," Alex said.

"But how are we going to figure out which room he lives in?" I asked.

"You leave that to me," Thomas said which sounded kind of creepy.