All Those Days Watching From The Windows Novels & Stories

"Heather, I'm so lucky to have you." In the past, Heather would have blushed under the intensity of his gaze, her heart racing. But now, her expression remained calm. She avoided his gaze and felt no flicker of emotion in her chest. Mitchell leaned in to kiss her, but she subtly turned her head, sidestepping him. "Let's go. We're running late," she said. As she picked up her phone, Mitchell's mind returned to the countdown he'd glimpsed earlier. His brow furrowed as he spoke, "I saw a countdown on your phone—seven days. What's it about?"

I stayed at the window. Watching. Waiting. Smiling. The day had only just begun. And it was going to end exactly the way I’d planned.

Gracie pushed the glass doors open and entered the eatery. It was free of people. It wasn’t even 10 yet. Which means her mum is yet to come. She walked to the first order counter. For the first time in her life, she seemed to be observant of all the stares she was getting from people along the street. I mean they seem to look at her with this ‘I know you are fucking’ look. Was there probably a sign that shows when someone just had sex that she was portraying or what?

The kind of ordinary I have been watching from hotel windows for twenty-five days and which has started to feel, slowly, like something I might someday have a place inside rather than looking at from outside. If she decides that. On her terms. Ryker appears beside us, the three of us at the window now, looking at a town that is not ours. "A few more days," he says. "A few more days," I say. We stand together at the window and wait and the bond hums its quiet frequency and somewhere across Silverveil a woman is eating her breakfast and listening to her son explain something about watchtower drainage systems and deciding, in her own time, what comes next.

All of it leading to this room, where a sixteen-year-old who had been an edge without purpose was feeling the weight of belonging. "Yes," she said. "That's what it is." He nodded. He went back to the food. She watched him go. Later — the hall still warm but the crowd thinned, the afternoon going toward evening, the winter dark coming early the way it did in the cold months. She stood at the window. She had been standing at windows, she thought, since February. Every significant moment seemed to involve a window — the lodge window and the harbor window and the kitchen window with its view of the garden and now this one, the main hall's high window looking toward the ridge.

Trevor POV “What? I thought we were done with all the events for a while. Did I forget one?” I stare out the living room window at the cityscape. The morning sun is just poking up over the horizon, giving everything a warm glow. But no matter how pretty it is, it does nothing to the dark cloud forming over me.

It’s funny really, he could have women visibly gawking at him, yet, I’m the crazy one if I say anything. I’m so exhausted from the day, I’m so not looking forward to having to work in the morning. I already know I’m going to be just as useless as I was this morning. I lean my head to the side and watch the orangey sunset from out the window until I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. “Hey, baby?” I hear X ask, waking me from my little nap. “Hmm?” I ask confused by my surroundings, it’s dark out now.

Marcus's contact had confirmed a short-term rental, third-party booking, paid in cash through a proxy service, floor five, sixty-three days ago. Sixty-three days. I counted backward. I thought about everything that had happened in sixty-three days. The gala and the dance floor and the opera and the kitchen in the early morning and the Hartwell letter and acknowledge delivered from twelve feet away without looking up and a name I had called by accident that had turned out to be a permission. Sixty-three days of a lens pointed at a window. Sixty-three days of someone watching for something to use. I looked at the treated window. I looked at the changed light.

Only one window that overlooked the back entrance of the motel. The sun had finally risen, a lot of people were out and about, from my window, I gazed down and watched their movements as they went about their daily lives. My hands crossed behind my back. After a while of just watching as a few people crossed the streets, I let out a sigh and returned back to the room. I fished out my phone and scrolled through it, not looking for anything in particular but just whiling away the time and trying not to think of Diana.

For a while, I had been telling myself it was because I was smart, but now I wasn't even sure that was the case. "Can I leave now?" Nate asked, sounding hopeful. "Yes, you have two days off. You need some time to rest," I said. "You can either stay here or go somewhere else, but just make sure you're back after two days." I had noticed that Nate hadn't seemed happy lately, and I couldn't tell what was wrong. Recently, her expression has been unreadable, but now, I could vividly see relief wash over her face. I smiled to myself.