Envy is one of the 7 deadly sins. I\u2019m not dead yet. It sneaks up on a soul, envy, like the hiss of snake through grass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her hair was long and shiny and her legs shapely. She wasn\u2019t on my arm or laughing at my jokes. Sure, I envied the guy but only at a distance. Maybe I could have shaken the green-eyed monster off, but I had to see her every day walk out with him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHi, how are you?\u201d Her voice chirpy as she shuffled through her mail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOkay, how are you?\u201d Me the regular guy who wore plaid shirts and worked construction. The guy she hung out with wore suits that glistened and white shirts so bright they appeared to glow. One night as they went out arm in arm. I imagined his conservative tie with a snorting pig on it and a bulbous tie pin. Fact is he didn\u2019t wear tie pins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were an item for about a month, maybe a month and a half, then the cops were knocking on my door. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDid you know her?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe said hello in the mail room.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSee her often there?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe lived on the floor above me. I saw her around.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo, you were near neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYeah, her and her boyfriend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnybody you know?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo. Some slick guy in expensive suits.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe was a looker.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo are lots of women.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The murder made the papers and of course my fellow tenants were up in arms and worried about their kids and apartment safe dogs. It was too bad, and I had to squelch my grandmother\u2019s voice in my head, \u201cgirls like that deserve what they get?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I went to work the next day and the next and thought about her nearly constantly. The next week I was invited out for a beer with the guys and was glad to go. I walked into my apartment and realized I hadn\u2019t thought of her for several hours. In a month I thought of her occasionally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I woke up one night with a gentle tapping on my bedroom door and she stood there looking at me all worried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow did you get in?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThrough your window.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI live on the 8th<\/sup> floor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI came in through your window.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She stepped toward my bed and I as up and out and pressing myself against the wall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGet out!\u201d I shouted and she stopped. She was dressed how I remember her the last night I saw her alive; her slinky pink dress looked stained and her hair a mess. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was nice to you, I invited you in,\u201d\u00a0she whined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was careful and I did get away with it in a sense, problem is I see her now and again. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Envy is one of the 7 deadly sins. I\u2019m not dead yet. It sneaks up on a soul, envy, like the hiss of snake through grass. Her hair was long and shiny and her legs shapely. She wasn\u2019t on my arm or laughing at my jokes. Sure, I envied the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2,29],"tags":[15,17,16],"class_list":["post-874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-story","category-flash-fiction","category-ghost-story","tag-fridayreads","tag-ghoststory","tag-storyfriday"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":876,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions\/876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}