This is my alt-rock NA serialised story — the book my younger self needed, written by my older self who finally knows what to do with all the bruises.
New here? Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 6, 7, 8, 9. Or you can go to the chapter index
Dev
It started like anything else — a doom scroll that wasn’t supposed to matter. Until her face appeared.
Back in London. Back to the grind — same streets, same grey drizzle, same meetings that made me want to throw my phone at a wall.
The buzz after a gig never lasted here. It always slipped into static.
So I did what I always did when the static got loud.
Just a casual scroll.
Mindless. Chill. Barely invested.
Okay.
I was looking for her.
But not weirdly.
Just… checking. Curiosity. Academic interest.
Clicked on Gray’s story. He always had something: weird snacks, paint-streaked selfies, last week it was a TikTok of a pigeon that looked like it did taxes.
But this time?
There she was.
Sadie.
Hiking boots. Ripped hoodie. Black hair in a loose plait. Face flushed from the cold. Standing in front of a mossy DoC hut like she’d just wandered out of an indie film and hadn’t clocked the camera yet.
That hut. Our hut.
She was laughing. Loud. Real. Like the kind of laugh you don’t fake, not even for socials.
Someone offscreen said, “Ready?”
She mock-saluted with a stick of sage.
And then —
Jasper entered frame, looking like queer Gandalf in Lululemon, and delivered his lines dramatically:
“We have travelled far beyond the bounds of city limits and good judgement to support our beloved @still.just.sadie in her righteous quest to sage the fuckboy residue from this otherwise gorgeous hut. I’m hiking. There’s mud. This is love.”
Sadie giggled so hard she had to turn away.
Then Sam, deadpan as hell:
“Releasing all lingering male mediocrity back to the earth.”
Gray in the background, cackling:
“Back to the earth where it belongs!”
Dev.exe stopped responding.
I watched it again.
Twenty seconds, tops.
Watched it five times before I remembered how breathing worked.
They looked... happy.
She looked lighter.
Like the version of her I met in the hut had been carrying something heavy…grief, maybe, or just the general weight of being alive.
And now?
Now she was glowing.
With her people.
Wielding sage like a sword.
Looking like a forest witch general in the final scene of a breakup movie where she wins.
I played it again. Watched her face this time.
The way she laughed at fuckboy residue.
The way her eyes flicked up – like she was about to say something, but let it go.
She didn’t look bitter.
Didn’t look wrecked.
She looked like she’d already moved on.
Like I was a punchline she could smudge away with incense and altitude.
I stared at my phone.
Hit replay.
Again.
And again.
Because my body still remembered the curve of hers against mine.
My hands still remembered the weight of her sketchbook.
The way she’d seen me and drawn me the way I see myself.
And now my brain was glitching over a twenty-second clip I wasn’t in – but felt like I’d been ejected from.
The sage was symbolic. Obviously. I’m not an idiot. But it still felt like being set on fire.
I threw my phone onto the bed because I just needed to not hold it anymore. I stared at the ceiling.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her laugh.
How free it sounded.
How far away from me.
I wanted to roll my eyes.
To scoff. Say whatever. She wasn’t even that hot.
She barely knew me anyway.
But instead, I just lay there, fully clothed, dramatically horizontal, like I’d been emotionally exfoliated by a bunch of strangers with excellent skincare and coordinated witchy energy.
Eventually, I picked the phone back up.
Opened her page.
Stared at the message button until my phone basically whispered, ‘bro you good?’
Typed:
You know, I always hoped I’d be immortalised in an Instagram ritual cleansing, but this exceeded expectations.
Paused.
Backspaced.
Tried again:
Look, I get it. I was the f-boy in the hut. You were right to sage the hell out of me. But for what it’s worth... I’m still thinking about that night. Still thinking about you.
Too much?
Too honest?
Too late?
Deleted.
Groaned like a man in a tragic indie film.
Typed one more time:
Hi. I saw the video. Pretty sure that’s the most glamorous exorcism I’ve ever been part of. I’m flattered. Devastated. Slightly aroused. Mostly just… yeah. I deserved it.
But I’m still thinking about you.
I stared at the message.
Didn’t send it.
Instead, I got up. Walked over to the drawer I kept meaning to organise and didn’t.
Found the sketch.
She’d signed it — a little loopy “S” in the bottom corner, like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to claim it.
It was me. But not Ruin-me. Not the polished frontman version. Just a guy sitting on a bunk with a stitched-up side and too much in his eyes.
She’d seen that. And drawn it anyway.
My fingers brushed the edge of the paper like it might tell me something new.
And that was the worst part.
She didn’t even know she’d wrecked me. She was out there burning sage and laughing with her people and posting ritual cleanses like I was a ghost she’d already laid to rest.
I wanted to be okay with that.
I wasn’t.
I put the sketch down gently.
Picked up my phone.
Looked at the stupid message.
Didn’t sent it.
And then, as if the paper could see me doing it, I flipped the sketch over so it was face down, and headed out into the night.
I should’ve felt better.
London nights always had that edge – neon slick on wet pavement, the hum of taxis, the pull of a thousand doors I could walk through and forget myself for a while.
And yeah, forgetting was the plan.
She was still in my head. Sage smoke. Laughing like she’d shaken off something heavy. And me, lying there like a glitching program watching it on loop.
So I did what I always did when the noise got too loud.
Found a bar. Found a girl.
She was gorgeous, no denying that — sharp fringe, eyeliner winged like she could cut me with it. I wanted her and made that clear. She clocked who I was, smiled like she’d already half-written the story she’d tell her mates tomorrow, and I thought, fine. Easy.
We didn’t even finish the drinks. Her flat was five stops away, and her hands were already on my belt before the door closed.
Normally that’s the point where autopilot kicks in. The body knows the moves, the brain checks out. No strings, no morning after, just skin and heat and gone.
But tonight?
Autopilot sputtered.
Her perfume was too sweet, cloying in my throat. Her laugh was brittle, like she was auditioning. When she pulled me down onto her bed, all I could think about was Sadie’s sketchbook balanced on her knees, the smudge of pencil on her hand.
I tried. Christ, I did.
But halfway through, the static in my head drowned out the moment. I wasn’t here. I was back in a hut with rain hammering the roof, a girl with black hair looking at me like she actually saw past the noise.
When it was done, she curled against me, scrolling through her phone, already messaging someone about the night. I stared at the ceiling, every nerve jangling like I’d played the wrong song.
She offered to make tea.
I pulled my jeans back on instead. Mumbled something about an early call, kissed her cheek like a coward, and left.
Back on the street, the drizzle had set in. London smelled like petrol and fried food and loneliness.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked.
Didn’t know where. Didn’t care.
All I knew was that the thing that used to be enough — the quick fix, the distraction, the body without the soul – wasn’t even scratching the surface anymore.
And the worst part?
I already knew why.
The next morning I woke, reached for my phone. Looked at my phone, at the message I’d written to her.
Hit send.
Seen at 11.43pm
Sadie
I was halfway through sketching a bird that looked like it wanted to fistfight God when my phone buzzed.
Instagram.
DM.
From: @sage_me_pls
Excuse me?
I stared at it like it might combust from audacity.
Opened it.
Read:
Pretty sure that’s the most glamorous exorcism I’ve ever been part of. Flattered. Devastated. Slightly aroused. Mostly just… yeah. I deserved it.
But I’m still thinking about u.
I slapped a hand over my face. Dev.
Of course it was him. Who else would create a whole new handle just to roast himself with my sage stick?
I put my phone down like it was contagious.
Got up.
Made tea.
Forgot the tea.
Came back.
Checked again.
Still there.
Still him.
I could hear it in my head — that gravelly, Northern English voice, the casual way he said things like they didn’t matter when they clearly did.
I waited ten minutes.
Then typed:
Me:
Glad u enjoyed the witchcraft. We ran out of glitter or we would’ve summoned Beyoncé to banish u personally.
Paused.
Typed more.
Ur not wrong. u were a dick.
But u were also wet and pathetic and weirdly charming in a self-sabotaging poet way so
Backspaced so.
Sent it.
Read it.
Regretted nothing.
He replied almost instantly:
Dev:
“Wet and pathetic” is kinda my brand. Might get it printed on merch.
I snorted out loud.
Me:
Please don’t. I can’t be spiritually tied to someone who sells emotional damage on Etsy.
Dev:
Too late. We cuddled in a sleeping bag. That’s a blood pact where I’m from.
God help me.
I was smiling.
And that pissed me off a little. He didn’t get to make me smile.
Me:
U still should’ve told me who u were.
Dev:
I know.
Then:
Can I tell u now?
I blinked.
Thumb hovered.
Brain spun.
He was typing like this meant something. Like he thought this was still a thing. Like we weren’t sitting in the crater of the last thing he didn’t say.
I was halfway through typing Define “now” when –
Screen lit up.
Incoming video call — @sage_me_pls
Excuse me?
I stared at it like the call might get embarrassed and leave.
I was in my comfort cardigan. Charcoal smudge on my cheek. Definitely soup on my shirt. Mascara: smudged. Vibe: haunted raccoon with artistic tendencies.
Still didn’t hit decline. Didn’t hit anything.
I waited till it rang out.
Then rang again.
“Oh my god,” I muttered — and answered.
First thing I saw?
A high-ceilinged room.
Then Dev’s face — upside down at first as he fiddled with the angle.
Messy hair. Hoodie. Eyes half-existential crisis, half apology.
He looked like chaos and late-night feelings. Sharp jaw. Tired eyes. The kind of beautiful that feels like a problem.
He blinked.
“Hi.”
His voice was rough.
Like he hadn’t used it much lately.
“Hi?” I said, cautious.
Long pause.
He scratched the back of his neck.
“This was probably a bad idea.”
“Wild guess,” I said. “Not your first one.”
Tiny grin. “Fair.”
He tried to prop his phone up, failed, tried again. It finally stilled.
Now I could see him.
Really see him.
And his eyes were a whole mess.
“I just…” he started. “I didn’t want to type it. Not this.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I’ve been trying to say something since that night, and…the next morning. And then after the fuckboy banishment video... I don’t know. It hit. How done you looked. Like I wasn’t even a real memory.”
I swallowed.
Hard.
He ran a hand through his damp hair.
“And maybe I deserved that. Maybe I fucked it. But I couldn’t leave it like that.”
Silence.
Then quieter:
“You were kind to me, man. You didn’t know who I was, and you still… gave a shit. Let me talk. Let me be real for five seconds. You made me feel like a person, not... the brand.”
That cracked something.
Just a little.
“I didn’t tell you who I was because I wanted more of that. Just one night without all the noise. It was selfish, yeah. But not... calculated, alright?”
I crossed my arms before I even noticed I was doing it.
“You could’ve told me in the morning.”
“I know.”
Soft.
Real.
“Yeah…I know.”
A beat.
He leaned closer to the camera again, and for a second he looked young.
Not the frontman of Ruin.
Not the stage god.
Just a boy in a hoodie who hadn’t had enough sleep or enough honesty in a long time.
“I’ve just… been thinking about that night every day since,” he said. “And I needed you to know that.”
My mouth was dry.
My heart? Absolute goblin mode.
So I said:
“You called me on video just to say I was your One Profound Moment of Authenticity?”
He blinked.
Then laughed.
“Okay yeah, that sounds way worse out loud.”
I shook my head.
Smiled in spite of myself.
He saw it.
And he looked so relieved I had to look away.
“Sadie,” he said softly.
I met his eyes again and said, “You said you wanted to tell me who you are.”
He nodded.
“So tell me.”
Something shifted in his face.
Not fear.
Not panic.
Just that quiet, heavy oh shit, this matters expression.
He looked straight at me.
And then he started talking.