Brat - Chapter 5

This Was Something Else

Brat is a serialised NA/YA novel: alt-rock, art school mess, and the kind of love that leaves bruises.
I’m publishing it chapter by chapter here on Witch Snacks.

👉 New here? Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4. Or go to the Chapter Index

Sadie

I woke slow, air cool on my face, the rest of me too warm.

It took a second to clock the weight behind me – his arm, slung across my waist like it belonged there. His breath steady against the back of my neck. I froze.
Not scared. Just... still. That weird kind of stillness, like if I moved, the whole moment might crack.

I’d never woken up like this before. Not with a guy and definitely not in his arms…not with someone’s hand resting on my hip like it had always been there… My brain scrambled. This wasn’t just “we shared a sleeping bag.” This was... something else.

He’d held me.
And I’d let him.

That part was louder than I wanted it to be.

Christ. If the flat knew I’d woken up like this, they’d never let me live it down. I’d be immortalised in group chat memes before I’d even made coffee.

I slipped out from under his arm, careful not to wake him. Heart hammering like I’d done something wrong, even though I hadn’t done anything at all.

By the time he stirred, I’d already made coffee, packed most of my gear, and done a quick sketch of him asleep – bare feet poking out the bottom of the sleeping bag, hair wild, mouth barely open. It was softer than my usual stuff. Less edge, more blur. Like he belonged to the quiet.

He sat up slow, rubbing his face, blinking like a bear crawling out of hibernation. When he saw the coffee, he grinned.

“You’re a bloody legend.”

“Don’t get used to it,” I muttered, handing him the cup.

He stretched, took a sip. I waited for the usual smart remark – but he just drank and smiled. We shared a beat of silence, easy and calm, like we’d woken into the same dream.

His phone sat charging on a little power bank, no bars yet, but he kept checking it anyway. Every few minutes.

We packed up side by side, trading light comments about the weather, the hike, the leftover chocolate.

It still felt…nice.

---

The track wound downhill, clay slick under our boots. I was mid-sentence about Gran and flood signs when it hit me. A clearing through the trees. Fallen rimu angled like a stage, light breaking through in fractured shards.

“Sick,” I muttered, already dropping my pack.

He blinked. “Sorry?”

I was on the ground before I finished explaining, sketchbook out, charcoal moving like I had seconds before it disappeared. The slope, the lines, the light–if I waited, I’d lose it.

He laughed at first. “What the hell are you doing? We’re in the middle of the fucking bush…”

I didn’t answer. Didn’t even glance up. My hand was moving too fast, chasing the angles before the light shifted. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him pacing, shifting his weight like he couldn’t decide whether to sit or climb the nearest tree. Restless.

Then quieter.

I felt him watching. Not staring, not waiting for attention. Just… watching.

A beat later, he dropped onto the log beside me with a soft huff, elbows on his knees. For once, still.

I heard the faint creak of straps before he even spoke.

“Fine,” he said, half-grinning, pulling his guitar around like it was an afterthought. “If you’re gonna make art, I’m making noise.”

At first it was chaos – me scribbling, him plucking at strings like he was taking the piss. But then something clicked. The rhythm found itself. His music gave my hand a pace to follow; my charcoal marks gave his chords something to lean into.

I didn’t look up. Didn’t need to. I could feel him watching me, not like an audience, but like we were both in on the same secret.

By the time I dropped the sketchbook onto my knees, my chest was tight. Not bad tight. Flow tight. Like I’d caught something true.

He let the last chord fade.

“Well?” he asked.

I smudged a line with my thumb, trying to breathe again. “Not half bad,” I muttered.

“Cheers,” he said. Casual. But the corner of his mouth was twitching, like maybe he felt it too.

Eventually I shoved the sketchbook back in my pack, brushing charcoal dust off my palms. He slung the guitar onto his back again, grinning like he’d just got away with something.

“Fastest sketch I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Thought your pencil was gonna catch fire.”

“Better than your ‘interpretive bush jam,’” I shot back.

He barked a laugh, boots squelching as we fell into step again. The silence after wasn’t empty. It hummed, like the tail end of a song you didn’t want to stop.

***

Maybe ten minutes out from the carpark, his phone started going off – first a ping, then a cascade. Alerts. Messages. Missed calls. The screen lit up: group chat, RUIN Tour – core.

My stomach did a weird thing and I fumbled my next step. The fuck?

He muttered something under his breath and stepped off the trail to call someone. His voice flipped – cleaner, polished. Like he’d been rehearsing it.

I kept walking. But that low, cold thing started blooming under my ribs.

The trees thinned out. Two vehicles waited up ahead, parked next to my shitty Toyota Corolla. One a shiny black rental, the other a van with production logos. A woman in a blazer and combat boots paced beside them, phone in one hand, harassed expression on her face.

She spotted us and zeroed in.

“Dev, finally. Your phone’s been off for fourteen hours – we’ve been chasing bloody signal across the peninsula. You’ve got a sound check at Spark Arena in two hours.”

I stopped.
The words just hung there.

Sound check. Spark Arena.

Ruin was playing there, tonight.

My body went still. But my brain? My brain started stitching it all together like a murder board.

He walked toward her. Said something quiet. Same voice that’d told me about Sheffield. That had whispered beside me in the dark, laughed into my hair.

It was the voice that did it.

And then I said it out loud without meaning to:

“You’re Dev Fletcher, Ruin.”

His eyes met mine.

My hand curled tighter around the strap of my backpack.

Dev opened his mouth…but the assistant finally noticed me.

She looked me up and down. Muddy boots. Feral hoodie. Sleeping bag clipped to my pack. Like I was roadkill that had learned how to walk.

Then she turned to him. Loud. “Oh my god. Did you shag some random girl out there? Are you insane?”

That landed like a punch.
I’d bared my soul by firelight.
Now I was a one-night-stand punchline.

I snapped.
“He’s the one who’s random,” I said, not even looking at her. “I didn’t lie about my name. Or my job. Or my entire fucking identity.”

I shifted the sketchbook to my other arm, swallowing the bile rising in my throat.

“But yeah, let’s make me the problem. That’s so on brand.”

She opened her mouth to bite back.
Didn’t matter. I was already turning.

Dev just stood there. Still. Letting it land.

She lowered her voice – barely . I still heard it.

“Seriously, Dev, do I need to get her to sign an NDA?”

My ears rang.

Dev stepped forward. Toward me.

His face had gone quiet again. Blank. But his eyes? His eyes knew. Knew what that moment cost.

“Sadie…”

I didn’t answer.

“I was going to tell you.”

Maybe.
Maybe not.
I wanted to believe him.

But belief is expensive.
And I’ve spent years learning how not to give that part of myself away.

He stepped closer, close enough for me to smell the fire smoke still clinging to his hoodie. He still looked like the guy I sketched at sunrise.
And that was the problem.

I’d drawn a version of him.
Not the real thing.

“I’ll find you on Insta.”

That line. That line.
After everything? That was it?

It felt like the end of a song you thought was about you. Realising it never was.

I stared him down. I leaned in closer to him. “Fuck. You.” I said, calmly.

I turned before he could say anything else.

He didn’t follow.

And somehow, that was what hurt most.

I mean, we knew it was coming, but this hurts. Does he even care what he’s done? Chapter 6 drops us right into Dev’s feelings…

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