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. Or you can go to the chapter index
Dev
The dressing room smelled like sweat, hairspray, and a half-dead orchid someone had optimistically shoved into a vase, like that would make this place look less like a cupboard.
I was on the couch – hoodie on, boots off, fingers still buzzing like the strings had fused into bone. The gig had gone off. Auckland had screamed every word like they were purging demons. My tech had cried. My bassist kissed a lighting guy. Backstage had been all high-fives and shot glasses and someone’s shirt getting set on fire, probably on purpose.
But now?
Now it was just me, the orchid, and the buzz of the mini fridge.
And this thing in my chest that wouldn’t shift. Like I’d forgotten something….or maybe someone.
I leaned back, eyes on the cracked ceiling tile above me, and there it was again.
Her face.
The way she’d looked at me in the carpark – after.
Not mad.
Not sad.
Just... done.
It was the absence that killed me.
Like I’d stopped being interesting the second she figured out who I was.
And yeah, I could spin it however I wanted – say I didn’t owe her anything, say it wasn’t that deep, say I’d done her a favour by not dragging her into my world.
But all that shit fell apart every time I thought about her saying “Fuck. You.” Then turning away.
No drama. No speech.
Just click. Door closed.
I pulled out my phone. Entered her handle.
@still.just.sadie
New post.
First slide: a photo of a walking track – overgrown, quiet. Storm creeping over the ridgeline like it had been waiting all day to ruin someone’s life.
Second slide: a sketch. Charcoal. Sharp, loose lines. A tree bent under wind, roots exposed like it was about to give up. Not dramatic. Not pretty. Honest.
The caption read:
some storms aren’t what they seem.
– charcoal study, Kauri track
I stared at it. For ages.
It shouldn’t have hit the way it did.
But it did.
Because I knew it wasn’t just a tree. And it wasn’t just weather.
I opened the message window.
Hey. Just saw your post. It’s... beautiful. The sketch. The words. I –
Deleted.
Sadie. I know I should’ve told you who I was. I didn’t mean to lie. I just –
Deleted.
That storm sketch hit me harder than it should have.
Deleted.
I let my head thud back against the couch. Swore into my hoodie.
Someone stuck their head in the door.
“Dev! Bar’s booked. You coming, or staying here to manifest your emo arc?”
“Coming,” I muttered, dragging myself upright.
Later – hotel room
Towel around my neck, hair still wet. Post-gig party high still humming. Minibar wrecked. City humming somewhere below the windows. I should’ve slept.
Instead, I opened her page again.
Scrolled.
Not just the hut post. Not just the storm tree.
Fucking all of it.
A sketch of someone’s hand – bent, tense, gripping something invisible. A biro drawing of a face screaming into a pillow. A leaf skeleton. A bird with its wings clipped at the paper’s edge.
Then: a video.
Her hands, flipping through a sketchbook.
Charcoal on every fingertip. Fingernails stained. Wrist smudged where she’d leaned too hard into the paper.
Pages flicking fast – careless, confident. Like the art wasn’t precious, just necessary. Something she had to get out before it burned her alive.
I wasn’t ready.
The camera tilted slightly, catching her face. Just for a second. Head bent. Lips parted. A laugh offscreen – hers. Quiet. Unfiltered. She said something I couldn’t hear, but the shape of her mouth did something to my chest.
I sat forward.
Watched it again.
The second time, I saw how she touched each page like she knew them by feel. The way her eyes narrowed when she turned to one she didn’t like. The way her hair slipped loose and she didn’t care.
I watched it a third time.
And that’s when it wrecked me.
Because I remembered her voice in the dark.
Those stained fingers tucked under her chin while she listened to the rain.
Her laughing at me over coffee like I was a joke she hadn’t quite decided to forgive.
And now here she was, moving again.
Laughing again.
Like the world had kept turning.
Like I hadn’t left something behind in that hut.
I paused the video. Screenshot. Didn’t even know why.
Just knew I couldn’t lose that expression.
Then I clicked on her tagged photos. The same three names featured over and over again: Gray, Sam, Jasper. Didn’t know them, but I recognised the vibe – queer chaos with no brakes.
Gray’s page was public. And right there, in the middle of a bunch of blurry bar selfies, was her.
Painting.
In overalls, hair scraped up, a streak of red down her arm. A mural on the flat wall. Huge, unfinished. Looked like a landscape at first. Hills. Trees. Sky.
But when I zoomed in, I saw it.
Figures.
Buried in the earth.
Blurred into bark and stone.
Some with mouths open.
Some with eyes shut.
Watching.
Or screaming.
I felt it like a chord struck too hard.
Another tagged shot.
Not her work this time. She was just standing there, leaning against a different wall. The mural behind her was older, faded by weather, colours bleeding into the brick.
One palm rested flat on the paint. Her head tilted toward it, her eyes locked on some detail I couldn’t see.
And her face –
Christ.
If it’s possible to hold love and grief and joy in a single expression, she’d found a way. Like the wall was breathing with her. Like she belonged to it.
I stared, trying to work out what the hell I was looking at. Why it pulled so hard.
Screenshot. Another.
I told myself it was just the composition. The light. The colours.
But I knew it wasn’t.
I scrolled back to her latest post.
She hadn’t just let that night go.
She’d turned it into something else.
Not about me. Not for me.
But still... echoing.
I stared at it for a long time.
Screenshot. Then another.
Then I shut off my phone.
Because I didn’t know what the hell to do with that feeling.
And I really didn’t want to know what it meant that I kept checking for updates like some sad little creep with a WiFi addiction and a God complex.
I told myself I’d stop checking tomorrow.
Same lie, different day.