Chapter 6
Becca
“Welcome back to Somebody Said in Sweetbriar. Sometimes it’s not the things you say out loud that get you into trouble. It’s the moment you forget you’re not alone.”
Aweek passed.
Not the dramatic kind where everything changes, just the slow, grinding kind where hope frays thread by thread, and you keep telling yourself tomorrow will feel different, but it never does.
The job lead I’d pinned, with hopeful, stupid dreams, died with a polite email: Thank you for your interest. We’ve decided to move forward with other candidates. We wish you the best in your future endeavors. I read it twice, then once more, searching for mercy between the lines. There was none.
I closed the laptop. Stared at the narrow wall of my trailer.
Told myself it was fine. Temporary. Redirection.
All the words people use when they’re trying not to cry.
My savings were almost gone. The trailer still leaked when the wind shifted the wrong way.
Sweetbriar still felt too small to breathe in and too big to escape.
I saw Levi three times that week.
Once in the grocery store, our carts nearly collided at the end of the cereal aisle.
We both froze, offering the same tight, polite smile strangers gave when they recognized each other but didn’t know what to do with it.
Another time, across from Holloway’s—he was laughing with someone from the station, head thrown back, easy in a way I hadn’t seen in years.
Our eyes met for two heartbeats. Something old and unspoken passed between us like static. We looked away at the same time.
Travis, at least, had gone quiet. No texts. No surprise visits. No “we need to talk.” I let myself believe the silence meant he’d finally heard me.
Later, I’d gone to bed, wide awake. The river was loud outside my window, rushing like it had somewhere urgent to be.
Wind rattled the awning, metal clanging softly against metal.
The trailer creaked in reply, old bones shifting in the damp.
I lay on my back, arms at my sides, counting the faint shadows the trees threw across the ceiling.
I tried to count myself to sleep. One. Two.
Three. Four. The numbers didn’t help. I was wide awake with anxiety burning a hole in my chest.
Eventually, I gave up trying to sleep and padded barefoot to the dinette table, flipped on the single lamp.
Yellow light spilled across scarred laminate, old mail, and a half-dead plant I kept forgetting to water.
I plugged in the mic, adjusted the voice disguiser, and hit record.
This was my sanctuary. My one place where the words could leave without being seen.
“Welcome back to Somebody Said in Sweetbriar,” I began, voice soft, almost swallowed by the river’s roar. “Tonight’s episode is brought to you by insomnia, bad timing, and the overwhelming urge to pretend you’re fine when you are very much not.”
I leaned back in the chair. The vinyl creaked under me.
“This week’s been one of those in-between stretches,” I continued. “Nothing explodes, but nothing moves forward either. You almost miss the chaos, because at least chaos means something’s happening.” A small, warped laugh slipped out through the filter.
“I thought I had a job lead. Turns out it was just a maybe. Which is fine. I’m learning that maybe it’s just life’s polite way of saying not yet. Or not ever. Hard to tell the difference when you’re staring at another rejection in twelve-point Arial.”
The river surged, louder, closer, like it was trying to answer.
“And then there are the almost conversations,” I said. “The people you keep running into. The ones you don’t talk to, because talking would mean opening doors you’re not ready to walk through.”
I paused. Fingers traced the chipped edge of the table.
“That’s the thing about small towns. You don’t really get space from your past. It just waits around the corner, pretending to be casual.”
Something moved outside. I glanced up mid-sentence. Froze. Headlights sliced through the trees across the riverbank, cutting sharp angles across the water. One car idling. Then another.
“Huh,” I murmured into the mic, voice dropping instinctively. “Okay, that’s new.”
I leaned closer to the window, heart ticking up.
“There are people down by the river,” I said, half amused, half uneasy. “Which, for the record, is not a popular midnight hangout unless you’re a raccoon or a teenager making very questionable life choices.”
Three silhouettes stood near the tree line, backlit by the headlights. One turned slightly, and the profile was sharp against the glare, but the light was behind them, washing features into shadow. I couldn’t place them. Dark coats, dark night, dark water.
Something shifted in my stomach. Not quite fear—not yet—but the body’s quiet warning system flickering on, the one that operated below conscious thought.
I became suddenly, uncomfortably aware of how still everything was around me.
How far the nearest light was. How clearly I could see them, which meant how clearly anyone looking in my direction might be able to see me.
I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe quite right.
“Okay. This is real. They’re really there.
I am definitely not hallucinating,” I said into the mic, voice dropping without thinking, some instinct pulling it low even though there was no way they could hear me from here.
“Three of them. Late-night meeting type energy. Very—not social. Kind of tense. It’s giving horror movie.
Or at least an episode of Supernatural.”
I leaned closer. My mouth had gone dry. One of them gestured toward the water, or was it meant to be toward the campground?
Another shook his head. The third crossed his arms, shoulders tight.
I couldn’t hear anything, just the rain and the river and the sound of my own pulse, which had gotten louder than I would have liked.
The rational part of my brain offered helpful commentary. You are alone. It is dark. You do not know who these people are. You are standing in the open.
I told the rational part of my brain to give me thirty more seconds.
“I don’t know who they are,” I whispered into the mic. “But whoever they are, they’re not here for a casual late-night walk.”
I took a slow step back. Then stopped. One of them had turned his head.
Not toward me. Probably not toward me.
I stopped breathing anyway.
Headlights flared suddenly, sweeping across the trees and straight toward my window.
I froze.
The light caught the edge of the window, turning it into a mirror. For one sick second, I saw my own wide eyes staring back.
“Well,” I forced out, my voice a pathetic squeak, “on that unsettling note, I’m going to end tonight’s episode before I convince myself I’ve stumbled into a noir mystery.”
My finger hovered over the stop button.
All three figures went still.
The river roared louder, filling the sudden silence.
I sat rigid, mic still live, heart slamming against my ribs as the headlights snapped off. Darkness rushed back in, thick and absolute. I yanked down the shade and slapped the stop button. My finger slipped the first time. The second time it worked.
Live ended.
Too late.
The saved file was already processing.
I checked the listener count, horrified to find it higher than usual.
Much higher. Crap, crap, crap. I deleted the episode from the public page with shaking hands, but the damage was already done.
Words had left my mouth. Sound had traveled.
People had been listening. I shoved the laptop aside and stood so fast the chair scraped loudly against the floor.
Too loud. I clicked off the lamp. Darkness swallowed the trailer. The quiet was suffocating. I stood frozen, straining to hear anything over the river—footsteps, car doors, voices returning. Nothing.
My thoughts spiraled.
What had I just seen?
There was probably a boring explanation.
I almost believed it. But my prickling skin and the hair standing up on my neck refused to let me.
But who had heard me?
I’d told myself my audience was small. Insomniacs. Night owls. A handful of regulars who liked the sound of someone talking when they couldn’t sleep. And Aunt Aggie, who always figured me out. Was she listening?
I backed away from the window slowly, like the dark outside might notice if I moved too fast. The trailer creaked beneath my feet—every sound suddenly amplified, traitorous.
I wrapped my arms around myself, heart racing, realizing with frightening clarity that whatever had happened down by the river—I wasn’t supposed to see it. My trailer was closest. My angle was just right.
And I definitely wasn’t supposed to talk about it.
One of them had stood with his arms crossed, weight shifted back.
I’d seen that posture a thousand times. It was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
Freaked out, I pushed the thought away before I could finish it.
I stood there in the dark for a long time, listening to my own breathing and the river rushing just beyond the trees.
Finally, curiosity—or stupidity—won.
I eased the shade up a fraction of an inch, careful not to let the glass catch any stray light. The riverbank was empty now. No headlights. No movement. Just wet ground, black water, and the dark line of trees pressed close together.
Relief fluttered, thin and fleeting.
Then, farther down near the bend, something glowed.
A single red light hovered at the edge of the trees.
My breath caught.
It didn’t move. Not even an inch. I just sat there, watching.
Then it vanished.
I let the shade fall back down and stepped back, heart pounding so hard it hurt.
The trailer walls felt suddenly paper-thin, the darkness outside pressing in as if it were listening.
I crossed to the door. Checked the lock.
Checked it again. Then the window latches.
My movements were deliberate, almost calm.
I told myself I did this every night. That this wasn’t fear—it was sensible. Totally normal.
The river kept roaring, indifferent.
I climbed into bed, pulled the blanket to my chin, and turned off the last light. I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, listening. Nothing happened. Eventually, sleep crept in. Until my phone buzzed on the nightstand, waking me.
I should have ignored it. I knew I should ignore it. Instead, I rolled over and picked it up, the screen lighting the ceiling white.
A notification from the hosting platform. A new comment.
I opened it.
Nice view from Riverside Pines tonight. Keep your blinds down.
I read it twice. Then a third time, slower, like the words might rearrange themselves into something less specific. Something that couldn’t possibly mean what it meant.
They didn’t.
I took a screenshot.
Then I deleted the comment from the platform, like that would undo the fact I’d seen it at all.
My phone went face-down on the nightstand, but I kept staring at it anyway, waiting for it to change, or for me to realize I’d misunderstood. Waiting for my nervous system to get the memo that I was not, in fact, being chased by a lion.
The room felt smaller than it had a minute ago, as I lay still and listened to the river, my sharp, rapid breathing, and the faint creak of the trailer settling around me. Every sound suddenly felt louder than it should’ve been.
The comment hadn’t asked me anything. Hadn’t threatened me. Hadn’t even used my name.
But it didn’t need to.
My mouth had gone dry.
I got up too fast, the movement sharper than I intended.
First, the door. Locked. I checked it anyway, hand lingering on the handle a second too long, like touch could tell me something eyesight couldn’t.
Then again. Just to be sure.
The windows came next. Front, side, bathroom, bedroom. Locked, locked, locked, locked.
I pulled every shade flush to the sill and didn’t let myself linger at any of them.
Then I went to the kitchen drawer—the one I kept jammed with all the random crap I didn’t want to think about.
I pushed everything aside and found what Matt had put there back when Travis had first started showing up again.
The canister of pepper spray, small and orange and solid in my hand.
The personal alarm, a flat silver disc that he’d made me test twice until I knew exactly how hard to pull the pin.
Just in case, he’d said. You probably won’t need it. But now you have it.
I brought both back to the bedroom. Set them on the nightstand, pepper spray on the left, alarm on the right, phone in the middle, face-up so I’d see it light. Then I pulled my old baseball bat from under the bed and put it next to my pillow.
I looked at the arrangement for a moment.
My phone was right there. I could call Harper.
I could call Matt. The thought moved through me, and I let it pass without acting on it, the way I always did.
It was late. It was probably nothing. Three people standing by the river in the dark wasn’t exactly a crime, and if I called every time something felt slightly off, I’d be that woman, the one who needed managing, the one people started to worry about in that particular exhausting way.
I’d been that woman to enough people lately. I was tired of it.
That was what I told myself, anyway.
The other version, the one I didn’t look at directly, was simpler and less flattering.
I didn’t call because calling meant saying it out loud, and saying it out loud meant admitting that the unease sitting low in my stomach was real and not something I could just decide my way out of before morning.
It was easier to arrange the pepper spray and the baseball bat and the alarm into their neat little row and tell myself I’d handled it.
That I was prepared. That prepared was the same thing as safe.
I got back into bed, pulled the blanket up, and stared at the ceiling.
Matt had given me those things as if they were precautionary. I had a feeling he’d be less surprised than he should be when I told him I’d moved them to the nightstand.
As I drifted off again, one thought clung, cold and stubborn. What was going on out there?
Maybe it was nothing.
I almost believed it.
It had to be nothing.
But deep down, in the part of me that still remembered how small towns really worked, I knew better. I wasn’t as invisible as I’d thought. And whatever I’d just witnessed—whatever I’d just said out loud—could have made me part of it.