Unheard A Samantha Leary Short Story

This story contains themes suitable for adults. Please proceed only if you are 18+

View post on imgur.com

By J.E. Nickerson

Anna sat on the edge of her bed, phone clutched in trembling hands. The screen glared at her, messages and posts flashing in an unending loop. She scrolled slowly, each one digging deeper, each cruel word pressing harder on her chest.

Tracy:

“Anna is such a dork. That hair color and those shorts. Ugh. Talk about bow-legged. Who invited her to the party anyway?”

Kelsea:

“Yeah. Like some guy would really be interested in talking to her. Newsflash: Nobody cares about her.”

Connie:

“So not only did someone invite her—BIG MISTAKE—but she had the nerve to talk to my boyfriend! Like back-up tramp. He’s mine. Wish she would just disappear already.”

Anna’s chest tightened. The room felt smaller. Too small. Tears streamed down her face. She buried it in her hands, shaking. She wanted to scream, to throw the phone, to make it stop—but the words followed her anyway, echoing relentlessly in her mind. She hadn’t meant to flirt with Vince. He had offered her a soda and started talking to her about upcoming finals. That was all.

She thought about texting Connie back. Defending herself.

Anna sniffed and typed a message. Hesitated. Then continued typing.

Anna:

“It’s not like that, Connie. I didn’t flirt. Vince talked to me. He was just being nice.”

She tapped send and stared at the thread under the post about last night’s party. Three dots bounced under her comment.

Connie:

“Oh, the slut lives still! Nice try, fatty. I saw how you were looking at him. All wide-eyed and flirty. News flash, fattso. Vince isn’t into you. And guys certainly don’t go for cows either. Did anyone tell you that before you stuffed your face the last time?”

Tracy:

“I’d eat like that too if I couldn’t get a guy. Maybe it’s a condition she has. Cow-slut syndrome.”

Kelsea:

“God, you two. Didn’t anyone ever tell Anna that when you’re invited to a party you don’t go hitting on your host’s boyfriend? What a desperate b**.”*

The words cut deeper than Anna could imagine. She thought of past Easters: mornings full of sunlight, chocolate eggs hidden in the yard, laughter spilling across the kitchen. Her aunt Wendy smiling, the family gathered together. The girls—Kelsea, Tracy, and Connie—running through the yard. Laughing. Girls she trusted, girls she had believed would face the world together with her, or at least survive the awkward years of high school.

But slowly, the girls had drifted away. First Connie, who had gotten an opportunity to join the cheerleading squad. Her natural energy and charm made her a magnet for attention, leaving Anna behind.

Tracy had found her place in the music department and became friends with several students in athletics. Football players who seemed to enjoy her clingy personality and aptitude for numbers.

Kelsea had been the holdout for several years, still choosing to spend time with Anna, still willing to sleep over and call whenever school schedules allowed.

But slowly, Kelsea changed too. As soon as she started her senior year, puberty brought curves and clear skin that Anna never seemed to get. The awkwardness of growing up had transformed Kelsea, making her popular and attractive in a way that drew everyone toward her.

Anna had kept reaching out, hoping for reconnection. The invitation to Connie’s birthday party had felt like a bridge back to friendship. But now she saw clearly—it had only been an opportunity for the girls to highlight how much she didn’t fit in, to criticize her, to remind her she was alone.

The memories mocked her. The laughter, the trust, the sunlight of past Easters—all gone now, replaced by the relentless cruelty on her screen. Her chest tightened. She shook. She couldn’t stop the tears. She couldn’t stop the words from drilling into her skull.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she whispered. Her chest tightened, breath shallow. The loneliness pressed in from every side, relentless. Maybe things would be easier if she weren’t here. Maybe the weight would lift, if only for a moment.

Her hands trembled as they moved to the belt she had tucked beside her. The one Aunt Wendy had given her a few weeks ago. She had loved it. Worn it every day since she received it. Now she gripped it, feeling the cold leather under her fingers, and imagined it as a release from the endless noise. Panic and despair swirled together, a storm she could not escape.

She slipped the belt over the sturdy ceiling beam, testing it with a trembling hand. Slowly, she moved the small chair beside her desk beneath the hanging leather. The girls’ words still clawed at her mind.

Her heart thudded violently, each beat echoing in her ears. She stood on the edge of the chair, fingers fumbling with the belt, tying it in a loop, securing the keeper.

The leather pressed cold against her skin. Her eyes lingered on her reflection in the floor-length mirror—the soft rolls her diets hadn’t erased, the tight jeans biting at her hips, constricting.

I’m the problem. I did this to them. This is the only way.

Her certainty clashed with the girls’ voices echoing, relentless.

She stepped forward.

The room tilted. Vision blurred. Tears stung. She felt detached, as if watching herself from a dream, each motion both real and distant.

The belt tightened.

She gasped, clutching at the air, at herself. Her head spun. The world narrowed to the hammering of her heartbeat, the dizzying crush in her chest. Angles shifted, pressure mounted. She couldn’t breathe.

No…no…this isn’t…someone help…

A shuddering breath. The knot held. Then slackened. Then tightened again.

Her body went slack. Darkness pressed in. Silence followed—long, unbroken, final.

***

Wendy stepped down the hall, calling out softly at first, then louder.

“Anna? Honey? Are you in here?”

The house was quiet, too quiet. She usually heard Anna’s music drifting down the hall sometimes too loud for Anna to hear herself think. But not this time. Each step echoed, the floorboards beneath her creaking, and her chest tightened with unease. The hall held a silence that seemed to envelop everything. She hesitated at the threshold of Anna’s room, a strange heaviness settling over her.

She knocked once. Waited. No sound. No music. No faint taping of Anna’s fingers on the keyboard. She touched the door knob. It turned slowly. 

She pushed the door open.

Her eyes scanned the room. The small desk with the desktop computer. The only one she could afford for Anna to use for school. The place she usually found Anna sitting. 

She pushed the door open fully. Then her heart stopped. The room narrowed and her eyes widened. 

Anna hung in the center of the room. Slowly turning eyes closed. Body slumped forward. Legs dangling near the small chair that used to sit in front of the desk. 

Wendy froze. Her stomach turned, legs threatening to give way. Her heart hammered in her ears as a scream clawed up her throat but died before it could escape. The weight of disbelief pressed down on her. The bright, familiar presence of her niece was replaced by stillness.

This couldn’t be right… No… No…

Fragmented thoughts tumbled through Wendy’s mind.

“No! Anna… No!”

Her hands shook violently as she reached toward her niece, desperate to undo what had already happened. Tears blurred her vision; sobs wracked her body. “No… no… Anna…” Her voice was strangled, broken, barely a whisper.

She staggered closer, knees weak, every detail of the room striking her with cruel normalcy: Anna’s scattered clothes, the open textbook, pens littering the desk, her phone face up on the bed. Everything screamed ordinary—nothing had prepared Wendy for this.

Fumbling, she tried to pull Anna down, tugging at the belt, pushing, desperate to release the pressure. Her niece’s body remained limp.

Wendy grabbed the chair, trying to right it, hoping to give Anna’s legs some support—but her body hung motionless, bending unnaturally.

Her hands shook as she snatched the phone from the bed. Fingers trembling, she swiped the conversation from the screen and dialed emergency services.

The dispatcher’s voice was calm, neutral. “Pleasant Falls PD. What’s your emergency?”

Wendy’s chest tightened. The voice was steady, measured—so utterly disconnected from the chaos around her that it made her heart sink further.

“She’s… she’s gone… my niece…” Wendy’s words broke into ragged sobs.

Wendy’s voice trembled. “911… my niece… she’s… she’s… hanging…”

By the time the police arrived, Wendy was crumpled on the floor, rocking gently, sobs fading into soft whimpers.

She heard firm knocking on the door and a voice announcing the police were there. Wendy took a deep, shuddering breath. Her legs barely held her as she forced herself away from the room where Anna lay. Trembling, she moved to the front door and unlocked it.

“She’s in her room. Upstairs, on the left. Please… hurry… she’s—” Her voice faltered as officers and EMTs poured into the house, moving with calm, precise efficiency toward the second floor.

A few minutes later, a woman stepped inside. Not in uniform, but in a dark pantsuit and blouse that clung neatly to her frame. Her eyes scanned the room, measured and steady, her steps deliberate. When they met Wendy’s, there was a quiet strength, an empathy that seemed to reach through the haze of grief.

Beside her, an older man moved in, speaking briefly with officers before nodding to the woman and heading upstairs.

The blonde stepped toward Wendy, calm, composed, yet fully aware of the weight in the room.

“I’m Samantha Leary,” she said gently. “I work with the police.”

Wendy’s grief hung thick in the air, suffocating. Samantha knelt beside her, her hand brushing lightly against Wendy’s shoulder. “I know this is hard. We’ll make sense of it together. You’re not alone.”

But the room remained steeped in silence—the quiet, unyielding weight of loss pressing down from every corner.

***

The house was quiet.

Not empty quiet, not the kind that hinted at absence. This quiet was heavier, like the walls themselves were holding their breath. Dust floated in narrow beams of morning light, catching on edges of furniture. Nothing moved. Nothing spoke.

Samantha stepped into the small bedroom at the end of the hall. Greg was already there, snapping photos with his phone.

The room felt uncomfortably small. A faded carpet stretched across the floor, dulled under years of wear, indents showed where the chair had been positioned. Posters and photos clung unevenly to the walls—movies Samantha had heard of but never seen, school snapshots, a collage of smiles paused mid-motion. A desk pressed against one wall held scattered papers. Books lay in small, uneven piles on the desk. A hoodie draped across a chair. A phone charger trailed off the edge of the nightstand. Signs of a life that no longer filled the room. 

Everything seemed untouched. Still.

Then Samantha saw the body of the young woman hanging from the ceiling beam. 

Officers were gently cutting at the belt as they lowered her to the ground. 

Her eyes stared at nothing. 

Unfocused. 

Still. 

Silent.

No struggle. No chaos. Just absence.

Samantha’s stomach dropped, her chest tightening as a cold weight pressed against her ribs. Her throat burned, but she forced herself to breathe. She could feel the emptiness of the room, the life that had once moved here, pressed into every corner. Her eyes lingered on Anna’s frame, heavy from extra weight, still small for someone her height.

Greg’s jaw tightened, hands resting on his hips, but his eyes betrayed him—there was no mask for the ache, the shock that mirrored her own.

“She was so young,” he whispered, almost to himself.

Samantha’s gaze traced the room in a slow sweep: the ribbon on the desk, tied in a messy bow; the open notebook with neat handwriting; A photo on the wall—Anna at Easter sitting next to a person in a bunny costume, arms full of candy, mid-laughter, frozen in the moment. Every small detail shouted at her: a life lived, a life vanished.

Her mind recoiled. Her pulse raced. She felt her fingers tighten instinctively, wanting to reach out, to touch, to fix something that could never be fixed. The quiet of the room was deafening. Every breath sounded too loud, every heartbeat thundering against the unbearable silence.

“How does a girl this young decide life isn’t worth it?” Greg asked, voice low.

Samantha pressed her hands into her thighs, fingers still clutching her phone. “Someone… convinced her she wasn’t worth it,” she murmured, almost to herself. The truth pressed in—the cruelty, the absence, the unbearable weight that led here. Something had made her believe this was the only way.

Greg’s hand brushed lightly against her shoulder. No words were exchanged. Just shared understanding. Quiet. Heavy. Unrelenting.

Samantha Leary Psychological Thrillers

The moment doesn’t end here. It never does.

For Samantha, this is where it begins—where instinct starts to press against the surface, where something unresolved refuses to stay buried.

If you felt that shift—the quiet sense that something isn’t right—you’re already inside her world.

The story continues in the Samantha Leary series, beginning with the prequel.

Step into the series on Amazon