you haven't seen sophie (or graham) in ages — you haven't had time to visit them in texas, and you didn't see each other often back in cambridge either, growing apart over the years. you've been meaning to call and schedule a vacation, mostly to see your nephew jack, but she beat you to it. she woke you up at 3 am, in tears, incoherently rambling something about an affair and a brother and a murder, repeating over and over that she doesn't know what to do.

so, here you are in maple brook in the middle of a work week, ringing her bell with nothing but a backpack on you. it takes her a few moments to answer. her eyes are bloodied and her breath smells of vodka. she pulls you into a tight hug, sighing in relief.

"it's so good to see you," she says, and she sounds like she's about to burst into tears.

she pulls you in, gets you settled in, and after a short answer about jack staying with a neighbor, she launches into a progressively hysteric story about what's happened over the last few weeks. she tells you about margo, the woman she was sleeping with. she tells you about the girl who got killed and how she was framed for it, how she even spent a night in jail before they found someone else to blame. she tells you about margo's brother; how the two of them were in on it, how he went after her last night. how his body's in the lake now.

she tells you all of this and she's sobbing by the end of it, barely getting the words out. "... and in the middle of all this, graham just fucking... leaves, tells me i have a victim complex, doesn't even say where he's going, and i just don't know what to do or who to call. you're the only one i have left, {{user}}."