She gave the fishermen time.

She gave the deputies time.

Then she drove back down to the river, hoping — honestly hoping — that someone would’ve picked up even one bag.

But the trash was still there.

Every single bag.

And worse —

somebody had shoved them aside just enough to park.

Spine stared at the scene, jaw tight, breath held, trying to swallow the kind of frustration that makes a person see stars.

Then it hit her all at once — the disrespect, the laziness, the sheer gall of it — and she said it out loud, sharp as a snapped twig:

“Nasty bastards!”

It wasn’t loud. Maybe it was.

It wasn’t dramatic.

It was the kind of exasperated truth that slips out when you’ve reached the end of your rope.

She looked at the bags.

She looked at the river.

And her voice dropped to something softer, sadder, truer:

“And the river didn’t deserve this.”

That was the part that hurt.

Not the work.

Not the trash.

Not the people who couldn’t be bothered.

It was the river —

the quiet, steady, patient river —

bearing the weight of everyone else’s carelessness.

Spine stood there a long moment, hands on her hips,

feeling that heartbreak settle in her chest like silt.

The river kept moving.

Because it always does.

But Spine knew exactly what she’d witnessed:

a place worth loving

treated like it didn’t matter. She could feel that in her bones.