CHAPTER 16
1428 Words
The Quirky Coworker
On day twelve of Lena’s personal apocalypse, someone knocks on her apartment door at 10:17 a.m.
She hasn’t answered a knock in eleven days.
She’s wearing the same hoodie (Eli’s navy one, now permanently fused to her body), hasn’t washed her hair since the sidewalk, and is currently lying on the floor staring at the ceiling like it owes her rent money.
The knock comes again, three sharp raps followed by a singsong voice that could cut glass.
“Le-naaaa Vale, I know you’re in there! Your sad-girl Spotify playlist is bleeding through the walls!”
Lena sits up so fast she gets dizzy.
She knows that voice.
It belongs to Juno Park: twenty-six, five-foot-nothing, hair currently dyed cotton-candy pink, resident chaos goblin of the bookstore’s marketing team, and the only human alive who can make Lena laugh when she actively wants to die.
Juno knocks again. “I brought reinforcements! There’s a matcha latte with oat milk and two extra shots, plus a croissant the size of your existential crisis!”
Lena drags herself to the door, undoes the chain with shaking fingers, and opens it exactly four inches.
Juno stands there in overalls covered in tiny embroidered mushrooms, holding a paper bag and a green drink that looks radioactive.
Her eyes do a quick sweep of Lena’s corpse-bride aesthetic.
“Yep,” she says cheerfully. “We’re at DEFCON Sad-Girl. Excellent. Move aside, I’m coming in.”
She shoulders past before Lena can protest.
Lena closes the door and turns to find Juno already in the kitchen, opening cabinets like she owns the place.
“Wow, this is impressively tragic,” Juno calls over her shoulder. “I give it a solid 9.7 on the Lana Del Rey scale. Points deducted only because you still have wine left in the fridge.”
Lena hugs herself. “How did you find my apartment?”
“HR emergency contact list plus my natural stalking abilities. Also you’ve been dead on Slack for twelve days and I got worried you were building a blanket fort and planning to live in it forever.” She finds two plates, starts unwrapping pastries. “Spoiler: that’s my move, I already called dibs.”
Lena watches her like she’s an alien species.
Juno turns, hands on hips. “Okay, ground rules. You don’t have to talk about the boy, the best friend, or the tragic rom-com you’re currently starring in. You just have to eat this croissant and let me sit here until the vibes improve by at least 7%. Deal?”
Lena opens her mouth to say leave, but what comes out is a cracked, “I look like death.”
“Death wishes she had your bone structure.” Juno shoves the croissant into Lena’s hands. “Eat. Sugar is science.”
Lena takes a bite because arguing feels impossible.
Juno flops onto the couch, kicks off her platform boots (they have tiny googly eyes glued to the toes), and pats the cushion next to her.
“Sit. I brought backup.”
She pulls a tiny Bluetooth speaker from her overall pocket, connects it, and suddenly the apartment is filled with the chaotic sounds of hyperpop remixed with lo-fi beats.
Lena sits.
Juno studies her for a long moment.
“You know what your problem is?” she says conversationally.
“I have several.”
“True, but the main one is you’re treating heartbreak like a solo sport. It’s not. It’s a team activity. You need a weirdo in mushroom overalls to remind you that the world is ridiculous and you’re allowed to be ridiculous back.”
Lena snorts despite herself.
Juno grins like she just won the lottery.
“Progress!” She pulls out her phone. “Okay, emergency protocol. We’re doing the Thing.”
“What thing?”
“The Thing that saved me after my ex stole my cat and my Switch. Watch and learn.”
She opens t****k, scrolls for exactly seven seconds, then shoves the phone into Lena’s hands.
It’s a video of a raccoon trying to wash a cotton candy and dissolving it in confusion.
Lena stares.
Then she laughs: one sharp, surprised bark that turns into actual laughter, the first in weeks.
Juno pumps her fist. “Yes! Dopamine achieved!”
She queues up another: a cat dramatically falling off a couch in slow motion, set to opera.
Lena laughs harder.
By the fourth video (a guy attempting to cut a watermelon with rubber bands until it explodes), Lena is wheezing, tears streaming down her face for an entirely new reason.
Juno watches her with quiet satisfaction.
When the laughter fades, Lena wipes her eyes. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you’re my favorite person at work and you’ve been missing for almost two weeks and I refuse to let you become a cautionary tale.” Juno’s voice softens. “Also because I know what it’s like to f**k up the best thing you ever had and think you don’t deserve to be happy again. Spoiler: you do. It just looks different than you planned.”
Lena’s throat closes.
Juno nudges her shoulder. “You don’t have to be fixed today. You just have to be slightly less dead inside. Baby steps.”
They spend the next three hours on the couch eating pastries, watching increasingly unhinged animal videos, and Juno telling the most chaotic stories from her dating history (the girl who proposed on the first date with a Ring Pop, the guy who ghosted her because she beat him at Mario Kart, the non-binary situationship who turned out to be three raccoons in a trench coat (probably)).
Lena laughs until her ribs hurt.
At 4:12 p.m. Juno stands up, stretches, and declares, “Phase two: shower and clothing that isn’t depression cosplay.”
Lena tries to protest.
Juno levels her with a look. “You smell like sad laundry and broken dreams. Shower. I’ll pick an outfit.”
Twenty minutes later Lena emerges in actual pants and a soft sweater Juno found in the back of the closet (tags still on, a gift from Maya last Christmas).
Juno whistles. “There she is. Welcome back, legend.”
She drags Lena out of the apartment before she can change her mind.
They end up at a tiny plant shop in Bed-Stuy where Juno insists heartbreak is cured by adopting something that depends on you to live.
Lena leaves with a tiny succulent in a ceramic cat pot.
Juno names it Sir Charles Barkley III.
On the walk home Juno links their arms.
“You’re not allowed to disappear again,” she says. “I’m officially your emotional support gremlin now. It’s in writing.” She pulls out her phone, opens Notes, and shows Lena a document titled “Contract of Chaos” with actual bullet points.
Lena reads it and laughs again.
When they reach her building, Juno hugs her tight.
“Text me tomorrow,” she says fiercely. “Or I’ll show up with a megaphone and a mariachi band.”
Lena hugs back. “I will.”
Juno starts to leave, then turns back.
“One more thing.”
She pulls something from her pocket: a small enamel pin shaped like a broken heart with a Band-Aid across it.
She pins it to Lena’s sweater.
“For when you’re ready to start patching yourself up,” she says softly. “No rush.”
Lena looks down at it, eyes filling.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
Juno salutes. “Anytime, babe.”
She walks away, pink hair bouncing, boots clomping.
Lena stands in the hallway for a long time holding Sir Charles Barkley III and the tiny broken-heart pin.
She doesn’t feel fixed.
But for the first time in weeks, she feels… seen.
She goes inside, sets the succulent on the windowsill where the light hits it just right, and opens her phone.
She starts a new group chat: just her and Juno.
Lena
thank you for today
I owe you approximately one million croissants
Juno’s reply is instant:
start with one and we’ll call it even
also Sir Charles is judging you if you don’t water him
Lena smiles (small, crooked, real).
She doesn’t check the old chat with Eli.
She doesn’t need to.
The regret is still there.
But for the first time, it’s not the only thing in the room.
End of chapter sixteen.
Enter the emotional support gremlin.
Lena’s not healed, but she just got her first real breath of
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