“And… That’s it! I’ll be right back!” Em’s doctor says, snapping off her gloves and washing her hands in the sink.

Much easier coming out than going in, Em thinks, staring up at the fluorescent lights. As soon as the door closes, she extricates herself from the drape, pulls her clothes back on, and plonks herself into the chair again. She’s got this down to a routine.

She pulls out her phone. Phone battery: 5%. Ughhhhh. She forgot to charge it. She flops back in her chair, the vinyl squeaking under her. Now what?

Em doesn’t need a phone to wait. She’s an adult woman perfectly capable of existing without being glued to a device. In theory.

Unfortunately, the room doesn’t give her much to work with. A faded shingles vaccine poster hangs beside the door, featuring a weathered man with uncomfortably white teeth. Too young for that still.

Then there’s the basket of magazines about fashion and furniture from a few years ago, tattered and mostly ads. She flips through them anyway before staring blankly at the diagram of a coquettishly posed man with his digestive system mapped out. Duodenum, it says, pointing. Colon. Ulcerative colitis.

Her leg jiggles impatiently as she scans the room for literally anything else to do.

And then, fatefully, her attention lands on the bowl of condoms.

Normally, she’s not the condom type of girl. Too risky. Too many guys out there with a penchant for “accidentally” slipping up. But with Em getting her IUD removed and with other birth control being a no-go, condoms have shifted from something she awkwardly waved away at campus events to something she actually needs to stock up on.

And… There are just so many of them. Heaped up in a basket, a cornucopia of ultramarine, crimson, and gold. They almost sparkle dimly under the harsh light. All those years of saying no—it wouldn’t be so bad if she grabbed a handful this time, would it? Ethically, one could argue she’s owed a debt of condoms.

She straightens, one hand already near her purse, and listens for the doctor. Nothing.

It’s go time.

She scuttles over and furtively grabs a handful, cramming them into her little crossbody purse. She then casually returns to sitting like a demure lady who most definitely did not reduce the condom pile by a sizable chunk.

The doctor returns and doesn’t even glance at the basket. Heh. The perfect crime. In retrospect, though, keeping a sensible distance from the bowl may have been the wiser move.

The appointment ends, and pocketing a requisition for bloodwork, she steps out the door of her doctor’s office, the smell of sunbaked concrete marking mid-July. She’s got somewhere to be, so she immediately starts off for the bus stop. She’s approaching the top of the concrete stairs when she catches sight of her bus climbing the hill below, Vancouver unfolding behind it in layers of bright greenery, rooftops, and afternoon haze.

It’s the 145. A pretty frequent bus, every ten minutes or so. Wouldn’t hurt at all to miss it and take the next one. Barely make any impact on her schedule, really. So naturally, she makes a break for it like her entire future hangs on whether or not she catches this one. She barrels down the stairs in giant, awkward steps, willing to make a scene going full tilt if it means she’ll catch this bus.

She rounds the bus shelter as the bus brakes. Ready to rush onto the bus, she reaches deep into her purse, fumbling around in a panic. Oh, shit, where’s my wallet? Where—oh, there! She yanks it out.

Her wallet. Underneath the nest of condoms cozied up in her cute little purse.

The wallet comes out from under the little foil nest.

And the condoms, regrettably, have nowhere to go—

But up.

And this is how Em Dubois, thirty-five, finds herself facing down an approaching bus full of witnesses, more on the stairs, and still others waiting at the stop, while condoms rain down around her like she popped some sort of X-rated confetti at a bachelorette party.

This is unfortunate. More than pain, heartbreak, or fear, Em avoids embarrassment like the plague. And she learns something new about herself: Her embarrassment meter can blow so far past high that it breaks. She conveniently dissociates. Time slows down as she holds her breath.

Well, this is probably the most embarrassing moment of my life, she observes indifferently from somewhere outside her body. I have a decision to make. Neither option is good.

A) Shamefully flee onto the bus, leaving a trail of condoms behind me like I’m from some kind of adult Hansel and Gretel.

B) Stay and collect the condoms, missing the bus.

Em has spent enough time in therapy to know that discomfort is a terrible person to hand the steering wheel to, since it only ever wants immediate relief. And immediate relief has little interest in long-term consequences.

This is a pivotal moment in her life, she just knows it. And discomfort is currently screaming RUN.

The scales tip. She squares her shoulders. You know what? She shouldn’t be ashamed. They’re just condoms. She’s sex positive. This is a liberal city. And there aren’t that many people around. Her face burning, she steels herself and resigns to missing the bus, kneeling against the pavement while small rocks dig into her knees. Keeping her head down to avoid eye contact with anyone (out of sight, out of mind), she starts gathering up the condoms like she’s a shepherdess and they’re her lost sheep.

And then, to her absolute horror, the bus driver—on a route where drivers reliably peel off and rocket down the road like a bat out of hell—decides to wait for her.

Doesn’t he have somewhere better to be? she panics. She’s undecided if he’s being empathetic or sadistic. And on that note, one of the nearby witnesses steps out from beside the shelter and kneels next to her to help.

“Oh no, you—don’t—oh, thank you,” she stutters. He scoops them up and turns to her, and then she makes the mistake of looking up. Oh, no, he’s hot.

Of course he would be.

Dark hair tumbles in waves past his shoulders, a shooting star earring dangling from one ear. But it’s his eyes that catch her: strikingly intent on her as he reaches out with the condoms cradled in graceful hands. “That’s all of them,” he says with the slightest polite smile. He looks annoyingly pleased to have been pulled into her predicament.

She stands up quickly—too rigidly—and robot walks to the bus. The bus driver grins widely as she steps on. “Thank you…” she says weakly as she taps the card reader. She shuffles catatonically to a seat and collapses, exhaling against the window.

Oh, look, there’s the stranger out the window as the bus pulls away. Despite the crowded stop, no one stands particularly close to him, the bustle of people breaking oddly around him.

Wait, is he watching her? He still has his stupid little half smile. Why did he have to help? she mourns, covering her face until the bus takes her safely out of sight.

Welp. She’s adding this one to the vault. She has a habit of stocking up on these moments for leisurely rehashing when she’s trying to fall asleep before big workdays.

Em pulls out her phone. Phone battery: 4%. She was planning to go to a life drawing class, but after this spectacle, she’d rather not spend any more time in public. Home it is.

As summer greenery flashes by, bursts of sunshine breaking through the foliage, she texts her boyfriend Liam to let him know she’ll be home early. She also sends him a message on Discord, where she has about a 40% success rate of getting his attention.

One bus transfer and a ten-minute walk later, she reaches her apartment building, an unremarkable three-story walk-up from the 1980s. With beige walls, faded carpets, and popcorn ceilings, it’s… affordable. Passing through the glass doors, she’s greeted with the familiar dusty musk of her building. She twists her slightly bent mail key into her mailbox and pulls out an ad for a charity home lottery before tromping up the stairs. No, she’s not going to be staging any photo shoots here anytime soon, but it’s cozy and lived-in. Her neighbours are like her: quiet, busy, and doing their best to get by.

As she opens her apartment door, her spidey senses start to tingle. Something’s off. What—Oh.

A pair of unfamiliar shoes is waiting sexily by the door. Sleek and impractical, they look fully capable of killing her if she tried to wear them herself. Who—?

Her question’s answered when she hears conversation, not from the living area, but from the bedroom. She freezes, like she’s the one that got caught doing something bad.

Is this actually happening? Maybe it’s not. No need to jump to conclusions. She gingerly approaches her room, as afraid of being a bother as she is of finding out what’s behind door number one.

She opens the bedroom door to two flinching figures, the one who’s not Liam diving under the covers. Her stomach sinks. Unfortunately, conclusion jumping would’ve been a perfectly fine form of exercise here.

“Em!” he gasps. “What are you doing here?” He tugs at the blanket again like he’s ashamed of his nipples. It’s too late; she’s seen them.

“I… This is my bedroom.” She shrugs, gesturing around lamely. There’s an unpleasant ringing in her ears.

“I mean—aren’t you supposed to be at art class?” he asks, his tone verging on accusatory.

She’s not exactly experienced with what to do when faced with the whole “caught red-handed” routine, so she simply closes the door (for their privacy; she’s annoyingly considerate like that) and turns back around.

A sick heaviness settles in as she grabs her purse and heads out the door. She backtracks down the stairs and mentally ticks through her self-care checklist. Okay. Right. Draw on my support network.

She texts Lena.

She tacks on a sad eye emoji.

Then she waits on the sidewalk in front of her building. The sun’s warmth bakes her shoulders, an odd contrast against the coldness coursing through her. She resolves not to look back up at the window like an abandoned dog on the sidewalk. Instead, she shuffles around impatiently, hoping her phone buzzes soon.

Thankfully, Lena’s off work today.

“Why did he want monogamy, then, if he was just going to cheat?” Lena complains, picking carefully through her rainbow disc of nail gems. Sparkly. Em pokes through them, enjoying the light flashing around. Frank paws at it, and Lena shoos her away absently. The old calico glares at her in betrayal before retreating to watch from a safer distance.

Lena’s her best friend. She’s tall, fit, and a bit of an ass kicker, with manicured nails and immaculate strawberry blonde hair. Comparatively, Em has a hoodie (grey, faded), yoga pants (nicely black still, but now covered in cat hair), and a lazy ponytail. For self-care, she put Vaseline on her lips two nights ago.

She’s mostly fine being the frumpy one; there’s a comfort to blending in. Like a toad against a rock. Or something.

“I know,” Em agrees. “I made a point of explicitly addressing expectations at the beginning. And he was so insistent he’d never want anything open.” She sinks against the bed and clutches Lena’s shark stuffy.

“Single-dick rule,” she hears Lena tut. “Dude wanted to build himself a harem and have you stuck at home waiting on him.” Turning onto her side, Em watches Lena smooth beige polish onto her right pinky with precision.

“Maybe,” Em concedes. Frank starts making biscuits on her arm, purring loudly enough to vibrate through her sleeve. She pats the calico on the head. Frank rewards her with more cat hairs on her leg.

Lena continues to trash Liam, understandably furious on her behalf. It wasn’t only that Liam cheated. He’d also started talking about settling down, letting her rest after years of working two jobs while he finished school. “Let me take care of you for a change,” he’d said, and like an idiot, she believed him. After she gave notice at work, he started commenting passive-aggressively about her being home too much and spending “his” money.

I don’t know, maybe I let it happen, she thinks, fidgeting with the shark stuffy.

Once Lena winds down on trashing Liam, Em musters up the energy to tell her about the condom debacle.

Lena’s monumentally disappointed to have missed it. “I’m sure it was glorious,” she crows, demonstrating zero empathy. Em honestly appreciates the reframing. I’m sure this will make a hilarious story someday.

Still, as if the condom performance weren’t bad enough, running into an inconveniently hot stranger had been the cherry on the humiliation cake. The memory of his half smile rises unhelpfully, and Em buries her face in her hands again. Lena says nothing and continues working on her nails.

After a minute or two, Lena stops and gauges her. Em can practically hear the gears shifting into logistical mode now that she appears more stabilized. “So,” Lena says. “I looked it up, and there’s a biotech job fair coming up downtown on Sunday. I think you should go.”

The rent is infamously oppressive here, and many younger people cling to each other like survivors of a shipwreck to stay afloat with housing. Em absolutely cannot afford a breakup right now. She gives Lena puppy eyes.

Lena is unaffected. “I know, Em. It sucks. But it’s a tough market out there right now. You need to be proactive with this.” This time, her voice isn’t as playful.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Em replies. Despite the sizable gap in her resume, she has a strong career profile.

Hopefully. Em sighs. “Where’s the job fair?”

Lena laughs and grabs her phone. “There. I texted it to you.”

Em stares at it miserably.

Lena has progressed to touching up her nails with cotton swabs and acetone. “Look, worst case you can stay with me,” she offers. “I can’t guarantee reliable sleep with my shifts, but the offer’s there.”

Em files it as a fallback. “I appreciate it,” she replies noncommittally.

Em gets home and strips down, leaving her clothes in a tangled pile by the door like she’d gotten raptured. Liam’s nowhere to be seen. Works with me. She rummages in her cracked laundry hamper for pajamas that are passably clean, pointedly avoiding the mirror.

She returns from the kitchen with a plate of pickles, crackers, and cheese, then sits on her bed. She only sits on top of the comforter, though—there’s no way she’s sleeping in these sheets while there’s a possibility of mystery juices hiding in there, waiting for her. She shivers.

She wraps herself up in her oldest blanket, the rainbow stripes faded from frequent washing, and flops on her side to watch one of her comfort shows. Some people watch romcoms to cheer up, but Em finds she ends up feeling worse about her situation when the credits roll and it goes back to her, alone, staring at the blank screen in an empty room. So instead, she prefers dystopian horror. Tonight, it’s The Mist. She snacks through the scenes of grim horror and bleak futures. Could be worse, she tells herself. The sharpness inside her starts to wear away.

When the sleeping pill kicks in, she puts her half-finished plate on her nightstand and prays no ants will find it. I’ll brush my teeth extra tomorrow, she lies.

She rolls onto her back. The glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling shine cutely back at her. A few have fallen over the years, but enough remain to trace familiar constellations in the dark.

Back to square one. Alone. Caught in her thoughts, she tries not to feel sorry for herself. Then self-corrects, with her mini internal counsellor reminding her, It’s totally fine to feel sorry for yourself. It has a function. What function does this emotion serve?

She has no idea, but trying to figure it out, she falls asleep.

At one in the morning, the downtown core has mostly emptied into taxis and transit, with the occasional cluster of people laughing too loudly beneath the streetlights.

As comfortably as breathing, Vael moves through the streets without looking like he’s trying to avoid attention, though the city never seems to catch him cleanly. Beside him, Bryn scrolls through their phone, the light catching against the clean angles of their face. Cassia walks on his other side, hands in her pockets, her attention moving steadily over the street.

“He’s mostly rolled over,” Bryn reports. “The accounts are frozen, the board’s gone quiet, and three of his people are suddenly very eager to cooperate with authorities.”

“Good,” Vael replies.

Bryn’s mouth tightens. “Mostly.”

Vael glances over, amused. “Ah.”

“He’s pushing back through intermediaries. Carefully, but enough to be annoying.” Their thumb pauses over the screen. “Someone higher up the chain has started protecting him.”

Cassia exhales through her nose. “I’m guessing he thinks that makes him safe.”

Vael smiles then, almost pleased. “So he’ll need additional convincing.”

Bryn lowers the phone and gives him a flat look. “Vael, you already have a lot of heat right now.”

“Since when has that stopped me?”

“Historically? Never. That’s my concern.”

Vael smiles and considers their advice, looking out at the water glittering in the inlet. They’re not wrong. An annoying number of people have started to notice him. But his attention drifts. He thinks of the poor woman at the bus stop: burning red with embarrassment, surrounded by glittering little packets, her whole body locked in the desperate stillness of someone deciding whether to flee. And then squaring her shoulders anyway.

It’s one of humanity’s more inconvenient charms: the ability to be terrified, humiliated, and stubborn all at once. His stride shortens by half a step.

Bryn notices, because Bryn notices everything. “Vael.”

“Hm?” he asks innocently.

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I’m thinking.”

“We’re entering the documentation phase,” they say pointedly.

Vael holds out his phone. “Cover for me?”

Bryn stares at it like he’s offered them a live grenade. “I hate it when you say that.”

“And yet you’re excellent at it. I’ll only be gone for a couple of hours, anyway.”

After a moment, Bryn takes the phone. “If anyone calls from Seoul, I’m not pretending to be you.”

“Of course not,” Vael says, already looking around before stepping backwards into the mouth of an alley. The streetlight above him flickers. “You’re much more convincing as someone competent.”

Iridescence slips into the edges of the darkness, and Bryn and Cassia brace themselves. The sky blinks red before the alley is subsumed in shadow. The shadow unravels into the sky, leaving behind faint sparks of colour floating through the air.

High above, the moonlight dims as something vast passes soundlessly across the moon.

Cassia watches the empty alley for a moment. “Have you ever considered not sharing all the information with him?”

Bryn slides Vael’s phone into their pocket. “He finds out eventually either way.” Bryn looks down the street, where a convenience store casts fluorescent light onto the sidewalk. “Coffee?”

Cassia sighs, then starts walking. “Obviously.”