Junna tossed her backpack into the corner behind the door at the same time as she turned both locks.

“Sash!” Junna called, “You gotta be careful with the door! You keep forgetting to lock it!”

Sasha came dashing out of her room, wearing a yellow-paint splattered apron, wiping her hands with a towel, “Did I?”

“It isn’t safe, remember?” Junna said, placing her jacket on the hook, kicking off her shoes, then crossing to the living room where she flopped down onto the couch. “Anyone could walk in, and your only defense would be to flick paint into their eyeballs. Besides, what if they let the cats out?”

“Sorry! I’m sorry. I’m trying to do better, I promise,” Sasha said, tossing the towel back into her room.

A tiny white ball of fluff came running out of Junna’s room and jumped up onto the couch, smashing her furry little face against Junna’s face.

“Hey IDK, where’s Salsa?” Junna greeted, scratching her cat under the chin as she slowly sat up on the couch. As if on cue, Salsa came running into the room and jumped up onto the couch next to IDK, immediatedly crying for attention.

“Why are you the cat whisperer?” Sasha pouted. “I swear Salsa likes you more than he likes me, and he’s been my cat for six years.”

“Well, they clearly sense my crazy cat-lady vibes, and the fact that I am going to die alone with eighty cats. Besides, I’ve lived with him for four of those years, so at this point he’s half mine anyway.”

“You’re not going to die alone,” Sasha insisted, plopping down on the couch next to Junna. “You just gotta talk to Ayan and tell him how long you’ve been pining after him like a wistful schoolgirl. Then you can die old together with your eighty cats.”

“Okay, one, he’s my boss. Two, I don’t like him like that,” Junna blurted.

“Riiiighty,” Sasha rolled her eyes.

“Three! It would be wildly inappropriate, and he probably doesn’t like me back, and he may be schizophrenic.”

“That’s like five things,” Sasha pointed out, “and as far as I’m concerned, you still haven’t made your point.

Junna checked her watch and sighed. She was exhausted, but she knew she needed to get ready to go to her second job at the bar.

“I have to get ready for work,” Junna said, purposely ignoring Sasha’s conversation.

“You know, I picked up some more pamphlets for local colleges with a masters in Social Work. You don’t have to be scraping to get by every day. You never even have time off.”

“Well, working at the cafe doesn’t exactly pay very much when all the money goes toward charity. Ayan gives us what he can, but he can only do so much.”

“Then it may be time to move on,” Sasha suggested. “Look, I love volunteering there as much as anyone. Ayan is the sweetest guy. But you are wearing yourself absolutely ragged. You have like five hours a week off for you time, and you spend it worrying about the cafe. What if you take out some loans, and go back to school instead of the cafe for a bit until you can get your Master’s degree and make a real difference.”

“You don’t think we’re making a difference?” Junna frowned. “Do you know how many people we’ve helped? Hundreds! Weekly! With food, supplies, getting them set up in new homes. And Ayan has mentioned wanting to open a women’s shelter. Think of all the good we could do with that!”

“I’m well aware that you’re already making a difference, but think of all the good you can do as a social worker. All the resources you’ll have. All the resources you could send Ayan’s way.”

“Schooling will take years, and Ayan needs me now. He would be like a lost puppy without me. I mean, sure, he could get by for a while, until he gave away all of his worldly possessions and lived on the floor of kitchen naked and freezing. Oh god, I’m getting a stomachache just thinking about leaving him.”

“Because you’re in love with him!” Sasha exclaimed, grabbing up Salsa and speaking to the cat in an exaggerated tone, “Junna is madly in love with Ayan, but she won’t tell him because she’s afraid of him rejecting her.”

“What about the schizophrenia?” Junna asked.

“Who among us doesn’t talk to the voices in their heads?” Sasha asked. “Just today, the voice in my head told me to paint a duck, and now I’m covered in yellow paint because I couldn’t tell it no. And you know what? The voice was right! I painted a damn pretty duck.”

“Mmm,” Junna moaned, flopping her face down on the couch again and screaming into a pillow, before slowly sitting back up after the cats had bolted away. “I just wish I wasn’t so tired all the time. That I could afford to just work at the cafe and then breathe on my days off.”

“You have to take care of yourself first,” Sasha said. “I don’t know, maybe start an Onlyfans or something so you don’t have to work at the bar.”

“I don’t think the 35-year-old teal-haired cat-lady demographic is really popping on there, but if they want to watch me make coffee and solve a hundred different problems a day, all the power to them.”

Sasha laughed, “You’ll figure something out, I’m sure.”

“I know I need to make more of my life, but I love what I do. I really really do.”

“And you love him,” Sasha said, “and if you try to deny it again, I’m going to dump the last of the yellow paint on you.”

“Of course I love him, like a brother!” Junna insisted.

“Like a brother in Alabama?” Sasha teased. “Junebug, I’ve known you since we were five years old, and the only other man you have ever cared about this much was Marcus Collins in 7^th grade. And even then, you were able to move on when he moved away in 8^th grade after your three week crying spell. But I can’t imagine you moving on from Ayan without a drastic change. Not in this lifetime. You’ve worked with him since you were twenty-eight, and neither of you have had a steady relationship with anyone since then. When I’m volunteering there, I watch you both, and you’re looking at each other like you’re the only two people in the whole world. We’re almost forty, Junebug. If you want something real, something worth keeping, you need to make a move. Or you need to move on. You’re not young and spry anymore, and working yourself to death isn’t the way to go.”

“Where did all of this come from?” Junna asked.

“I’ve been worrying about you forever, you know that. And…well…I got some news today. Hang on, where did IDK go,” Sasha jumped up and ran off to find the cat, before returning to the couch with the white ball of fur and handing her to Junna. “Here is your emotional support cat.”

“Oh Jeez, what? Tell me now before I freak out!” Junna said, holding IDK close.

“It’s nothing bad! Well, not for me. I got a letter that they want me to teach at the Paris college of art in France next year. I would start in the Fall, so I have about a year to get everything ready. If I take it, I will be over there for several years.”

“Oh,” Junna said, a number of emotions rushing over her at the same time. She was staring into space, cuddling IDK when it finally occured to her to congratulate her best friend. “Oh my god, that’s amazing! That’s what you’ve been dreaming of for decades! I’m sorry, Sash, I’m so in my own head that I didn’t even think. Wow.”

“I know you’re feeling a lot of things right now, including worry. We do have some time before we have to change anything, and I won’t be just skipping out on the rental agreement we signed or anything. Who knows, I might also change my mind-”

“Absolutely not!” Junna said, sitting up straighter and glaring at Sasha. “This is your life’s dream come true! It’s happening, and we are going to make sure it happens, no matter what.”

“That sounds a bit like a threat,” Sasha smiled.

Junna chuckled, “Maybe just a bit. Ugh, I have to get going soon, but I want to celebrate this. I think I’ll call out at the bar tomorrow night so we can properly celebrate.”

“You don’t have to do that, though it would be nice to see you get rest for a change.”

Junna was a bit surprised when Sasha reached out a hand to take one of hers and hold it, “All I want right now is for you to find happiness. To find the life you deserve that will make you as happy as I am in this moment. You’re basically my sister. I’ve thought about asking you to come live with me in France.”

“You have?” Junna asked, looking down at the cat so that Sasha couldn’t see the tears welling now in her eyes.

“Think of how much good you could do over there. Maybe work at a non-profit or something. Learn French. Start a new life and become the best version of yourself.”

“I’m happy with this version of myself,” Junna said.

“You’re exhausted. Trust me, I know you better than anyone. You’re struggling, because you won’t pursue what you really want and you’re spreading yourself far too thin,” Sasha said.

“What do I really want?” Junna asked.

Junna blinked away the tears and looked up in time to see Sasha shake her head.

“You want to be happy,” Sasha said.

“Easier said than done,” Junna shrugged.

“You want to stop being a zombie because you’re constantly at work. And you want someone to love you the way you love them. I know that I felt that with my Gregory, before he passed. I dream about feeling it again someday, when I’m ready. That yearning to be consumed by another person, to have your lives so perfectly intertwined that you complete one another. It was the most incredible feeling.”

“I can imagine,” Junna muttered, remembering how long it had taken Sasha to come back from the brink after Gregory had suddenly passed. How devastating the whole process had been, and how it had been one of the main things holding Junna back from taking that leap, knowing how much she could get hurt, one way or another.

“I just want you to be happy, and right now, I don’t think you are,” Sasha said.

Junna nodded, “You’re right. I’ve got some things to think about. I just need a bit more time.”

Sasha leaned in and gave Junna a hug, “I love you so much.”

“I ruv roo too,” Junna managed to mutter with her face smooshed against Sasha’s shoulder.

Sasha smiled and headed back to her room, presumably to finish working on her painting. Junna glanced at her phone, her finger skimming down to her text conversation to Ayan. She tapped on his name, her thumb hovering over the keyboard, ready to spill out all of her feelings in one go. To let him know that he was the man she thought about, day and night. That he was her reason for getting up and going to work every day, and trying to make the world a better place. That when she looked into his soft brown eyes, she felt completely at home and safe, like she never had with another person, save perhaps Sasha.

She wanted so badly to say all of that, but instead, she closed out the Messages app, dropped her phone into her pocket, and headed to her room to get ready for her job at the bar.