Stick With Me, Please

Vignette I — Aisle 4, Trader Joe’s, Silver Lake

She isn’t here to shop. Not really. She stands in front of the avocados like she’s trying to pick a religion. Each one waxy and green, the kind of green that lies. Some still stone-hard. Some already bruising beneath the skin. It’s a quiet kind of cruelty, how they all look the same on the outside.

The overhead lights buzz like they’re tired too. A baby cries two aisles over. Somewhere behind her, someone giggles while saying “kombucha drama.”

She presses her thumb gently into one of the fruits, like it might tell her a secret. It doesn’t. None of them do. Her chest feels like a locked box. She’s not sad exactly — just sinking. In the way where no one notices until you’re already under. She came here for… something. Distraction, maybe. Fluorescence. A place where she could exist without anyone asking why.

That’s when she sees it. Tucked beneath the lip of a display crate. Curled at the edge like it’s been waiting.

A yellow Post-It.

She peels it off with tentative fingers. It sticks slightly. The adhesive still fresh. The ink is slightly smudged in the corner, like someone wrote it with trembling hands.

“You didn’t survive this far to disappear now.”

No context. No name. Just this sentence, sitting in her palm like a lifeline. She blinks. Once. Twice. Feels that familiar sting press behind her eyes, the one she swore she’d trained herself out of.

No one sees her. The guy next to her is weighing limes and humming Hozier. The cashier at register six is laughing at something in his AirPods. And yet, this little square of paper knows exactly where she is.

She folds it once, then again, and tucks it into her coat pocket like a prayer. Leaves the avocados. Leaves the store. Walks into the golden static of late afternoon, wondering if maybe — just maybe — she’s not as invisible as she feels.

Vignette II — Bus Stop at Sunset, Echo Park

They sit on the splintered bench like furniture in a forgotten waiting room. The kind you find in DMV corners or hospital corridors — meant for passing time, not staying long. A plastic bag rests between their sneakers. Inside: a bag of Takis, a half-finished water bottle, two crumpled resumes, and a pair of socks with tiny moons on them. Things you carry when you’re not sure where you’re going next.

The sun is leaking out behind the palm trees, turning the whole city syrup-colored and slow. The streets hum. Laughter erupts from the boba shop behind them. Someone rolls past on a skateboard, filming themselves in selfie mode, golden-hour halo catching their cheekbones like they’re the main character in a movie that always ends on time.

It’s hard to believe the world is still spinning when you haven’t felt real in days. They shift their weight. Their hoodie sleeve brushes against something rough, stuck to the bus stop’s glass side panel. At first, they think it’s a sticker, graffiti maybe, something political or crass.

But it’s just paper. Yellow. Curling slightly at the corners. They peel it off. The ink looks rushed — like it was written in a single breath.

“You have survived every day up to now. That makes you unspeakably strong.”

They blink. The buses keep passing. Not stopping. Not for them. Cars blur. The sky deepens into lavender, then bruise. They stare at the Post-It until it doesn’t look like letters anymore, just shapes. Loops. Lines someone made when they cared enough to leave something behind.

And for the first time all week, they exhale without choking on it.

They press the note against their thigh until the sticky gives out, then fold it slowly. Carefully. Like it might shatter if they rush. It goes into the front pocket of their hoodie, next to a bus pass they haven’t used.

They don’t know where they’re going. But they stay.

Vignette III — Coffee Shop Bathroom, West Hollywood

The bathroom is fake-chic. Polished concrete floors. Neon sign above the mirror that says “you’re glowing” in lowercase cursive. The kind of place where even the toilet paper feels curated.

He locks the door and leans against it like he’s been running for days. He hasn’t. But surviving here sometimes feels like cardio.

It’s too quiet. The bass from the café out front pulses through the wall like a distant heartbeat. The smell of cinnamon oat milk and bleach lingers thick in the air.

He doesn’t want to look in the mirror. He never does. But it’s there. Big. Harsh. Waiting. He glances anyway. Regrets it immediately. The binder’s too tight. Or maybe it’s not tight enough. The shirt clings wrong. The jawline isn’t doing what it’s supposed to. The skin feels too soft. Too sharp. Too loud. He stares anyway. What’s the point of running from a face that follows you?

That’s when he notices the Post-It. Crooked. Slapped on the bottom corner of the mirror like a secret someone didn’t want found too easily. The ink bleeds slightly from steam.

“Your reflection is not an apology. You are allowed to take up space.”

His chest seizes. It’s not a gasp, not a sob — more like a pressure release valve. Something inside him unclenches in a way that hurts. He traces the words with his fingertip like maybe it’ll write something back. He has read a thousand affirmations, followed all the self-love accounts, memorized every quote from every zine — but this feels… different. This feels like it was written for him. By someone who knows what it’s like to flinch at your own outline.

He takes a picture of the note. Then peels it off, gently, folding it in half and slipping it into the back of his phone case like a talisman.

Before he leaves, he stares in the mirror just five seconds longer. Long enough to notice the color of his eyes. Long enough to let the breath settle in his ribs. Then he rejoins the world. It doesn’t notice. But he does.

Vignette IV — The Last Bookstore, Downtown LA

He walks the aisles like he’s underwater. Everything in this place is quiet in that heavy way, like a cathedral. Or a museum of things people once believed in. Books lean against each other like tired bodies. The air smells like paper and dust and skin oil — human residue on every spine.

He moves toward the fiction section. Not because he wants to read. He hasn’t read a full sentence in weeks. His mind keeps skipping like a scratched CD. He just wants to hold something with weight. Something that won’t ask anything from him.

His fingers close around a worn paperback with a cracked spine and a faded cover. It’s been loved. Or at least handled. A lot. He opens it randomly. A slip of yellow falls out. Not a receipt. Not a price tag. A Post-It.

He doesn’t react at first. Just stares at the square of paper like it might be a spell.

It says:

“Even the quietest people carry galaxies. You don’t owe anyone a performance.”

His throat burns. He hasn’t spoken all day. Maybe longer. No one knows he’s here. No one texts anymore. He stopped answering weeks ago, and the world politely moved on. But this — this knows something. This feels like it was left by someone who also knows what it’s like to live in silence so thick, you forget what your own voice sounds like.

He presses the note between the pages of the book and closes it gently. Doesn’t buy it. Doesn’t put it back on the shelf, either. Just slides it between two larger novels, hidden but reachable. Someone else will find it. That thought… steadies him.

He walks out without looking back. The bell above the door chirps. Outside, the city keeps moving — buses, jackhammers, sirens.

But inside his chest, just for a second, there’s room for breath.

Vignette V — Rooftop, Line Hotel, Koreatown

She doesn’t remember taking the elevator up.

One minute, she was in the lobby, sipping cold coffee she didn’t order. The next, the skyline was shivering beneath her boots, and she was staring at the edge of the rooftop like it might open its mouth and swallow her.

The air’s thinner up here. Colder. Sharp, even though it’s September and the city below is still sticky with heat.

Behind her, through the glass, there’s a wedding reception playing out in slow motion. Soft disco lights. A man twirling a child in a pink tulle dress. Somewhere, someone’s singing a too-sincere karaoke version of “Time After Time.”

She feels like a ghost at her own wake. No one has looked at her. No one ever does when she’s this quiet.

She walks to the edge, not fast. There’s no panic in it. Just inevitability. A sigh at the end of a sentence. Her hands tremble, not with fear, but from the aftershock of holding everything in for too long.

She reaches into her coat pocket, maybe for a tissue, maybe just something to do with her hands. Instead, her fingers brush paper. She blinks. Pulls it out. It’s yellow. Folded twice. The kind of note someone writes in a rush. Maybe left behind on purpose. Maybe not. The ink wavers slightly, as if written while crying.

“Please stay. Just one more sunrise.”

She stares at it like it’s a hallucination. Like maybe the city has started talking back. The skyline glows like it knows something. The streetlights below flicker into constellations. The wind shifts, curling around her ears like a whisper.

She reads the note again. And again. And again. Not because she doesn’t understand it. But because something in her wants to believe it.

One more sunrise.

She steps back. Just a few inches. But enough. Enough to breathe without wincing. She folds the note and presses it to her chest like it might restart her heart. It doesn’t. But it does remind her it’s still beating.

Inside, the child in pink runs past the glass. Their eyes meet — just for a flicker — and the girl waves. It feels like a tether. She walks back to the elevator. No one sees her leave. But the wind does. And it doesn’t call her back.

Vignette VI — The Girl Who Left the Notes

She doesn’t say goodbye. Not to anyone. Not even the ones who might’ve deserved it. Not because she doesn’t care — she does, too much, all the time — but because she’s already watched people change the subject when she said she was tired. Not sleepy. Just… tired of being alive.

She walks the city like it’s a place she used to believe in. Silver Lake, Echo Park, Downtown, Mid-City. Her boots ache by noon, but she keeps going. Like muscle memory. Like ritual.

She’s got a pack of Post-Its in her pocket — sunshine yellow, the color of warnings and cheap joy. A pen with a cap she keeps almost losing. And hands that shake more today than yesterday.

She’s been writing the notes for a while now. Weeks. Maybe longer. She doesn’t remember why she started. She just knows it made her feel less invisible. Like maybe someone would see her handwriting and think, Oh. Someone else has felt this too.

The city doesn’t look at her. It never has. The women in Pilates sets walk right past. The couples holding hands glance through her. The valet guy outside the hotel doesn’t even nod.

She leaves a note in a Little Free Library:

“You are not too much. You were just in the wrong hands.”

Tapes one to the underside of a payphone receiver no one will use:

“You don’t have to earn your right to exist.”

Slips one into the pages of a planner on a display table at Target:

“You don’t have to be productive to be worthy.”

She doesn’t cry. She’s past crying. There’s just the hum. The ache. The click of the pen. The rhythm of leaving pieces of herself behind like it might matter. She gets a smoothie. Tosses half of it. Buys a candle she won’t light. Sits on a bench in Griffith Park and writes her final one. The sky is bleeding out in sherbet colors. It’s beautiful. She feels nothing.

The last note takes her the longest to write. The paper crumples slightly where her grip tightens.

“If you’re reading this, I didn’t stay. But I hope you do.”

She sticks it to the inside of a vending machine window, behind a bag of off-brand Doritos. It stares out at no one. She stands there for a second longer than she should. Then turns. And disappears into the noise.

No one stops her.

No one sees.

Except the wind.

And it lets her go.

Epilogue: Found on a Park Bench, Griffith Park

They don’t mean to sit.

They were just passing through. Shoes worn down to the shape of nowhere. Eyes hollow from one too many nights pretending their bed was a boat that could drift them away. No destination. No plan. Just gravity.

The bench is sun-warmed. Their body folds into it like something heavy finally giving in. The city buzzes behind them — distant sirens, dogs barking, a child shrieking joyfully as someone chases bubbles.

They stare at the trees and feel absolutely nothing. No fear. No future. Not even the relief they thought would come. Just stillness.

And then —

They see it.

Something fluttering beneath the bench. Almost missed. A yellow square. Taped corner barely clinging to the wood grain. They reach for it with hands that don’t even know why.

It’s a Post-It. Faded from sun, corners curled. The ink is jagged, like it was written with the weight of too much.

“If you’re reading this, I didn’t stay. But I hope you do.”

They blink. It doesn’t hit like thunder. It hits like a hand on their shoulder. Like someone across time and skin saying,

I was here too.

They read it again. And again. And then they fold it — gently, like a goodbye they weren’t ready for — and place it in the pocket closest to their heart.

They sit a little longer. Then pull a napkin from their bag. A pen. Write something small. Fold it in half. And when they rise, they leave that note on the bench, tucked just beneath the original. They walk away without looking back.

The wind picks up.

And the new note reads:

“Me too.”

DEDICATION

For anyone who is depressed, alone, and struggling in ways they cannot even speak aloud —
This is for you.

For the ones who smile so others don’t worry.
For the ones who crack jokes in group chats, then cry in parking lots.
For the ones who leave kindness like breadcrumbs while they’re quietly starving inside.
For the ones who carry everyone else’s pain without being asked.
Who check in on people and never get asked how they’re doing.
For the ones who are told they’re “too dark,” “too much,” “too quiet,” “too heavy,” and learn to carry it all in silence.
Who disappear a little more every time someone says, “you’re so strong,” and then walks away.
For the ones who feel like shadows in crowded rooms.
Who know how to be invisible in fluorescent lighting.
For the ones who have practiced goodbyes they never said out loud.
Who have thought about not waking up and hated themselves for even thinking it.
For the ones who keep surviving, even when it hurts.
Especially when it hurts.
You are not invisible.
You are not too far gone.
You are not broken beyond repair.
You are not weak for struggling.
You are seen.
You are loved.
You are still here, and that is a kind of magic.
And light still shines through a broken window.
Even when the glass is cracked.
Even when no one else is looking.
Stick with me, please.

I hope you do.
I hope I do.

— Missy