The PowerPoint slide glowed against the glass wall like a beacon of corporate desperation. Juno Sinclair clicked to the next frame—another chart about "synergistic brand positioning"—and watched twelve executives in identical navy suits scroll through their phones.
"Our research indicates that millennials crave authenticity," she heard herself saying, the words tasting like sawdust. "So we recommend pivoting the messaging to emphasize genuine connections."
Linda Crawford, senior VP and professional dream-crusher, didn't look up from her iPhone. "Mm-hmm. And the ROI projections?"
Juno's finger hovered over the laptop trackpad. She'd spent three weeks crafting these slides, surviving on vending machine coffee and the false promise that this campaign would be different. That this time, someone would care about the story she was trying to tell.
"The projected return is eighteen percent over six months," she said, clicking to a graph that looked like every other graph she'd presented for the past four years.
"But what's the emotional hook here, Juno?" Linda's voice cut through the fluorescent hum. "I'm not feeling it."
Something snapped. Not loudly—more like the quiet crack of ice before it gives way completely.
Juno closed her laptop with a soft click that seemed to echo in the suddenly silent room. She looked around at the faces staring back at her—some curious, some annoyed, all trapped in the same glass box that had been suffocating her for years.
"You know what?" Her voice sounded strange, like it belonged to someone braver. "If you have to ask what the emotional hook is, maybe I'm not the right person to sell you one."
She tucked her laptop under her arm and walked toward the door. Behind her, someone dropped a pen. Greg from accounts whispered, "Wait—did she just quit?"
Juno paused at the threshold, her hand on the glass door handle. "I think I did."
Her apartment felt different when she walked in six hours later—smaller somehow, like a costume she'd outgrown. Still wearing her blazer and the heels that had been pinching her feet since 9 AM, Juno sank onto her living room floor among the scattered postcards she collected from every city she'd never visited.
Her phone buzzed against the hardwood. Greg. Then Linda. Then her mother, who had an uncanny ability to sense chaos from three states away. Juno silenced them all and reached for the half-empty bottle of wine she'd been saving for her next promotion.
The postcards stared up at her—Paris at twilight, Barcelona's colorful balconies, the Roman Colosseum bathed in golden light. Fragments of lives unlived, gathering dust on her floor like evidence of her own cowardice.
She picked up one that had been tucked behind her lamp for months. Carmen's handwriting scrawled across the back: Life's too short for beige cubicles.
Her phone rang. FaceTime. Carmen's name lit up the screen.
"Tell me you finally told Linda to choke on her synergy," Carmen said before Juno could speak. Behind her, the lights of some rooftop bar in Manhattan twinkled like scattered diamonds.
"I walked out of a meeting." The words felt foreign in Juno's mouth.
Carmen shrieked, nearly dropping her phone. "YES! Oh my God, yes! You beautiful, crazy—" She pretended to pour her martini through the screen. "This calls for a celebration. And a plan."
"Carmen, I don't have a plan. I just blew up my entire life."
"Good. Plans are overrated." Carmen's face grew serious for exactly three seconds. "Listen to me, Juno Elena Sinclair. This is your moment. The meltdown is just the beginning. You are officially free."
Juno laughed, a sound caught between hysteria and relief. "Free to do what? Live in my savings account until I starve?"
"Free to say yes to everything this summer. No regrets. No rules. You owe the world a love affair or a train wreck—preferably both."
After they hung up, Juno sat in the growing darkness of her apartment, staring at her laptop screen. The EuroRail website glowed like a dare. Her cursor hovered over the booking page, over destinations she'd whispered to herself during particularly soul-crushing Monday meetings.
Paris. Barcelona. Rome. Prague. Santorini.
Her credit card information filled the boxes almost without her permission, her fingers moving faster than her rational mind could catch up. When she clicked "Book," the confirmation email arrived instantly, as if the universe had been waiting for her to finally ask.
She opened her journal—the leather-bound one Carmen had given her for Christmas, still mostly empty—and wrote: Chapter One: Burn it all down.
O'Hare Airport at dawn smelled like overpriced coffee and possibility. Juno wheeled her suitcase through the terminal, her hair tied back with a silk scarf she'd found in the back of her closet, her feet comfortable for the first time in years in worn leather boots that had been waiting for an adventure.
She watched other travelers—businessmen clutching their phones like lifelines, families juggling strollers and passports, backpackers with that particular glow of people who'd chosen uncertainty over security. She pulled out her journal and started writing, capturing fragments of overheard conversations and the way morning light slanted through the terminal windows.
The gate agent's voice crackled over the PA system: "Now boarding Flight 42 to Paris Charles de Gaulle."
Juno stood, passport trembling slightly in her hand. Around her, people gathered their belongings with practiced efficiency, but she felt like she was moving underwater, everything slow and significant and strange.
She thought about the conference room she'd walked out of, about Linda's disappointed sigh, about all the campaigns she'd never pitch and all the meetings she'd never attend. The life she was leaving felt suddenly small and far away, like something viewed through the wrong end of a telescope.
Maybe I'm not lost, she thought, stepping into line behind a couple arguing in rapid French. Maybe I've just never let myself wander.
The boarding pass scanner beeped. The flight attendant smiled. Juno walked down the jetway toward whatever came next, her heart hammering against her ribs like something wild trying to break free.