Excerpt: Nicola Yoon's Short Story from the Meet Cute Anthology

A staple of romances, a "meet cute" is the moment when our heroes first lock eyes…and the sparks fly. It could be at the counter of a coffee shop, in the brig of an alien spaceship, or across the floor of a Regency-era ballroom. Regardless of how or where they happen, "meet cutes" signal that our heroes' destinies are inextricably linked.

The new short story collection Meet Cute explores and celebrates this pivotal moment. Featuring an all-star cast of young adult talent—Jennifer L. Armentrout (Lux), Nina LaCour (We Are Okay), Sara Shepard (Pretty Little Liars), and more!—the anthology follows characters bonding over everything from a cranky customer service tweet to a missing library book.

Nicola Yoon, the acclaimed author of The Sun Is Also a Star and Everything, Everything, shares an excerpt from her Meet Cute short story, "The Department of Dead Love." In the strange, speculative world Yoon creates, relationships are resolved through efficient bureaucracy. But can red tape really help matters of the heart?


The Department of Dead Love

The Department of Dead Love looks nothing at all like I expected. For instance, Cupid is not hanging by his entrails out front, bow and quiver lying cracked in a pool of viscous, semisweet pink fluids. The building is not a drab and windowless gray monstrosity designed to cow you into submission the moment you enter it like so many government buildings are. The DODL is not even just one building. It's a campus of them, and they are quite beautiful, actually. The committee of architects who designed the campus believed that aesthetic beauty could stave off despair.

They were wrong.

Nevertheless, the buildings are exquisite. Unrequited Love is the color of lavender tea steeped a little too long and shaped like a cresting wave. Breakups is an orange starburst of a building, like a firecracker just exploding. Bereavement is the most sedate of the buildings—a periwinkle blue lily at dusk. Most people agree that Young Love is the prettiest of all the buildings. It's the tentative green of a new leaf and shaped like a single blade of grass. Separated from the main campus by a wide blue lake and a wooden suspension bridge, it's only intended for anyone eighteen or younger. Before the building was commissioned there was a great debate about whether young people should be excluded from the general populace. After all, they too experienced unrequited love. They agonized through unexplained breakups. They suffered the debilitating loss of death. In the end, it was decided that the intense nature of young love warranted a building all its own.

The DODL's beauty is not limited to the buildings. It extends to the employees. HeartWorkers, as they're called, must have excellent Empathy Exam scores and complete a long apprenticeship before they're allowed to tend to the brokenhearted public. City workers though they may be, they are an attractive, generous, and joyous people, always ready with a smile and a hug and a "Time Heals."

That's the department's motto, by the way. Time Heals. It's inscribed on the facade of each building. It's stamped on all the stationery. It's inscribed in cursive on small golden plaques in each stall of every bathroom on every floor. I would know, as I've been in them all.

By now you're asking yourself, what brings this young man here to Young Love? More specifically, what brings him to the Office of Emotional Recovery located on the very highest floor? Even more specifically still, what brings him to the cubicle of Gabrielle Lee at the Relationship Autopsy desk?

It was a breakup.

An abrupt one.

An unexplainable one.

When relationships end, a negligible percentage of them get to have a Do Over. No one knows what the rules for getting one are, but if you are granted one, you get to have your memories reset and do your relationship over.

So. That's why I'm here. I'd very much like to do my relationship over.

__ __ __ __

"I don't understand. Everything was perfect when she ended it," I say as soon as I enter the cubicle. It's what I've said to every HeartWorker who's interviewed me so far. It takes a very long time to get referred to Relationship Autopsy. You have to make it past the Other Fish in the Sea; It's Not You, It's Him/Her; and Did You Really Love Him/Her Anyway? desks. The counselors there are excellent at helping you cope, recover, and move on so that you don't end up here.

But I don't want to cope or recover or move on. I want to understand. And then I want another chance.

The HeartWorker in the cubicle—Apprentice Gabrielle Lee, according to the nameplate—puts down the tablet she's holding and looks up at me. I'm surprised by how young she is. I'd guess she's around my age, seventeen or maybe eighteen. All the HeartWorkers I've met so far in Emotional Recovery are considerably older. Then I remember that she's an apprentice—the sole apprentice ever to have a position in Relationship Autopsy. Her Empathy Exam scores must have been perfect.

"Please have a seat," she says. Her face is a polite blank, no everything-is-going-to-be-all-right smile here. I'd heard that Autopsy workers weren't quite as cheerful, not quite as indulgent as others. Less ready with a smile and a platitude. I can understand that. It's a tough line of work, sorting through the detritus of dead relationships all day, trying to find the reason for their demise.

I sit. Unlike all the other chairs in all the other DODL offices, this chair is straight-backed and hard and uncomfortable. This is not a place to get comfortable in.

She picks up the tablet she'd been reading when I walked in and begins: "It says here that Miss Samantha Fuentes broke up with you ten months ago. Is that correct, Mr. Marks?"

"You can call me Thomas."

She just waits for me to respond.

"That's correct," I mumble, looking down at my hands. Even now, after all this time, thinking about the night we broke up makes my stomach lurch.

"And you were together for five months, four days, and twenty-one hours. Is that also correct?"

Did I imagine the arch tone in her voice? I look up and meet her eyes. They're clear brown and almost too big for her small face. I can't read any emotion in them.

"Yes," I say. "That's correct."

"So at this point you've been broken up for more than twice the length of the relationship."

Was that a question? I'm fairly certain HeartWorkers aren't supposed to judge you. It's in the Charter. Of course things might be different for Autopsy workers. No one knows much about them.

Nevertheless, I'm definitely feeling a little judged. I take a closer look at her. Her skin is pale brown, almost the same shade as mine, but with pinkish undertones. Her hair is short, with soft curls that frame her face. She reminds me of something out of a fairy tale—a pixie or a woodland sprite.

If I noticed pretty girls anymore, I think I might think she was pretty. I scan her desk hoping to find something personal so I can get a handle on her personality, but there's nothing, not even a bowl of you'll-feel-better-soon-but-for-now-bury-your-feelings-with-candy candy.

Apprentice Lee is not trying to convince me that everything is going to be okay. Maybe she realizes that if you've gotten to the Relationship Autopsy offices, you already know that. There's something kind about that honesty.

"Yes," I say. "It's been over for more time than we were together and I'm still not over it. I don't think I'll ever be over it."

Her face softens, wide eyes meeting mine. I almost expect her to say Time Heals, and I'm glad when she doesn't.

It's not that I need to convince her to perform my Autopsy. She's going to do it anyway. But I want her to understand why I need to be here. That way maybe she'll agree to grant the Do Over when the time comes.

"Have you ever been on a roller coaster, Apprentice Lee?"

She nods.

"You know when you get to the top of the first drop, how the car pauses there for a few seconds to build up anticipation and then it starts to plunge and you get that sick, terrified, hollow feeling in your stomach? I mean, in your mind you might not actually be scared, but your body doesn't care about that. It only knows there's been some mistake and it's falling. That's how I feel all the time now. I need it to stop. I need to know what happened."

She doesn't say anything for a few seconds, but presses her hand at against her chest like she's trying to keep something in. "Thomas," she says, "you can call me Gabby. Come back tomorrow and we'll get started."