Henry Strauss works the evening shift at The Last Word, a used bookstore that feels like the only place he hasn’t failed. While his friend Bea lounges and needles him about flirting, a customer named Emily asks Henry out; Henry declines, citing plans with Bea.

After closing, Henry reflects on the store’s absent owner, Meredith, and feeds Book, the shop’s old cat before heading to an off-off-Broadway show starring Robbie, Henry’s charismatic friend and former love. At the theater, performers “adorn” the audience with glitter; an actress paints gold on Henry’s cheeks and calls him “Perfect,” triggering an unsettling, intimate flash of memory.

During the play’s final rain-soaked scene, Henry is shaken by Robbie’s sudden vulnerability onstage. When the curtain falls, Bea notices Henry looks unwell; Henry realizes he has reopened the scar on his palm by digging in his nails, and he insists he is fine as they go to meet Robbie.

At Robbie’s crowded after-party, Bea is swept away, leaving Henry alone with his beer and his spiraling mood. A lead actress offers Henry shots with something dissolving at the bottom; he drinks despite thinking of faerie bargains, and the room begins to blur as his familiar depressive “storm” rolls in.

Trying to escape, Henry decides to leave, but the actress who painted him gold stops him, wipes glitter from his face, and pleads for him to stay. Henry kisses her, asks if she truly wants this, and—reassured—follows her into a bedroom, using the darkness and desire to briefly feel real and disappear.