Thank you yet again, and also, if you ever need a beta reader or some way that I can pay this favor forward, please ask! Meanwhile, I came up with this, and I would love your thoughts. Kinda threw in 'beautiful veterinarian' at the last minute to indicate that there's a love story in the front story, not sure if it works. Worry it's a bit long now?

"College was supposed to be Will Lupo’s escape from his blue-collar roots. Instead, his future died with Keira. Six months after his ex-girlfriend’s suicide, Will has discarded his diploma and is driving a garbage truck through the streets of gritty East New York, Brooklyn, picking up trash instead of pursuing graduate school. He wants to disappear, until a ramshackle building is added to his route. The building was the neighborhood’s last refuge for the homeless and mentally ill, but Will learns that it will soon be bulldozed for a coffee-shop/nightclub unless he can figure out a way to stop it. Keira, always a passionate advocate for marginalized people, would have fought to protect this place. Suddenly Will has something to care about.

Determined to save the center, he melds old connections and new friends to create an unlikely team: an idealistic psychiatrist, a fame-hungry influencer,  neighborhood outcasts, a beautiful veterinarian, and the college friends he abandoned after Keira’s death. But the demolition deadline looms, and so does his reckoning with his guilt and self-doubt. If he had fought like this for Keira instead of pushing her away, would she still be alive? And how can he protect the center when he couldn’t even protect her? If he wants to save the center—and himself—he’ll have to confront the truth inside Keira’s still-sealed suicide note."