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“That’s so easy for you to say! You always win!” Juliette throws her hands up.

“So, it is still about jealousy,” Luca scoffs, pushing off the railing. “Well, I don’t want anything to do with you now.”

Juliette pants, her chest heaving.

“I should’ve known,” Luca continues. “You made it clear that soulmates mean nothing to you. You told me so many times that you’d never choose me.” The words are sharp and cruel like shards of glass in her mouth. “You want this? Fine.” Luca curls her fingers into fists, nails digging into her palm. “We’ll go back to being rivals, and I’ll be damned if I ever let you win.”

Luca spins and walks away from Juliette, ignoring the calls of her name. She clamps her hand over her mouth as a sob threatens to overtake her. She can’t believe how stupid she was to believe that Juliette cared about anything other than herself.

Luca presses her knuckles against her chest, trying to suppress the pain rippling from her heart. She wonders, wildly, if it will be bloody when she pulls her hand back, as if Juliette has literally carved out her heart and left nothing but a gaping wound. She wishes she could turn off the tap on the riot of feelings that threaten to spill out of her like rancid oil.

The sounds of the party crash against her head as she stalks back to it. She twists her fingers together, flexing her knuckle bones andjoints to a stretching point before snapping them back the other way. Luca bites her lip and wishes she’d never had a taste of Juliette.

Nicky is right where she left him, a forlorn ghost among the solid outlines of drunk tennis players. Time blurs as Luca focuses on leaving, on safely getting them into a taxi. Nicky is a slurring mess, half draped across Luca’s lap. She watches the glittering lights of Miami weave by. She threads her fingers through Nicky’s hair, trying to calm herself as much as him.

She brings Nicky to her room and lets him pass out on her bed. She slumps onto the couch, halfway to the kitchen in an effort to make tea, but her emotions catch up to her. She curls her legs into her chest and wraps her arms around herself in an attempt to become as small as possible.

She presses her forehead to her knees as a disgusting, raw sob rips free from her chest.

Many times, when she’d been a child, her mother had found her curled up in a similar position, hiding from her father and trying to hold back tears. And like then, she wishes someone was here to comfort her. To rub her back and gently brush the hair off her face, to pull her into the warm tenderness of a blanket and tell her it will all be okay.

It is harder to stop crying than Luca expected. It’s been bubbling up for weeks, months, perhaps even decades. She’s had big losses that weigh heavily on her chest, a burden all athletes can relate to. And she’s cried over those before. But it’s nothing like this.

This swallows her. This is full-body bawling, and she can’t stop. She is certain she’s never felt like this before, but it still is like horrific déjà vu, like she’s lived through it already. Perhaps this is an ancestral pain, a ripple effect from generations of emotionally stunted Kacics. Perhaps it runs deeper than that. Perhaps this is the unfolding of fault lines that will eventually rend her soul in two. She wonders if a soulmate breaking your heart is fatal.

But eventually, because she is only human, the indescribable and insatiable urge to cry tapers off. Her face is a mess, sticky with snotand tears. Her eyes are swollen, and a truly skull-cleaving headache pounds away in her brain.

She needs to put the pieces back together. She doesn’t need Juliette.

“Lou?”

She looks up, and Nicky is standing in front of her.

“What’s wrong?” he asks urgently.

Luca fully intends to explain, but when she opens her mouth, she crumples again. A sob rips free before Nicky crushes her into a hug.

“Did she hurt you?” Nicky asks into her hair, his hand rubbing against her back and calming the spasming emotions making it hard to breathe.

“Juliette broke up with me. Said we’d be better off as friends.” The words hurt to say.

Nicky nuzzles against her temple. “Oh.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Luca says, lifting her head. Nicky cups her cheek, brushing her tears away.

“I’m not the best person to ask what to do,” he says, his face blotchy and his lower lip quivering.

“I’m sorry, Nicky,” Luca murmurs. “I shouldn’t have ignored you.”

Nicky tilts his head. “I forgive you. It’s clear whatever was between you and Juliette was intense.”

Luca nods. “God, this is such a mess.” She mops her face with her sleeve.

Nicky laughs, a hoarse and broken thing. “We’re both messes.” He dips his head, pressing their foreheads together. “Maybe that’s why we’re best friends.”

Luca takes Nicky’s open hand, clasping their palms together. “What do we do now?”

“You don’t have to do anything right now. I think our best course of action is to eat our weight in ice cream.”