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He could try to deny it all day, but I knew the words he spoke to me. I memorized them and replayed them way too often for him to try to erase them from existence.

There was no holding my tears back anymore. “Fuck off, Richard.”

“I’m sorry.” His hands flew to his head, and he fisted his hair in frustration. “Please come back, let’s talk this out.”

“There’s nothing to talk out.” I wiped at my face.

“I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep getting my hopes up just to always be crushed.

I came tonight thinking…thinking…” I couldn’t even finish it.

It sounded so ridiculous. I came thinking we’d start our actual relationship.

With proper trust and support and communication, and no more games.

But he lived for the game. “I’m done, Kappy. ”

“Kappy?” He shrank back. “Piper, no, we always figure it out, c’mon.” He tried one last time. His eyes held that spark, that silent, c’mon, play with me.

“I don’t want to anymore.”

His face fell. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do. I do mean it. You just…” I covered my face. It hurt too bad. You just forced me to be the other woman .

Why couldn’t I say it? Why couldn’t I scream it?

Maybe because this was my deepest fear come true. I swore to myself at a very young age that I’d never be the other woman. Not after my father and the other woman were the reason I had a hyphen in my last name .

For the first time in my life, I felt an emotion stronger than my rage: devastation.

“Is this about Brandi?” he asked.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want to know her name. I did not want to—

“It’s not a big deal,” he continued. “It’s not a serious thing, she knows it too. I swear—”

“Stop!” I screamed. “Just stop.”

I knew he’d argue with me on this, I knew we’d go round and round, and I just wanted to get off this stupid merry-go-round. I forced out the one thing that I knew would make him let go. I went for the throat. I’m a Viper, after all.

“You’re a joke, Kappy,” I spat. “I need to be serious now.”

He stared at me strangely for a beat, like he was struggling to recognize me. He stumbled back a few steps, like I hurt him. And with those words, I did. I speared him right through the heart.

The truth clawed to escape my throat, to take it all back, to run into his arms and never leave, but that would never work. We would never work.

Before I could change my mind, I quickly spun on my heel and marched through the snowy night in the direction of my hotel.

Hearing the bar door slam behind me, I covered my mouth to muffle a sob.

________

Colt was right about his ominous prediction on New Year’s Eve, because within the next two months, everything fell like a trail of dominoes.

The first chip down was Mer and Colt.

Their breakup was a complete shock, but I figured it was just a bump in the road, because they were so in love. They were so in sync. I knew Mer was stressed to the max because of skating, and Colt was stressed for her, so I thought they’d get back together as soon as things calmed down.

Mer and I were so focused on Nationals that year that I’m embarrassed to say I’m not even sure what caused them to break up.

What’s even more embarrassing: how badly Patrick and I flubbed up at Nationals .

We missed the podium entirely and were left off the ticket to the Olympics that we were predicted to win.

And the last and worst part of the shit storm of 2014: Mer never even made it to the competition.

Like a nightmare come to life, she fell during a practice ice session and shattered her knee.

When Colt didn’t show up for Mer in the hospital, I knew it was really over between the two of them.

And while the heartbreak happened to Mer, it broke a little part of my heart as well, because they were perfect for each other. I witnessed the two of them fall in love and have true romantic love, respect, and partnership. And if they couldn’t make it work, then what hope did the rest of us have?

Selfishly, I guess I always had a little hope that they’d make it back together, because then Kappy and I would be forced to face each other again, and maybe sometime down the road, after he apologized, we’d finally get it right. It would finally be our time.

But when that last connection between us severed, all hope died.

I never heard from him again.

And it left me questioning if it ever happened, if he ever felt anything for me in the first place.

I had to replay certain moments to keep my sanity—him waiting for me by the lobby arcade with quarters, him kissing me in that rink closet, him giving me a piggyback ride through the rink when my legs hurt too badly to walk, him showing up after my surgery, him dancing with me in that dark club, calling it a dream…

What we had was real, even if he didn’t want to admit it or define it.

I racked my brain over it for a while, wondering if I should reach out to him, wondering if I should try to track him down.

I hated to admit it, but I wasted good hours of my life staring at his contact information in my phone.

But I never called.

It always came back to the fact that if he wanted to talk to me, he would. He would show up in my life the same way he crashed that frat house party years ago.

But he never did.

I knew we were both too ego-driven, both too stubborn, to even make up after a fight, so there’s no way we’d be able to make a real relationship work.

Unfortunately, that didn’t stop my mind from wandering to him way more than I cared to admit.

Over the next decade of life, whether I was in a relationship or not, I still stupidly looked for signs of him in each rink I walked into. I couldn’t squash the tiny hope that we’d run into each other again one day.

But that’s the thing about two people who are not meant to be: Their fate lines stop dancing together and separate into parallel lines.