The news of their breakup felt strangely similar to losing a game, a minute away from scoring.

It had been a fun game at first—defying Emma's mom that never supported the relationship. She wanted her daughter to be with someone who would fit right in with their family of goal-oriented overachievers.

Ace never cared or changed to accommodate her expectations. If possible, he was even more obnoxiously himself around Emma's mom to rub in her face that Emma had chosen to be with him instead of entertaining her opinions.

Their relationship must have slipped into complacent comfort when they moved away from their families, then into the illusion that effort was unnecessary.

"Sort of?" I repeated his words. "What, you're half-broken-up? Is that a thing?"

"It's more of a break," he said, and I grimaced at the prospect of shattering his dreams.

The news wouldn't have surprised me as much if I hadn't gotten used to seeing them as one single entity for three years. Their differences had blended into each other.

"Ace, do you know anything about Emma?" I stood in the middle of the hall to wait for my brain to catch up with Ace's announcement. It was crowded on Monday mornings, and people nudged and bumped into me. "She doesn't do breaks." Not back in middle school in between dance classes. And not in her relationships now. She was all or nothing.

I hated that my instinct was to fix things between them even though I knew that was one area of their lives that I would never be able to help.

"How's her ankle?"

"What do you mean?"

I picked up on the concern in his voice but the fact that he hadn't noticed her limping made me worry about Emma.

"How do you not know about it? She's your—" I stopped my sentence, seconds away from saying "girlfriend".

I wandered in the parking lot to locate my car which became a much harder task when my brain was already preoccupied with all sorts of other thoughts that had nothing to do with the blue Honda.

"I finally get why you don't like talking about your breakups. It's not fun, is it?"

It was much harder being on this side of the conversation. I didn't know what Ace wanted from me. Would he and Emma expect me to pick sides? Ace was my best friend, but I knew Emma first. Did that make me loyal to her by default?

Where were all the self-help books about navigating the apocalyptic world that resulted from your friends' breakup?

Not a single thing was working according to plan this summer. As I  settled in my seat behind the wheel, every exposed area of my body sizzled on the burning leather seats as though I had willingly just stepped onto a grill.

"I can almost hear your neurons crashing. Don't worry about it. You have your fair share of concerns. I didn't mean to add anything to your list, but I figured you'd want to know."

My head fell onto the wheel in front of me with a soft thud. "How can I not worry? Without you as a distraction, Emma's going to be pushing way past her breaking point."

"I'm glad she's the one you're concerned about, and I can't say I'm surprised that you see me as a distraction. That must be my calling. I was very good at it too." A sigh escaped his lips from the other end of the line. "It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I didn't think it through. It was everything all at once—Mom and Dad have been calling me daily to ask about majors; the career counselor contacted me again."

He hadn't seemed anywhere this overwhelmed when we last hung out. He looked as careless as ever.

"As in, you broke up with her?"

He laughed. "I feel like there's an insult in there somewhere."

I frowned at the joke because I knew it was only a matter of time before the regret kicked in. If Mr. Crawford had ever been right about anything all semester, it was that joking wasn't going to help. It was a miserable attempt at hiding pain that was almost always sure to catch up.

"Ace—"

"I know that tone, but I'll be fine. And you're going to be late for work," Ace said, hanging up before I could add anything else.

Though I couldn't determine the role I had been cast in for every new set of issues that arose—Mom, Ace and Emma, Miles and Anna—that didn't keep my brain from obsessing over every single detail. Each problem created unnecessary ripples, waltzing around the axons. They didn't just take turns in demanding my attention. They were all there all at once, summoning migraines and insomnia.

I was late to work, but I didn't think Alec noticed. He had a guest in his office, and her long black hair was the first thing I recognized.

She turned to me when the door opened and gave me an easy smile that crawled up my skin and made me uncomfortable.

Now that I had met her, she was showing up everywhere.

"Anna, I'm sure you remember Kelly."

She nodded as she stood up straighter, nearly as tall on flats as she was on heels. "Of course. She was Miles's date at the wedding. Quite the couple."

I would have corrected the phrase to draw everyone's attention to the fact that Miles and I weren't a thing. But that would have involved doing more than staring at her blankly, which would require self-control I didn't trust that I had.

"He sure looks different," she commented, with a slight shrug. Then, she snapped out of whatever memory she was lingering on and redirected her focus on Alec. "Do you guys still have that sibling rivalry thing going on?"

"That was never a thing," he answered and cleared his throat. "It's all in Miles's head."

"Well," she said, her voice sweet, as I slipped into my own seat as quietly as I could, hoping I wouldn't draw attention to myself, "you were sort of a jerk a few years ago."

"Love always did make your memory a little hazy."

Alec seemed to realize that comment was unnecessary and looked away when she stared at him for what seemed like ages to me.

"A long time ago." She dismissed his embarrassment with a smile that showed no sign of hurt or regret. "It's been forever since I've stepped into this building. We haven't played here since we were, what, 10? The infamous Whitman W—"

"We don't call it that anymore," he cut her off.

Her head fell back in unfiltered laughter—a pleasant and genuine sound I had no reason to dislike so much—as she hoisted herself onto his desk.

The door creaked open, and Olivia snuck her head in. She did a double-take when her gaze landed on Anna.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize you still had company."

"No, no, come on in." His cheeks took on an aggressive shade of red that had become as much a part of his face as his nose.

"I just wanted to... I wanted to tell you something in private."

The pen Alec had been playing with slipped from his fingers at once, and he stood up under Anna's amused stare.

"Give me a moment," he told Anna and me before following Olivia out of the room.

I would have laughed under any other circumstance if I didn't have to stay in a room alone with Miles's inspiration source that worked better than his wasteland. What were the odds?

I knew silence would be my best option, so I pretended to browse through the stack of new manuscripts on the desk that greeted me every workday, but I couldn't convince my mouth to side with me.

"So you guys go way back," I heard myself say, my voice sounding way more hesitant than I expected.

"Alec and I? Our parents were close. Our friendship was sort of a side effect of that." She examined me as she spoke, but I couldn't figure out what she was looking for on my face.

The stupid thing about filler questions was that they were never substantive enough to last as long as I would want.

I found myself counting every individual second, hoping Alec would return sooner rather than later.

She laughed at whatever entertaining thought occurred to her. "Alec and I got along quickly, but Miles hated me the second we met. Well, I guess I'm using hate loosely." Her fingers ran through her hair back, and each lock fell back into the same position.

"That sounds like him."

I couldn't see what he could have hated about her. Besides, they were a nearly perfect pair. She looked serious and confident, but a hint of playfulness hid in the background, waiting for the most appropriate time to take over.

Miles must have gotten a kick out of bringing out that side of her while she stirred up his bold side to get him to approach his writing seriously.

For some reason, the thought that I had no reason to dislike Anna was more torturous to me than the thought that Miles might still be hung up on her.

By the time Alec came back into the room, with every inch of his face painted in red tomatoes, I was only one awkward second away from rushing out of the room.

Anna was not just good at dancing. She also had a talent for sending my fight-or-flight response system into overdrive. It leaned dangerously towards flight.

"Alec Whitman has a crush." Anna grinned as she observed him and gave his face the last push it needed to slip into crimson. "That's an unexpected development."

"You're a work hazard, Anna."

"I don't think I'm the only thing distracting you from work, but since you asked so politely, I'll leave. I know you'll miss me until Christmas."

Before she could step out of the room, the door opened again, and Miles stepped in. As far as I knew, he hadn't been in Alec's office since the first day I met him.

My breath came in bits and pieces as I tried to remind myself that getting overwhelmed at the mere sight of him was not going to serve me well in the long term.

His eyes found Anna's first, and his tense demeanor clashed with her relaxed one. She didn't even look surprised to see him.

By the time his gaze landed on my desk, I had turned away, reading a single word of the manuscript open in front of me with more attention than it required.

"I need to have a word with you," he told Alec because today was an unofficial keep-Alec-from-getting-work-done day.

The pressure his presence had added to my shoulders didn't go away even as I walked up the steps to my apartment floor much later that day.

The sight of an empty apartment always calmed me down after a long day, and I was looking forward to it, though I should have known better.  Because, when I opened the door, I found Mom and Crazy Marge on my couch. That sucked the rest of my energy.

"I have to take this," Mom said, picking up her vibrating phone from the center table before leaving the room.

It would have been impolite to leave now, so I took a seat on the couch too, waiting for Marge to say something that would bring about the ruin of another mug, but she never did.

"Have you seen your daughter lately?" I asked. It was my best attempt at hospitality.

"Yes, and my grandsons. I almost didn't recognize them. I—" Marge replied, clearly not viewing the question as a mere attempt at politeness. "I hadn't realized staying away from them was affecting them too. But my relationship with my daughter is still shaky at best. She doesn't trust me around them. Something about being a crazy old witch." She laughed, and it brought a smile onto my lips.

After running into her around the building multiple times, her odd presence was almost comforting.

"I don't know where she's getting that silly idea," I said. The remnant of a smile lingered on her lips as she watched me without giving anything away about what she could see on my face. "Psychic reading?" I joked.

"Call it that if it comforts you. You're wrestling with yourself about something," Marge said as I rested my head against the couch's headrest.

She clearly underestimated me. I was wrestling with multiple things. Entertaining this conversation was one of them. "And do you have a prediction about where this will take me?"

She gave me a sad smile that did nothing to reassure me despite my doubts about her accuracy.

Her voice took on the eerie resonance I was only too used to. "It looks like things are about to get a lot worse."