Chapter Thirty-Seven Juliette
THIRTY-SEVEN JULIETTE
If loneliness is an island, Juliette has shipwrecked herself.
She has never had her heart broken before.
There have been moments she thought her heart was broken, like when the doctors told her she would have to undergo wrist surgery or when she lost the Australian Open final.
But this hits different. It’s raw and unlike anything she’s ever felt before. It’s worse.
Juliette thought she would feel better if she broke up with Luca, tried to be just friends, but Luca’s words still ring in her ears.
She stumbles off Remi’s boat and onto the marina.
Music and conversation laps in from the bobbing boats, but Juliette heads toward the end of the dock.
She sits down on the damp planks and hangs her feet over the dark water.
She reaches for her phone, tucked in her purse.
Her father’s notes taunt her as she opens it.
“This is for the best,” Juliette whispers to herself, but the words taste like ash in her mouth.
A lie, one she’s failed to convince herself to believe.
She looks at her shaking hands and remembers Luca’s gentle touch as she calmed her out of the panic attack.
She taps out a message to the one person who will understand.
Juliette looks up, her breath coming unsteadily as she searches for the stars, for something to guide her. But, of course, this is the city, and the light pollution leaves the sky as simply a void of darkness smoked with orange-tinged clouds.
Footsteps clatter on the boards behind her, but she doesn’t look until there is a soft grunt.
“What’s wrong, Jules?” Claudia asks urgently.
Juliette opens her mouth to explain, but no words come to her lips. She has snapped her own heart into pieces. She closes her eyes. She feels washed out. Would her skin be gray if she looked? She isn’t used to feeling deadened, words meaningless against her tongue.
“What happened?” Claudia asks, her eyes pleading for answers.
“I broke up with Luca,” she says, simply. It is the hard and cold truth.
“What?” Claudia slumps onto the dock next to her. “Why?”
Juliette opens her phone and turns it to Claudia, shows her the notes on her practice. “Luca is too distracting. I can’t handle having a relationship with her.”
Claudia breathes out heavily. “Fuck,” she mutters.
Juliette looks at Claudia. Rain mists down, glittering like diamonds on her gold curls. It’s cool and soothing against Juliette’s skin. “I know it’s better this way, but it doesn’t feel like it right now.”
Claudia sighs. “So, you let her go because you think it’s best for both of you.” Her lips purse. “Like I did.”
Only Juliette and her sisters know that Claudia let the love of her life go because it was the best for her.
And even though it broke her heart, she knew it would be better for her lover to find her soulmate.
Claudia may not have a soulmark, but she believes in the idea of them enough to not stand in the way of soulmates.
“Did it feel like this when you did it?”
Claudia nods, biting her lip. It’s clear she wants to say something she thinks Juliette won’t want to hear.
“What? Tell me what you’re thinking.” Juliette swallows roughly.
“Jules, I won’t try to tell you what’s best for you, but I think you were beginning to know what love is. How all-consuming and intense it is, but also, how hard it is. There isn’t a day that I don’t regret what I did. This is… different. I think you’re afraid, Juliette.”
Juliette hates how Claudia’s words hit her like a hammer. “I am afraid, Claudia! I didn’t even want a soulmate. I just want to play tennis!” She drops her head to her hands.
Claudia strokes her back. “I know. And you’re the only one who can decide what is more important to you. For what it’s worth, I think you can fight for both.”
“You think I’m an idiot,” Juliette mumbles miserably.
Claudia sighs. “No, Jules, I think you’re reacting to change, and that’s normal. I only want you to be happy, and this decision doesn’t seem like it’ll make you happy.”
Juliette looks up and tilts her head to the sky again, rain and tears dampening her face. “I guess I’ll find out.”
Claudia pulls her into a hug but says nothing else.
LUCA
Luca has four days to pull herself back together and refocus. The grind of a tournament is exactly what she needs to put thoughts of Juliette behind her, but everywhere she looks, she’s reminded of what she could have had.
The scent of grapefruit that used to lull her to sleep reminds her of Juliette pressed in close, arms around her waist, nose against her throat.
The closed curtains remind her of Juliette’s fear of heights.
Her favorite chamomile tea reminds her of soothing Juliette multiple times, and even lying in bed without the warmth of Juliette makes it impossible to get comfortable.
It is through absolute sheer force of will that Luca wins any matches.
On the court, she forgets everything but the ball.
The squeak of shoes against the hard ground, the strike of the ball against her strings, and the blister of the Miami sun—it all makes Luca forget that she is Luca Kacic.
Still, it’s by the barest of margins that she beats the other Bulgarian twin, Tatiana Valcheva, in a tiebreaker to make it to the semifinal.
Unfortunately, Remi Rowland is the next match waiting for her, and Remi’s fresh from a first-set retirement when her opponent suffered from heat stroke.
Off the court, Luca is a mess. She knows it’s stupid, but it’s as if her chest has been punched through with a Juliette-size hole.
Vladimir immediately notices her lack of focus, sleeplessness, and terrible appetite.
“A good win out there today,” he says as Luca sinks into the ice bath. The shock of the cold after burning in the sun makes her mind go blank.
Vladimir leans against the wall. She can vaguely hear the other players talking in the locker room on the other side of the half wall.
She wonders if Juliette is there. She lost in the first round, but maybe she’s supporting her sisters.
Luca shakes her head, trying to jar loose any thoughts of Juliette.
“Good win today, but I need to beat Remi tomorrow to definitely keep my rank through the US Open,” Luca says. Last night, when she couldn’t sleep, she’d obsessively crunched the numbers. “And if I lose, I’ll have to win Cincinnati.”
Vladimir sighs. “It won’t be the end of the world if you lose the number one ranking, Luca. You’ve had a tough year, and you should be proud of what you’ve accomplished.”
“But if I lose—”
“Everyone loses, Luca. It’s part of the sport. It doesn’t take away from all that you have accomplished.”
Vladimir’s words are still circling in her head as she steps onto the Center Court to face Remi Rowland.
The crowd is immediately rowdy and roaring as they step onto the court.
Remi is the obvious favorite, even though Luca played tennis for Florida in college.
Nothing will make the crowd root for her over the local, feisty American kid.
The media will probably say that it bothered Luca during their match, not being the crowd favorite, and that her mind was elsewhere.
It is true that her mind is somewhere else entirely. She can’t stop thinking about how perfectly Remi has played since publicly announcing her relationship with Chen Xinya.
Luca gets aced on match point, and she watches Remi blow a kiss to her box and her soulmate. The hard agony of defeat rings hollow in her chest, made more disappointing after her terrible performance.
But it’s the slither of jealousy in her gut that is the worst.
She only needs to work harder, be better, and focus more. It’ll all unfold exactly as it needs to.
She only needs time.