Winter gives her donut a savage bite. “The evil twin came to pick me up at the airport last night,” she says, speaking with her mouth half full, “and when I walked out of the gate, I found her crying while she was talking on the phone.”

“With Johnathan?” I ask. Acid rises in my throat at saying the name, and I temper it with a bite of fried, saturated fats covered in sugar. Just what I needed.

“Yeah.” Winter washes down the donut with a generous sip of coffee. “Summer wouldn’t tell me anything at first, but then it’s not like she could keep the affair a secret, not since they were already busted!”

My chest tightens. It’s still hard to process which betrayal is worse: Jonathan’s or Summer’s. “And then… what did she say?”

“Sure you want to hear the pathetic stream of excuses she came up with…?”

I nod.

“Well, it was the usual. She felt alone and sad after breaking up with Robert… It started innocently at first— she bumped into Johnathan by chance a few times. They clicked, things spiraled out of control…” Winter makes a pretend-gag face. “She made it sound as if you could accidentally sleep with someone.”

“Yeah, they just happened to find hotel rooms booked in their name, right?” I say. “An affair that lasts months is no mistake. And what if I hadn’t caught them? How long would they’ve kept at it?”

“Summer claims she fell in love and didn’t know how to stop… She hoped Johnathan would break up with you, but also didn’t want you to suffer, and a bunch of other trite crap…”

I blanch at this. “In love? Summer said they’re in love?”

Winter’s eyes widen. “Oh, I’m sorry, was I too flat?”

“No,” I reassure her. “I need someone to be straight with me.”

Donuts finished, I refill our mugs and we move to the couch. Five seconds later, each of us has a cat in her lap.

Winter scratches Boles under his chin and asks, “So, how heartbroken are you?”

The question startles me. Of all the things I’ve felt in the past twenty-four hours—angry, betrayed, shocked, anxious, sad, tired—somehow heartbroken hasn’t made the list.

“How can you tell if you’re heartbroken?” I ask.

“Standard symptoms include a heart-ripped-out-of-chest sensation, palpitations, shivers of panic at the idea of never being able to kiss the loved one again…”

“Mmm,” I muse. “Nothing like that. I’m more stunned than anything else. John has been in my life for so long that losing him feels more like having an arm cut off than my heart ripped out.”

“Good.”

“How’s that good?”

“You can survive without a limb, but it’s pretty hard to keep going without a heart. And…” She stops, and twirls a loose lock around her finger, looking undecided if she should continue.