Don't worry, life is easy.

Nives felt empty inside.

She had been sitting like that for hours, curled on the cold, tiled balcony of her small apartment, wrapped in the thickest blanket she could find, the fabric bunched around her like armor. The wind tugged at strands of hair that had escaped her hood, whipping them across her cheek. She didn’t brush them away. She didn’t move at all.

The city breathed and buzzed somewhere beneath her, far below. Neon lights blinked from a nearby billboard, casting faint pulses across her knees. Still, she sat frozen, just a shadow nestled in the corner of a sixth-floor balcony, clinging to silence.

“Breathe in, breathe out,” she whispered, her voice barely louder than the wind.

If she repeated it enough, like a charm or a ritual, maybe the pain wouldn’t find its way in. Maybe the words would hold it back. But they didn’t. They never did. Words were the problem. They carried memories: sharp, vivid, and cruel. Every syllable still echoed with him. His name was the worst of all. A heart-shattering curse, still hanging in the air like smoke.

“Breathe in... breathe out.”

But it wasn’t working. The emptiness swelled, pressing up against her lungs, her ribs. She clutched the blanket tighter. How could something so hollow feel so impossibly heavy?

The sliding door creaked.

“There you are, Babe!” came the familiar voice, bright and uninvited, cutting through the gloom like sunlight through curtains. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it earlier. Please tell me you haven’t been sitting here this whole time? You look ghastly!”

Kelsi. Of course.

A rush of warm air followed her as she stepped out onto the balcony, bearing a paper bag in one hand and a bottle in the other. Her voice was like a jolt to Nives’s numb system.

Nives blinked once. “Well, thank you very much. Always a joy to hear kind words from that big mouth of yours, Kels.”

The corner of her mouth twitched upward, but the smile didn’t quite make it. A failure, just like her life.

“Oh, hon. You know I love you in all your shapes and forms, and mind you, I’ve seen many.” Kelsi plopped down beside her and opened the bag with a flourish. “Now. How are you holding up? I brought us some goodies: liquid oblivion, crunch, munch, sugar on top, whatever you need. Talk to me, Babe.”

“I’ll take the sugar.” Nives reached blindly into the bag and pulled out a familiar blue-wrapped square. “There’s not much to talk about, is there? As of today, I’m single, jobless, and still shackled to a mortgage. My new normal fits in just one sentence.”

Her voice cracked on the last word. She shoved the chocolate into her mouth before the tears could escape.

Kelsi didn’t flinch. “C’mon, Babe. That prick? You dodged a bullet with him, I’m telling you. And the job? Please. You hated it. Remember how you used to call it ‘soul erosion with benefits’?”

“You’re right.” Nives wiped her nose on her sleeve. “He truly was... a bit of a prick.”

“Is. And not just a bit. Mr. ‘Let’s have one rule: there will be no rules.’” Kelsi twisted the bottle open and poured its contents into a glass. “He’s a fully-fledged, walking, talking, commitment-phobic dick-prick. Just send him off on his merry little self-love journey, preferably somewhere far, far away. Godspeed, darling.”

“I’m not sure I can, Kels.” Nives took the glass with shaking hands. “It hurts. It feels like... like someone’s reaching inside me and ripping my heart out. He was the love of my life. How am I supposed to move on now? I’ll never love anyone the way I loved hiiiiim—”

Her voice stretched into a wail, and then she broke.

The sobs that burst out were wild, gasping things, raw and heaving. Her shoulders shook. The chocolate melted on her tongue, bitter now.

“I-I-I tthink I-I nee-ed m-more of the l-liquid oblivion n-now,” she choked, tears pouring freely.

Kelsi refilled the glass again and handed it over like a solemn priestess offering communion. “There you go, Babe. Cry. Scream. Grieve. Howl at the goddamn moon if it helps. Whatever it takes to bleed it out. I know you don’t want to hear this yet, but trust me, this is for the best.”

She hesitated, then added, more softly, “Coming from your proudly divorced best friend, I mean it. Clean cuts heal. Slow bleeds don’t.”

“I don’t want to start over,” Nives whispered, her voice hoarse. “What’s the point? It all goes to shit eventually. Why even bother?”

“That’s not you talking.”

“Then who is it? My failed expectations?”

“There we go.” Kelsi raised her glass. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Dare what exactly?”

“Don’t you dare tell me not to worry because life is easy.”

Nives sniffled. Her voice had gained an edge, the first glimmer of fight in hours.

Good, thought Kelsi. Anger could be useful. Constructive, even.

“I don’t have to. You said it for me.” Kelsi nudged her friend’s shoulder. “Did I mention I love you? That I’m the luckiest girl alive to call you my friend? This storm you’re in, it’s just a phase, Babe, nothing more. Just a passing moment. You’re going to get through it. Because you’re you. And you’re amazing.”

She poured more wine. “Now. Drink.”

Nives took the glass.

“That’s not what he said,” she murmured. “What he said was... I turned out to be just a normal girl. Like all the others. And that his body didn’t want to be in a relationship with me anymore.”

Kelsi made a noise, half snort, half growl.

“Are you sure he was the love of your life?” she asked. “Because he sure as hell doesn’t sound like someone worthy of your loyalty.”

Nives stared into her glass. She had a point. But that didn’t make the hurt any less real.

“He said he wants to love his friends now. Just his friends.”

Kelsi rolled her eyes so hard her head tilted. “I swear, if he weren’t already out of your life, I’d slap him out of it. Enough about this philosophical sex clown. You are here. My Nives. Bruised, maybe, but still standing. Still brilliant. Do you want a hug?”

“No.” Nives’s voice cracked again. “If someone holds me right now, I’ll break apart completely. Ugly crying. Wailing. Real Oscar-worthy stuff. I’m dangerously close.”

“Give me your worst, Babe. I can take it.”

“But I can’t. I really can’t.”

“You’re too damn sensible.”

Nives gave a hollow laugh. “I don’t think so. I read somewhere... only rich people can afford to lose their minds over emotional distress. I’m not sensible. I’m just too poor.”

Kelsi let the silence settle before replying. “No. You’re just too stubborn. Which is better. Because it means you’ll survive this. And you’ve got me. I’m not your next hot fling, but if you need money—”

“I’m not that poor,” Nives interrupted. “I can manage. For a while.”

How long that “while” would last, she wasn’t sure. But the words felt solid enough to hold on to.

“I’m just saying it, in case you needed to hear it. And since we’re being honest...” Kelsi hesitated. “Have you thought about... maybe talking to someone?”

“I’m not going to therapy,” Nives said flatly, not even letting her finish.

“Actually, I was thinking about Evette. Didn’t she help you before? She’s like... your personal guru or something, right?”

Technically, Evette was Nives’s aunt, but she hated labels like that. Family is chosen, not blood, she always said, which had driven a permanent wedge between her and Nives’s mother, Bea. Bea had spent years grooming Nives in her own image. Evette, on the other hand, had handed her a mirror and told her to find her own voice, create her own image.

Naturally, teenage Nives had clung to the one who made her feel seen.

“I mean... when you say ‘guru,’ you mean ‘spiritual coach for the wealthy and lost’?” she asked.

“I guess? Is there another Evette I should know about?”

“Nope. Just this one.” Nives sighed. “I’m not sure I can handle her personality right now.”

“Can you handle anyone besides me right now?”

She smiled despite herself. “Fair enough.”

The girls had stayed up late into the night.

Somewhere between the bottom of the wine bottle and the last chocolate truffle, Kelsi had managed to get Nives to laugh, just once, and barely, but it had happened. A cracked, exhausted kind of laugh. The kind that came only after the tears had wrung her dry. Kelsi didn’t push her to talk anymore after that. She just sat beside her, legs tucked under a blanket, chatting nonsense and gossip until Nives’s head began to droop.

By the time Nives crawled into bed, guided gently like a sleepwalker, the sky had already started to hint at dawn. Kelsi tucked her in without a word, kissed her forehead, and tiptoed out the door with all the grace of a tornado in high heels.

Silence fell.

And then it was morning.

The shrill ring of her phone shattered the quiet like glass hitting tile. Nives groaned, blind-flailing for the device somewhere on the nightstand. Her fingers closed around it and dragged it to her ear.

“’Lo,” she rasped.

“Nives.”

The voice was unmistakable, smooth and honey-warm with a core of steel.

Evette.

Nives sat up instantly, her sleep-hazed brain jolting into something halfway functional. “Wait. How... why?”

“Just had a feeling.” Evette’s voice was light, but beneath it was something else, a kind of gravity that made Nives shiver. “Woke up this morning, lit a candle for clarity, and you just... floated in.”

“Right. Witchcraft.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Nives could practically hear the smirk through the phone. She rubbed at her eyes and collapsed back into her pillow. “I’m not really in the mood to talk.”

“I figured.”

A pause.

“But you answered anyway.”

Nives sighed. Her throat was dry, her head foggy with leftover wine and sorrow. “I’m too tired to argue. And I know if I don’t talk now, you’ll just show up on my doorstep with a thermos full of strange tea and an even stranger lecture about vibrations.”

“You wound me,” Evette said, though she didn’t sound wounded at all. “But you’re right.”

Silence again. Then:

“He left me,” whispered Nives. “He said he didn’t want to be in a relationship with me anymore. That I’m just... ordinary.”

“Oh, sweetheart.”

That was it. No platitudes. No advice. Just someone listening.

Nives kept going, words tumbling out now, gaining momentum like a train down a steep hill. Everything spilled: her job loss, the mortgage, the numbness, the way even crying felt like a performance for herself at this point. She confessed it all, voice cracking, raw and unfiltered.

When she finally stopped, the room felt stiller somehow. As if the act of speaking had brought her mind back into focus.

Evette was quiet for a beat. Then, she simply said: “You need sunlight,” like it was the most obvious thing.

“What I need is to figure out how to survive without turning into a pile of emotional roadkill.”

“Same thing,” Evette replied breezily. “And as it happens, I have an extra ticket to Sicily. I was supposed to go with Roberto, but we... parted ways.”

Nives frowned. “I thought you two were practically married.”

“We were practically many things,” Evette said, unfazed. “Now he’s practically someone else’s headache. Regardless, the reservation is non-refundable, the villa has a private pool, and I’d rather sip sangria with you than spend another weekend alone in a linen caftan pretending I’m not devastated.”

Nives blinked. “Wait, are you devastated?”

There was a pause. “Only when the moon is in Scorpio. Now say yes.”

“You expect me to just drop everything and fly to Italy with you?”

“No, I invite you to. Very different energy.”

Nives opened her mouth to say something, anything sensible, but found nothing but blank static.

Was it a trick? A spiritual ambush? A cosmic test? Maybe. Probably. But her apartment smelled like stale wine and regret, and she couldn’t remember the last time her skin had felt the sun.

Besides, Evette always had a way of swooping in like a bird of prey when things were at their worst. And if her “breakup” with Roberto seemed suspiciously convenient... well, Nives wasn’t in a position to be picky about the timing of miracles.

She exhaled. “Fine. I’ll come.”

“I knew you would.”

Nives rolled her eyes. “Do not say it’s because of vibrations.”

“No,” Evette said, amused. “It’s because you’ve got nothing better to do.”