What if you lose love but have professional obligations with your ex, however much that hurts? So far, so normal — if heartbreaking. But what if you’re told, “I can’t believe in love anymore,” now that your love for each other died?

Kristen Russo and Jenny Owen Youngs rose to fame through their Buffering the Vampire Slayer podcast, but after the women underwent a very public divorce, they still launched a final collaboration: their new book, Slayers, Every One of Us: How One Girl in All the World Showed Us How to Hold On.

Russo and Youngs dated, fell in love, and took their vows. One day, Youngs told Russo that missing out on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a popular TV show that ran from 1997 to 2003, was not an option. So the podcast followed, examining their favorite TV show, tale by tale, season by season.

For those tuning in late, the series followed the titular slayer, Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) as she protects the world from vampires and other supernatural beasties. When not staking out bloodsuckers, Buffy tiptoes around as a normal teenage girl, with homework, friends, enemies, crushes, a first love and first heartbreak, and hopes and fears about the future. Of course, she’s locked into a world where evil never stops pouring in, and she can never take a break, let alone a vacation.

“We fight the good fight” is the teen’s motto. Fair enough. But how well can you fight if it seems endless? How can you keep thinking positive, thinking righteous — and keep from thinking? When do you break?

Russo and Youngs’s podcast included lessons on heartbreak and those learned from Buffy, but from Queer perspectives; they wrote songs to fit each episode. Live shows with fan followed. Until one day, Youngs took a deep breath, looked at Russo, and told her that she didn’t feel like herself in their marriage.

The rise, the fall, and the fallout — including the youth who told them the death of their love had killed any hope they held for love — unspool in this recently published, 247-page joint confessional.

So where do relationships end? When should you rightfully walk away? The two women stuck together long enough to meet hard questions with even harder answers.