Diego holds up a finger. “Beyoncé.”
“—that you and Ethan are the ones who should be together,” Ami slurs. “Not me and Dane.”
“I agree,” Mom says.
“So do I,” Tío Omar calls from the kitchen.
I hold up my hands to stop them all. “I don’t think Ethan and I are going to happen, guys.”
My phone rings again, and Ami stares right at me, eyes suddenly clear. “He’s always been the good brother, hasn’t he?”
“He’s been the good brother,” I agree, “but not the best boyfriend or the best brother-in-law.” I lean forward, kissing her nose. “You, on the other hand, are the best wife, sister, and daughter. And you are very loved.”
“I agree,” Mom says again.
“So do I,” Diego says, lying across our laps.
“So do I,” a chorus calls from the kitchen.
• • •
THE GOOD BROTHER CONTINUES TO call me a few times a day for the next several days, and then transitions to texts that say simply,
I’m sorry.
Olive, please call.
I feel like such an enormous jerk.
When I don’t respond to any of them, he seems to take the hint and stops trying to get in touch with me, but I’m not sure if that’s better or worse. At least when he was calling and texting I knew he was thinking about me. Now he might be focused on moving on, and I’m so conflicted over how that makes me feel.
On the one hand, screw him for not having my back, for enabling his brother to be a terrible boyfriend/husband, for being obstinately obtuse about a serial cheater. But on the other hand, what would I do in the same situation to protect Ami? Would it be hard to see her as sketchy the same way it was hard for Ethan to see Dane?
On top of that, Ethan was so perfect in all other respects: witty, playful, infatuated, and stellar in bed—it honestly feels so crappy to lose my boyfriend because we disagreed with a fight that didn’t even involve us, really, rather than because we weren’t a good fit.
We were a great fit. Our ending—by contrast—still seems so jagged and unfinished.
About a week after Dane leaves, I move out of my apartment and into Ami’s house. Ami doesn’t particularly want to be alone, and it works for me, too: I like the idea of saving to buy a place of my own or having some extra in the bank for an adventure once I figure out what kind of adventure I want to have. I see all these choices unrolling in front of me—career, travel, friends, geography—and despite things being insane and hard and messy, I don’t think I’ve ever liked myself more than I do now. It’s the strangest feeling to be proud simply because I’m taking care of me and mine. Is this what it’s like to grow up?
Ami is so oddly, constitutionally solid that once Dane picks up his stuff from the garage and officially moves out, she seems mostly fine. It’s almost as if the knowledge that he is trash is enough for her to get over him. The divorce doesn’t seem like a wild good time, but she plugs ahead through her Divorce Checklist with the same calm determination with which she sent in the thousand sweepstakes entries to win the honeymoon.
“I’m going to have dinner with Ethan tomorrow,” she says out of the blue while I make us pancakes for dinner.
I flip one badly, and it folds in half, batter oozing onto the lip of the pan. “Why would you do that?”
“Because he asked me,” she says, like it’s obvious, “and I can tell he feels bad. I don’t want to punish him for Dane’s sins.”
I frown at her. “That’s big of you, but you know you could still punish Ethan for Ethan’s sins.”
“He didn’t hurt me.” Ami stands to refill her glass of water. “He hurt you, and I’m sure he wants to own that, too, but that’s between the two of you, and you have to answer his calls first.”
“I don’t have to do anything where Ethan Thomas is concerned.”
Ami’s silence leaves my words to echo back to me, and I realize how they sound. So unforgiving but . . . familiar. I haven’t felt like that version of myself in so long, and I don’t like it.
“Well,” I amend, “tell me how dinner goes, and I’ll decide if he deserves a phone call.”
• • •