The Unhoneymooners(78)

I wait for her to start typing again, but she doesn’t, and I’m freezing, so I climb into my car and crank the heat as high as it will go.

But about three blocks from my apartment complex, my phone chimes again, and I pull over with a sharp jerk of my steering wheel.

Dane left his phone here yesterday.

I spent like two hours trying to guess his passcode, and it’s fucking “1111.”

I bite back a laugh and stare at the screen hungrily: she’s still typing.

I sent myself all the screenshots.

All the messages from these women are asking the same thing—whether Dane wants to hang out. Is that code for a booty call?

I blink at the screen. Is she serious?

Ami, you know what I think already.

Ollie what if you were right?

What if he’s cheating on me?

What if he’s been cheating on me this whole time?

A fracture forms right down the middle of my heart. Half of it belongs to my sister, for what she’s about to go through; the other half will always keep beating for myself even when no one else will.

I’m sorry Ami. I wish I knew what to say.

Should I answer one of the texts?

I stare at the screen for a beat.

On his phone?

As Dane?

Yes.

I mean, you could.

If you don’t think you’ll get an honest answer from him.

I wait. My heart is in my throat, clawing its way up.

I’m scared.

I don’t want to be right about this.

I know, honey.

For what it’s worth, I don’t either.

I’m going to do it tonight.

I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and let it out slowly. Somehow, being believed at last doesn’t feel nearly as good as I’d hoped it would.

I’m here if you need me.

? ? ?

ALTHOUGH I’D HAD TWO MONTHS of unemployment not too long ago, I spent most of that time hunting for jobs or helping Ami prepare for the wedding, so now, keeping busy during the day has become so much more important. Because if I don’t, I think about Ethan. Or Ami.

I don’t hear from her the entire next day, and there’s a knot in my stomach the size of Texas. I want to know how things went with Dane last night. I want to know whether she’s replied to the texts or confronted him, and what happened. I feel protective, and worried for her, but there’s literally nothing I can do, and I can’t call Ethan, either, because we all know he’s on the Dane Train until the end of the tracks.

Given that I’m off tonight, getting out of my apartment—and my head—becomes a priority. I dread going to the gym, but whenever I get in front of the punching bag, I’m amazed how much better I feel. I’ve started walking dogs at the local Humane Society and have a new golden retriever buddy named Skipper that I’m considering bringing home for Mom as a surprise—whether it would be a good surprise or a bad one I’m not sure, which is why I’m still considering it. I help a few of my neighbors shovel their walkways, go to a talk on art and medicine at the Walker Art Center, and meet Diego for a late lunch.

He hasn’t heard from Ami today, either.

It’s strange to realize that as soon as I got off the career treadmill, my life suddenly started to feel like mine again. I feel like I can look up for the first time in a decade. I can breathe. There’s a reason Ethan didn’t know much about my job: I never talked about it. It was what I did, not who I was. And even though many of my breaths ache—because I miss Ethan, I do, I miss him so much it hurts—not having the weight of a corporate job on my shoulders is an unbelievable relief. I never knew I was this person. I feel more myself than I’ve ever been.

Ami calls at five, when I’ve just walked in my front door and am making a beeline for the lint roller; Skipper is a shedder, even in early February. I haven’t heard her voice in two weeks, and I can hear the way my own shakes when I answer.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Ollie.”

I leave a long, quiet pause. “Hey, Ami.”

Her voice comes out thick and strangled. “I’m really sorry.”

I have to swallow a few times to get past the clog of emotions in my throat. “Are you okay?”

“No,” she says, and then, “but yes. Do you want to come over tonight? I made lasagna.”

I chew my lip for a few beats. “Is Dane going to be there?”

“He’ll be here later,” she admits. “Please Ollie? I really want you to be here tonight.”

There’s something about the way she’s said it that makes me feel like it’s more than just sister-reconnecting time. “Okay, I’ll be over in twenty.”

? ? ?

I LOOK AT MYSELF IN the mirror every day, so it shouldn’t be so jarring to see Ami standing on her porch waiting for me, but it is. We’ve never gone two weeks without seeing each other—even in college. I was at the U, she was at St. Thomas, and even in the busiest week, we still saw each other at dinner on Sundays.

I wrap my arms around her as tight as they’ll go and squeeze even tighter when I can tell she’s crying. It feels like that first inhale after holding my breath as long as I can.

“I missed you,” she says through a sob into my shoulder.

“I missed you more.”

“This sucks,” she says.