“Of course we were!”
I already knew this, but I’m hit with a spike of vindication nonetheless. I know my sister.
She stands and walks to the other side of the room. Ami is no longer bouncy and postworkout-giddy. She’s quiet, brow furrowed. My sister fidgets when she’s anxious, and right now she’s tugging on her ring, absently spinning it around her finger.
Being a twin means oftentimes feeling responsible for the other’s emotional well-being, and right now all I want is take it all back, pretend I’m joking and travel back to a time when I knew none of this. But I can’t. I may never know w
hat my ideal relationship looks like, but I do know that Ami deserves to be enough for someone, to be loved completely. I have to keep going.
“All the trips they took? Dane let you think they were Ethan’s idea, that Ethan had planned them—”
“They were Ethan’s idea. Like, objectively,” she says. “Dane wouldn’t plan that kind of thing without talking to me first. Ethan planned stuff to get over Sophie, and because he’s single—or was”—she lets out a weird, surprised snort—“he just assumed that Dane was free for all the holidays, too.”
“Most of these trips were before Sophie, or during.” I watch her look for more reasons to explain all this away, and say, “Look, I understand why that’s what Dane wanted you to think.” I wait until she meets my eyes, hoping she sees that I’m being sincere. “It looks better for him if Ethan is the one who is constantly dragging Dane around the world on these crazy adventures. But Ami, Ethan hates to fly. You should have seen him on the plane to Maui—he could barely keep it together. He gets seasick, too. And seriously, he’s such a homebody—like me. I honestly can’t imagine Ethan planning a surfing trip to Nicaragua now—like, the idea makes me laugh. Dane was using Ethan as an excuse to go do stuff and to see other women. There’s at least one other woman that Ethan mentioned.”
“Where the fuck is your tinfoil hat, you psycho?” Ami growls. “I’m supposed to believe that my husband is that manipulative? That he’s been cheating on me for what—three years? Do you really hate him that much?”
“I don’t hate him, Ami—at least I didn’t.”
“Do you have any idea how ridiculous this all sounds? Do you have anyone’s word besides Ethan’s to go by?”
“I do . . . because Dane hit on me last night. At the bar.”
She blinks several times. “I’m sorry, what?”
I explain what happened, about Ethan going to the bathroom and Dane suggesting we could all swing if the mood happened to strike. I watch as my sister’s face, so like my own, goes from confusion, to hurt, to something bordering on rage.
“Holy shit, Olive.” She gapes at me. “Why are you like this? Why are you so cynical about everything?” She picks up her glass and walks to the sink. Her face is so tight and bleak she looks sick again, and my stomach lurches in guilt. “Why do you always want to see the worst in people?”
I don’t even know what to say. I am struck completely mute. In the silence, Ami turns on the water with an aggressive jerk and starts washing out her glass. “Like, are you serious right now? Dane wouldn’t hit on you. You don’t have to like him, but you don’t get to always assume his intentions are terrible, either.”
I follow her into the kitchen, looking on as she rinses her glass before filling it with soap and washing it all over again. “Sweetie, I promise you, I don’t want to think the worst of him—”
She slams the faucet off and whirls to face me. “Did you tell any of this to Ethan?”
I nod slowly. “Right before I left. He followed me outside.”
“And?”
“And . . .”
Her expression clears. “Is that why you haven’t talked?”
“He wants to believe his brother is a good guy.”
“Yeah. I know the feeling.” The seconds tick by, and I don’t know what more I can say to convince her.
“I’m sorry, Ami. I don’t know what else to say to make you believe me. I never wanted—”
“Never wanted what? To ruin things between Dane and me? Between you and Ethan? That lasted what?” She laughs sharply. “Two whole weeks? You’re always so happy to believe everything just happens to you. ‘My life has turned out the way it has because I’m so unlucky,’ ” she says, mimicking me in a dramatically saccharine voice. “ ‘Bad things happen to poor Olive, and good things happen to Ami because she’s lucky, not because she’s earned them.’ ”
Her words carry the vague echo of Ethan’s, and I’m suddenly angry. “Wow.” I take a step back. “You think I wanted this to happen?”
“I think it’s easier for you to believe that when things don’t go your way, it’s not because of something you did, it’s because you’re a pawn in some cosmic game of chance. But, news flash, Olive: you end up unemployed and alone because of the choices you make. You’ve always been this way.” She stares at me, clearly exasperated. “Why try when the universe has already decided that you’ll fail? Why put any effort into relationships when you already know you’re unlucky in love, and they’ll end in disaster? Over and over like a broken record. You never actually try.”
My face is hot, and I stand there blinking, mouth open and ready to respond but absolutely nothing comes out. Ami and I argue sometimes—that’s just what siblings do—but is this what she really thinks of me? She thinks I don’t try? She thinks I’m going to end up unemployed and alone, and that view of me is only coming out now?
She grabs her things and moves toward the door. “I have to go to work,” she says, fumbling to slip the strap over her shoulder. “Some of us actually have things to do.”