finally talk about all of this. I have no plans for today or tomorrow, which is a good thing considering I need to call David and beg for a job.
Once I opened Ethan’s texts from last night, I saw there were only two, and they said, simply, Call me and Headed to bed but let’s talk tomorrow. Part of me is glad he didn’t bother trying to apologize in texts because I’m not a huge texter, and another part is mad he didn’t even try. I know I need some distance until I talk to Ami, but I’ve also grown so used to having near constant contact with Ethan and I miss him. I want him to chase me a little, since I’m not the one who messed up here.
Ami comes inside, embraces me tightly, and then bounds into the kitchen for a glass of water. “Are you, like, totally freaking out?”
I’m sure she means the job situation, so when I say, “Um, yes,” she really has no idea the scope of my anxiety right now. I watch her take down half the glass in a long gulp.
Coming up for air, she says, “Mom says David is going to hire you at one of his restaurants? That’s awesome! Oh my God, Ollie, I can come in on the slow nights and it’ll be just like when we were kids. I can help with the job search, or your résumé, whatever.”
Shrugging, I tell her, “That’d be great. I haven’t had time to call him yet. But I will.”
Ami gives me a look that is half-amused, half-bewildered that I seem to have forgotten how our family operates. “Tía Maria called Tío Omar, and Tío Omar got in touch with David, and you’re all set.”
I laugh. “Oh my God.”
She swallows, nodding. “Apparently he has a waitress position at Camelia for you.”
Huh. His nicest restaurant. I love my family. “Cool.”
This makes Ami laugh in her disbelieving Oh, Olive way. “ ‘Cool’?”
“Sorry,” I say. “I swear, I am so emotionally wrecked I can’t even get it up to be excited right now. I promise to do better when I talk to David later.”
She sets her glass down. “My poor Ollie. Is your stomach feeling better?”
“My stomach?”
“Dane said you weren’t feeling well.”
Oh, I bet he did. And funny thing: as soon as she mentions Dane, my stomach does roll over. “Right. Yeah, I’m okay.”
Ami tilts her head for me to follow her as she carries her water into the living room and sits on the couch, legs crossed in front of her. “Ethan ended up leaving early, too.” She must note the look of surprise on my face because she raises a brow. “You didn’t know?”
“I haven’t talked to him since I left.” I lower myself down beside her.
“Like at all?”
I take a breath. “I wanted to talk to you first.”
She frowns, confused. “To me? Is this about how weird he was being?”
“No, I—What do you mean?”
“He was just really quiet, and about twenty minutes after I got there, he said he was going to head out. Dane said he probably had the same bug you had.”
I clench my hands into fists, and then imagine what it would be like to slam one of them into Dane’s smug face. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about Dane.”
“Dane?”
“Yeah. He . . .” I pause, trying to figure out where to begin. I have gone through this conversation a thousand times, but I still don’t have the right words. “Do you remember when Ethan and I first met?”
Ami purses her lips together as she thinks back. “At some picnic or something?”
“The State Fair. Pretty soon after you and Dane started dating. Apparently Ethan thought I was cute, and when he mentioned to Dane that he wanted to ask me out, Dane told him not to bother.”
“Wait, Ethan wanted to ask you out? How did he go from that to hating your guts, all in one day?”
“It’s sort of a long story.” I tell her about seeing Ethan, thinking he was hot, how he was sort of flirty . . . and then his reaction when he saw me eating. I explain that it was a misunderstanding, but I can tell she gets it—we’ve both always struggled with our curvy genes, and objectively the world treats thin women differently. “But I guess Ethan had asked Dane if it was cool if he asked me out, and Dane basically said I wasn’t very nice, and not to bother. Since