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André examined the label on his cider and blew out a large breath. Then he recounted the last two weeks to Dave and Sabine. The baseball game, having lunch in her office, the benefit.
When he was finished, he glanced up at Sabine. Her mouth was pressed into a hard line.
She shook her head at him. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Now wait,” Dave broke in diplomatically. “Maybe he’s trying to figure some things out.”
Sabine’s eyes widened and she made a little growl noise in the back of her throat. “Pretty sure the time for figuring things out has passed. When you ghost your fiancée, you don’t get to have a redo.”
“Wait.” Dave swiveled to face André directly. “Youghostedher?”
André sighed and dropped his shoulders.
“Yep. Two and a half years with no communication and then boom! Hits her with his car.”
André lifted his eyes to his sister. “I didn’t mean to hit her with the car. And….” He sighed again. “I drunk dialed her on Christmas.”
“What?” Sabine yelled.
Yes, actuallyyelled.
She shook her head and tsked.
“That’s…” Dave broke off and sighed.
André studied the tattooed face of his sister’s husband and saw something there he never had before.
Disappointment.
When had Dave developed so much dad energy?
“Maybe this is going to sound weird, but in my opinion, ghosting is worse than cheating.” Dave’s solemn declaration had both André and Sabine stunned silent.
Dave’s dark blue eyes bounced between the two siblings. “Not to say cheating is ever acceptable. But for me, personally, ghosting would hurt more.”
“Why do you say that?” Sabine asked quietly.
“I don’t know.” Dave shrugged. “Maybe there are different ways to do the same thing. I just know that I’ve gotten over being cheated on way easier than losing contact with someone who wouldn’t at least tell mewhyit had to end.” He rolled the bottle of cider between his palms. “Cheating says what they wanted: something else. Ghosting is a sentence without punctuation. I will inevitably blame myself.” He dipped his head. “As is my nature. And without being able to ask what I did wrong, I’d be terrified of doing it again. I’d be caught in a loop of self-doubt and anxiety. Moving on? That would take real work.”
Fucking hell.
Is that what he’d put Nikki through?
It would explain why she went back and forth from being happy to be with him, to being distant.
She’d had to put things back together without any answers from him about why and where and how.
Sabine crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at him. “Have you told her?”
“What do you mean?’ he countered, trying to buy time as his brain scrambled for an answer.
“You just heard what Dave said. She’s worked hard to get over you. Have you told her why you did what you did? And what’s changed since then? Why are you showing up in her life now? Because it looks bad. If a guy did this to Kara, I’d already have hidden his body in the dumpster.”
André held up a finger. “Being raised in America has made you far more violent than I am comfortable with.”
She rolled her eyes. Dave chuckled.
“It wasn’t like I planned this, okay?” he said, a little more defensive than he needed to be. Her questions were valid. “I thought at the time that leaving her was better for the both of us. I didn’t know…” He stopped and took a deep breath as his chest constricted. “But I was wrong. I just…” He shrugged because he wasn’t sure if the words that wanted to come out were the right ones.
