Chapter Thirteen
Chapter
Thirteen
Turned out, the place where Dylan and Ramona first met eighteen years ago was a real bitch to find. There was a path from the main beach, but it was little traveled and covered with brambles, and everything looked different in the daylight.
Of course, everything looked different than it did when Dylan was thirteen and starving for anything anyone would give her. Now, as she traipsed through the brush, thorns scraping her legs, Ramona behind her and silent, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was just projecting a monumental event in her life onto Ramona, if maybe Dylan had imagined the whole night altogether.
A dream.
A desperate reach for something.
Some one .
But then the trees parted and the leaf-covered trail spilled out into a sandy cove. The space was a tiny semicircle, trees tucking the little plot of beach against the lake, barely enough room for a few towels and chairs. It was lovely and serene and real.
“This is gorgeous,” Dylan said, toeing off her shoes. The sand was cool under her feet, the late morning sun hiding behind the clouds. “Just how I remember it.”
Behind her, Ramona stopped walking. “You…you remember this place?”
Dylan turned to look at her, head tilted. She still doubted her recollection of that night, just a little, but if she was wrong, then so what? They’d laugh at her mistake, move on, and talk about the film.
But right now, she knew this unspoken memory between them was half of her problem these past few days during filming—she couldn’t stop thinking about it, about Ramona. About how, if Ramona did remember, Dylan had already spent too long not remembering, and how shitty that must feel. She’d spent half the night after they’d gone bowling awake, replaying that July Fourth over and over, just like she’d done so many times in her past. And she knew she wanted to share that with Ramona. She wanted to share something with another person that had nothing to do with Dylan’s parents or her job or what her connections could do for them.
She just wanted sun and water and the simplicity of a good memory.
“Do you?” Dylan asked. Her chest felt tight.
Ramona opened her mouth. Closed it. She wore a dress today, sort of vintage, sleeveless and yellow with a high collar. The color brought out her freckles, made her hair look darker.
“Ramona?” Dylan said, her hands on her stomach to try to calm her nerves. “Do you—”
“Of course I remember,” Ramona said.
Dylan’s breath left her lungs in one big gust. She bent over, rested her palms on her knees as though she’d just run a marathon. “You do?”
Ramona smiled. “Lolli.”
“Shit,” Dylan said, straightening and sending both hands through her hair. “Thank god.”
Ramona laughed softly, then pressed her palms to her cheeks, which were turning a lovely shade of pink. But then Dylan started laughing too, and soon they were both laughing hard enough to pull tears from the corners of their eyes. Their bodies had moved closer as they’d giggled, and Dylan placed a hand on Ramona’s shoulder for support as Ramona led them over to a low rock with a flat surface. They plopped down next to each other, and Dylan wiped at her eyes with a corner of her apron.
“Oh my god,” she said. “I have no idea why I’m laughing so hard.”
“Me neither,” Ramona said. “In fact, I’m a little offended.”
Dylan eyed her, and they started laughing again. But soon, they settled, both of them taking deep breaths as they looked out at the water. Dylan felt infinitely lighter already, but still, there were things to say.
“I’m sorry,” she said, keeping her gaze on the lake. “That I didn’t realize as soon as I saw you in Clover Moon.”
Ramona’s eyes narrowed a bit, but she just nodded. “I guess I’m just not that mem—”
“Don’t you dare say it.” Dylan turned to face her on the rock.
Ramona huffed a laugh, but this one held no mirth. She looked down at her hands, picking at her dark purple nail polish.
“Ramona, seriously,” Dylan said. “That night…that night saved my life.”
Ramona’s head snapped toward her, eyes locking.
“It did,” Dylan said. “Maybe not physically. But mentally? Emotionally? Yeah. I’m not being dramatic when I say that night was a lifesaver. Just because I’m a dumbass who can’t put a face to my memories sometimes, doesn’t mean you’re forgettable. Not at all.”
Ramona said nothing. Just shook her head and turned back toward the water. But a tiny smile pulled at her mouth.
“It was a good night,” Dylan said. “Wasn’t it?”
Suddenly, she needed reassurance too, needed to hear it meant as much to Ramona as it did to her.
Ramona turned back to look at her, small smile turning bigger, that dimple deepening in her cheek. “It was lifesaving.”
She said it softly, three very simple words, but they felt like a firework in Dylan’s heart. She nodded, then leaned her shoulder against Ramona’s, just a little, and they sat like that for a while, watching the lake lap at the sandy shore, sharing a great memory.
It felt so…pure. That was the only word for it. Just good and simple and real. Like clean water and a cloudless blue sky. Dylan wanted to say more, wanted to ask Ramona more about her life during that time, but she didn’t want to mess this moment up. It felt fragile and perfect all at once.
“Thank you,” Ramona said after a while. “For telling me. I’m sorry I didn’t mention it first. I just…”
“I get it,” Dylan said, waving her hand.
Ramona nodded, then slapped her hands lightly against her legs. “Now. What are we going to do about your Eloise?”
Dylan groaned, but she felt a surge of relief at the subject change—that they could simply be with this history between them. Plus, she really did need to focus on work. The clock was ticking, and Gia expected her to come back in less than an hour as an entirely different person.
“I’m fucking it up,” she said.
“You don’t seem like you’re having fun,” Ramona said. “At least from what I saw today.”
Dylan laughed, not happily. Despite being a little distracted lately after remembering everything about her and Ramona, she knew her acting problems went far beyond a first kiss memory. “An understatement.”
“Why not?”
Dylan shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
“Oh, is that right?” Dylan said, glancing at Ramona. The wind whipped her hair into her face, that dimple pressing into her cheek as she smiled.
“Yeah,” Ramona said gently, then said nothing else, forcing Dylan to actually think .
“Goddammit,” she finally said. “You’re right. I do know.”
“So?” Ramona said.
“I just…” Dylan tucked her knees to her chest. “I don’t think I can do it. This role. I’m the bad girl. I’m the mess. I’m the character who fucks up relationships and has a disaster family. I’m not Eloise.”
Ramona laughed. “You don’t think Eloise is a disaster?”
Dylan opened her mouth, closed it. “I…No?”
“She’s a complete mess.”
“Is she?”
“God yeah.” Ramona adjusted, sitting cross-legged and facing Dylan now, leaning closer as she ticked off a list on her fingers. “Think about it. She grew up with a parent she couldn’t count on and always had money stress, she has these huge dreams for a flower shop she really has zero hope of achieving, she’s stuck in a town she loves, but love is tricky when you’re forced into it, you know? Like, she can’t leave. Has no means, no prospects. And the only girl she’s ever really loved is a rich heiress to a publishing empire who now wants her to pretend to be her girlfriend around her snobby family. She’s losing her shit here.”
Dylan blinked, Ramona’s passion and analysis stirring something in the center of chest.
Something exciting.
Something familiar.
But also, something a little sad, a little tender.
She studied Ramona, remembering what she’d said about her mother a few days ago in the woods, how she’d left when Ramona was—
Our mom left the summer I was thirteen.
“Oh my god,” Dylan said quietly.
Ramona frowned. “What? You don’t agree?”
“No, no, I do,” Dylan said, then turned to look at the lake, her throat thick and crowding her airway.
The tears on Cherry’s cheeks.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
“I know, it’s a lot,” Ramona said, scooting closer. “But come on, you can do this. You know what it’s like to have unreliable parents. To not have choices.”
Dylan’s eyes found hers. “So do you.”
Ramona’s brows lifted.
“That night,” Dylan said. “When we were thirteen. Your mom had just left. Hadn’t she?”
Ramona sighed, kept her eyes on Dylan. “Like I said. Lifesaving.”
Dylan held her gaze for a second before looking away, needing a second to get herself together. To focus. This was a lot. She couldn’t sift through her feelings, figure out what to do or say to Ramona. Finally, “Will you tell me about her?” fell from Dylan’s mouth. “About your mom?”
Ramona stared at her for a moment, but then her shoulders relaxed. Dylan hadn’t really meant to ask, but Ramona was lovely and sweet and hid such big feelings behind her eyes. Dylan could see them, swirling and gathering strength, because she saw the same kind of storm in her own face every time she looked in the mirror.
“My mom was beautiful,” Ramona said, her gaze on the water.
“She’d have to be,” Dylan said. The truth.
Ramona smiled a little but didn’t glance at her. “She was born and raised in New York City, was always a big-city girl. She loved fashion and beauty and studied English literature at Sarah Lawrence.”
“She sounds interesting.”
“She was. She met my dad one summer when her family vacationed here.”
Dylan’s breath caught. “They fell in love.”
“They did. He even moved to New York for her, but he was miserable. My dad is not a city guy at all. He likes quiet and routine and for Owen to start making his usual omelet with tomatoes and colby cheese the second he walks into Clover Moon on Sunday mornings.”
“So they moved here?”
Ramona nodded. “When my mom got pregnant with me. She said she wanted the small-town life, wanted a house with a backyard and a dog. So she left her job as editor of an online fashion magazine and came here.” Ramona leaned over and raked her hand through the sand, filtering out tiny twigs and leaves. “Two daughters and thirteen years later…”
Dylan’s chest was tight. “You still talk to her?”
“God, no,” Ramona said. “She sent Olive and me birthday cards at first, but eventually, even those stopped.”
“Jesus.”
Ramona nodded, drew a circle in the sand. “I helped my dad raise Olive. Came home from RISD when he got in a bad accident and shattered his leg. He co-owned a landscaping business with his best friend, Michael, but couldn’t do the work anymore. So he went back to school to become a teacher, and I…”
“You stayed here,” Dylan said.
Ramona nodded. “I don’t regret it. Olive was— is —worth it.”
“I don’t think you have to regret something to still want more,” Dylan said. “To dream.”
Ramona shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Are you angry with her?” Dylan asked.
Ramona didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Dylan let her sit in silence, worrying at her lower lip.
“Yeah,” Ramona said finally. A whispered secret. “More for Olive than for me. I can tell Olive…” Ramona swallowed. “She doesn’t remember her at all. Sometimes I think that’s a good thing. But other times, I know Olive misses her. The idea of her, at least.”
“Ideas can be intoxicating.”
“Yeah,” Ramona said. “And I don’t know.” She sighed, wiped at her cheek as though a tear escaped. “It’s hard, knowing your own mother didn’t want you. Didn’t even want to stay in your life, even if she did have to leave. To be that…forgettable.”
Dylan’s heart sped up, a hummingbird behind her ribs. “We’ve already established that you’re anything but forgettable, Ramona.”
Ramona looked at her. “Really?”
“Really.” Dylan’s voice came out soft, a little breathy, and they watched each other for a few seconds, seconds that felt like hours, and Dylan found her eyes drifting over Ramona’s whole face, down to her mouth…
She looked away. Her chest felt full, swollen with emotions and questions and the desire to tell Ramona about her own childhood, her own mother, her own dreams and worries and wounds.
But more than anything, Dylan wanted to kiss her, convince her she was memorable. “Ramona, I—”
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, startling her, and when she pulled it out and saw the time, panic took over every other emotion.
“Shit, I’m late,” she said, catapulting to her feet. She had a text from Gia, the word fuck taking up most of the sentence.
“Go,” Ramona said. She stayed sitting, smiled up at Dylan. “Good luck.”
Dylan paused, opened her mouth to say something, but her words and feelings tangled together, a mess of emotions and memories.
And suddenly, she knew exactly how Eloise Tucker was feeling, sitting in that gazebo with a girl she’d kissed and loved a lifetime ago.
She smiled. “Will you come with me?” she asked, and Ramona’s brows lifted.
“Come with you?” she asked.
Dylan nodded. “I think you just might be my inspiration, Ramona Riley.” She held out her hand, and Ramona took it, letting Dylan help her to her feet. Their chests brushed as she stood, breath mingling together.
Ramona laughed, her lashes brushing her freckled cheeks.
God, she was pretty.
And Dylan…well, Dylan had to admit it now.
For the second time in her life, eighteen years apart, she had a crush on Ramona Riley.