Chapter Forty
Chapter
Forty
Two days later, Dylan pulled through the gate and into the diamond-patterned driveway of a modern white house in Laurel Canyon. Greenery hugged the property, and myriad tiny plants were built into the wide stone stairs that led to the front door.
It was evening, and Jack and Carrie’s house in LA was softly lit and quiet, the sky a lavender blue. The glassed-in balcony overlooked an infinity pool, and a modern copper fountain burbled near the front walkway, succulents and greens nestled all around.
Dylan sat in her car for a few minutes. She assumed her parents had been alerted to her use of their gate code, but the front door remained closed. She hadn’t talked to either one of them all that much since her mother’s declaration at Dylan’s rental in Clover Lake a few weeks ago. She wasn’t even sure when they’d left Clover Lake. Her father, of course, witnessed her and Ramona falling apart, but the only direct contact she’d had with them was a text from Carrie the day after the breakup— We love you.
That was all it said.
And Dylan hadn’t even responded, because she’d never known how to respond to her parents’ acts or words of love. She didn’t trust them. Wasn’t sure she knew how to trust them.
The only thing she did know was that she was tired. She was tired of feeling angry, of feeling hurt and wounded all the time. She was tired of blaming Jack and Carrie for everything that was wrong with her life.
And at the end of the day, right now, she just wanted her parents. Not Jack Monroe and Carrie Page, two people the entire world recognized and idolized.
Just Mom and Dad.
She took a deep breath, then opened her car door. Stepped out on the pristine walkway, all white stone and bright green grass. She made it to the front door without turning back, so she counted that as progress.
Baby steps , as the cliché saying went, but right now, she’d take every win she could get.
She stared at the giant oak door for what felt like a long time, the water from the fountain whispering behind her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been here, though her parents had lived in this house for ten years. Her throat went a little thick at the thought—she felt suddenly young and unsure.
Like that toddler sleeping on the pizza box in a destroyed hotel room.
But she wasn’t that kid anymore.
And her parents weren’t those parents.
She reached out and rang the doorbell. Before the chime even stopped ringing through the house, the door flew open, and there was her mother, that short silver hair and all her gold chains, her icy eyes wide and liquid, as though she’d been standing in the foyer, waiting for Dylan to make the first move.
They stared at each other for a second, and then Dylan stepped forward and fell into her mother’s arms.
They sat outside on the patio, all of them sipping on some sort of mango green tea Carrie was obsessed with, enjoying the last bites of a spicy coconut curry Jack had made himself. The late July breeze drifting through the hills was warm, the sky cloudless and full of stars.
It was a perfect night, by all accounts, and Dylan couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this comfortable with her parents.
The evening hadn’t started off quite so easily.
After that initial embrace, Dylan and Carrie had made it to the living room—a giant space with a huge cream sectional, sage-green and coral pillows, the room emulating a calm coastal day. Jack had poured them all a glass of the tea, and then they’d talked.
Really talked.
Sometimes voices were raised.
Sometimes they cried.
Sometimes they all got quiet, because they didn’t know what to say or how to say it. The realization that the past was the past washed over them more than once, a hard reality that they couldn’t change any of it.
But they communicated. With words that meant something, and they all shared and they all listened. Dylan still responded with some passive-aggressive jabs here and there, and Jack still tried to act as though love were enough to wipe away past transgressions, and Carrie still tried to explain away those past transgressions, because none of them were perfect. But this was the first real conversation the three of them had experienced.
Ever.
It was hard and only a start, but it was good .
Now, as Dylan sat at the table with her parents, she felt completely drained. She was exhausted, but in a good way. In a fresh start kind of way.
“So what’s next, Dill Pickle?” Jack said, dipping a hunk of bread into his bowl of curry. “You really blew everyone away with this last project.”
Dylan smiled, her hands folded on her stomach. “I don’t know if I blew them away.”
Jack shook his head. “You did, you did. You really showed them.”
Dylan was tempted to ask, Showed them what? but she knew. It wasn’t a secret how she had been viewed in Hollywood—how she was still viewed by the majority of the industry—but she hoped As If You Didn’t Know would change all that once it was released.
She was proud of it.
Proud of herself.
“Maybe I did,” she said, and Jack winked at her.
“Laurel and Adriana have anything lined up for you next?” Carrie asked.
Dylan sighed. She hadn’t spoken directly to anyone on her team since she’d been back in LA. Honestly, she needed a break from it all, from their plotting and their plans for her, even though she knew they were just doing their jobs.
Her lack of honesty regarding Ramona was on her.
Still, there were a few scripts in her inbox that Adriana had sent her way, all from casting directors for the exact kinds of projects Dylan was looking for. There was even one for a biopic about Marlene Dietrich, who was famously bisexual and loved to don a pantsuit in the 1920s and ’30s. It was the role of a lifetime, and Dylan wanted it. She just had to get her head—and heart—on straight first.
“I don’t know what’s next,” she said, sipping on her tea. “Still figuring some things out.”
“Things,” Carrie said, shooting Jack a look.
“Yes,” Dylan said slowly. “Things.”
“Things as in…people?” Carrie asked. “One person, maybe?”
“Subtle, Mom,” Dylan said.
Carrie spread her hands in surrender. “I’m just saying.”
“She seemed like a sweetheart,” Jack said. “Wish we could’ve spent more time with her.”
Dylan rubbed her temples. “I think talking about Ramona is a bit too much for tonight.”
“That’s fair, honey,” Carrie said, nodding. “We just want you to be happy and you seemed…happy with her.”
Dylan didn’t say anything.
But Carrie was right.
Dylan had been happy with Ramona. So fucking happy. She’d never felt like that with any of her past lovers, never ached for them so much after everything ended. Never racked her brain so much about what she could’ve— should’ve —done differently.
Letting someone in is always a little scary. No matter who you are or what you’ve been through. But it’s always worth it .
Blair’s words echoed through her thoughts for the millionth time since the wrap party.
It’s always worth it.
Dylan gulped some more tea, her throat dry—not from a sudden realization, but from this constant knowing .
She wanted Ramona Riley in her life.
By her side.
Her hand in hers, their lives tangled together. She’d known it before they broke up, but she also knew, without a doubt, that she had to work on herself first. And even now, as she was doing that work, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be worthy of Ramona, that she’d ever be able to mesh their lives together the way she wanted.
She groaned, dropped her head into her hands.
“Oh, honey,” Carrie said, leaning forward and placing a hand on her arm. “You’ll figure it out.”
Dylan shook her head. “I don’t know if I will. She’s too good for me.”
“Nonsense,” Jack said.
“I fucked up. She won’t forgive me.”
“You never know until you ask for that forgiveness,” Carrie said, squeezing her arm.
“She’s in Clover Lake,” Dylan said, slumping back in her chair. “Her whole life is there.”
Both Jack’s and Carrie’s brows lifted. They looked at each other, eyes wide.
“What?” Dylan asked, shifting in her seat. “What is it?”
“Pickle,” Jack said slowly, “Ramona’s in LA.”
The words didn’t register at first. Didn’t make sense.
“She’s what?” she asked.
Jack laughed a little nervously. “She’s in LA.”
Dylan just stared at her father.
“She took a job working for Noelle Yang,” Carrie said. “I heard it from Noelle herself when I called her about a gown for the premiere. You didn’t know?”
Dylan’s mouth opened, then closed again. She’d had no idea. She hadn’t really seen Ramona for more than a split second since their breakup, and no one on the film’s set mentioned her to Dylan. It had been like some unspoken rule, some protection Dylan never asked for.
Dylan sat there, trying to figure out how she felt about this new development. There was some hurt over the fact that she’d been in the dark about this huge opportunity, that Ramona hadn’t told her. But as she slowed herself down, really let the emotions just be , as Eli would say, she realized how unfair that hurt was. Her feelings were what they were, sure, but she’d never asked Ramona about her dreams. Never looked beyond her own issues to really see what Ramona’s might have been. And god, right now, sitting with her parents in Laurel Canyon, she wanted to know them. She wanted to know them all. She wanted to know what Ramona dreamed about costume design, and she wanted to know about this new job with Noelle. She wanted to know why Ramona never felt comfortable telling Dylan the truth, and she wanted to tell Ramona how sorry she was.
She wanted Ramona.
“Shit,” she said, pressing her hands to her mouth. “You think—”
“Yes,” Carrie said emphatically. “Yes, I really do think.”
Dylan just stared at her mother, her mind whirling with what and how and if .
If.
That was the big one. The question.
And there was only one way to answer it.