Chapter Forty-One
Chapter
Forty-One
“So this is LA,” April said.
Ramona stood on her tiny apartment’s even tinier balcony, squashed between her best friend and her sister, and gazed out at the evening vista that was her new home. The sun was just starting to set, sending pink and purple and orange across the sky.
“Strip malls and pine trees,” Olive said.
“With mountains in the distance,” April said in an ethereal voice, spreading her free hand over the view.
Ramona laughed. “How about constant sunshine and perpetually seventy-five degrees?”
“Ugh,” April said, but she was smiling as she held out her arms to the sun. “No one needs this much cheer. Give me some moody clouds and a stormy lake any day.”
Ramona shook her head, but when she took a deep breath, it was shaky.
She was here.
She lived in LA.
She had a job working for Noelle Yang.
Her actual dreams had come true, and yet, everything still felt nebulous, unreal. She had arrived in town only a few days ago, and she’d been so busy unpacking and trying to set up the apartment in Silver Lake that Noelle had helped her find, she’d barely had time to process it all.
She hadn’t really been able to process anything since the night she’d decided to take the job, the night Olive came home from visiting their mother.
Olive had taken a few days to tell Ramona what happened, and even then, there hadn’t been all that much to say. Olive shared that Rebecca—that’s what Olive had called her, Rebecca —was very nice, but clearly wasn’t interested in being a mother.
Ever.
“She never said as much,” Olive had said. She and Ramona were in Ramona’s room, packing up her things for LA. “It was just a feeling I got, you know? Like, she’d take me out to dinner, but then just talked about herself a lot.”
“She didn’t ask about you at all?” Ramona asked, teeth already clenching.
“No, she did,” Olive said, folding a pair of Ramona’s jeans. “It just felt…I don’t know. Like she asked because she knew she should, not because she actually cared.” Olive shrugged. “Maybe I’m reading into it too much.”
Ramona zipped up a suitcase that was already full, then moved closer to her sister. She smoothed a hand down her hair. “I’m sorry, honey.”
Olive had looked at her then, her eyes shiny. “I’m sorry too.”
Ramona frowned. “For what?”
“I don’t know,” Olive said. Her lower lip trembled a little. “Just…thanks. You…you’ve given me everything I need. You and Dad.”
Ramona had to fight to keep the tears at bay right then, but when Olive fell into her arms, hugging her tight for a long time, she let them fall anyway. And in that moment, everything was worth it. Olive had always been worth it, but Ramona felt it so keenly then, a gratitude that she got to know this person in her arms, got to help her become who she was.
Now, Ramona smiled at Olive, happy to have her in LA, if only for a short time. Her apartment was pretty much set up, Noelle didn’t need her for another three days, and she couldn’t wait to explore the city with her two favorite people.
“What should we do over the next few days?” she asked, turning around and pressing her back to the balcony railing.
“I want to see the Hollywood sign before I leave,” Olive said.
“Some studios would be fun,” April said, scrolling through her phone. “Oh, the tar pits. Oh, wait, I’ve got it.” She looked up and grinned. “Celebrity house tours.”
She quirked an eyebrow at Ramona, who tried to ignore both April’s and Olive’s charged silence at the mention of celebrity .
“No thanks,” she said coolly, then turned around to look at the city again. She very much doubted Dylan’s house would be on such a tour, as those things usually included classic Hollywood icons like Cary Grant and Rita Hayworth.
But Jack Monroe and Carrie Page?
They might be on a tour like that, especially if it was a more modern excursion through LA.
“Mona,” April said. “You’re really not curious?”
Ramona didn’t answer. It wasn’t that she wasn’t curious.
She definitely was.
She hadn’t seen or talked to Dylan in nearly a month. Hadn’t gone to the wrap party in Clover Lake. She had prepared the costumes for the film those last two weeks with such meticulousness, all Noelle had to do was pick them up and hand them to whatever actor they were intended for. And Noelle, being a classy person, did just that. She never asked Ramona to deal with Dylan once she was in a costume, and Ramona appreciated that courtesy more than she could verbalize. A badass like Noelle Yang certainly didn’t have to think of Ramona’s heart when dealing with work, but she had.
And Ramona was forever grateful.
Because, no, her thoughts and feelings regarding Dylan weren’t about curiosity.
They were about survival.
She couldn’t let herself drift back into memories and what-ifs, because she didn’t think her heart would survive it if she did. She wasn’t worried about crying or simply feeling sad.
She was worried about disappearing into those feelings.
Right now, it was too fresh, and her heart was too battered, too tender to face that kind of battle. She was healing, wasn’t ready for combat, and she knew it would take time—maybe a long time—to get over Dylan Monroe.
Because the fact was, Ramona loved her.
Loved her so much she sometimes couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see straight, couldn’t remember what she’d been doing when the memory of a kiss or mushrooms or the way Dylan liked to link her pinkie with Ramona’s when they walked down the street washed over her, a surprise tsunami. No matter what had happened or how it ended, no matter that Dylan had fake dated Ramona to smooth over her image problem, Ramona had fallen in love with Dylan.
And she needed time to fall out.
She took a deep breath, then focused her brain on dinner for the night. “How about—”
“The Griffith Observatory,” April blurted loudly.
Ramona turned to look at her best friend, who was staring down at her phone, her brows wrinkled.
“What did you say?” Ramona asked.
April looked up at her. “The Griffith Observatory.”
Ramona’s breath stilled in her chest, her lungs suddenly refusing to fill.
I’d go to the Griffith Observatory. Every day at sunset. It’s gorgeous then. Soft and romantic and perfect.
“The…the Griffith Observatory?” Ramona asked. “Why are you talking about the Griffith Observatory?”
April handed over her phone. Olive pressed closer to Ramona, looking over her shoulder at the screen.
At first, she only registered pictures of the sky—tiny squares, three across, the LA skyline at sunset. But then she realized she was looking at Dylan’s Instagram page, and her hand flew to her mouth.
Because these were pictures of the Griffith Observatory at sunset.
And I’d post a picture on my Instagram every day that I went. No caption, or maybe a caption only you would understand.
Underneath each picture, there were only two things in the caption—a cherry emoji and a lollipop emoji.
“Oh my god,” Ramona said.
“What?” Olive asked. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” April said. “But I feel like those emojis can’t be a coincidence.”
“Emojis?” Olive asked, squinting at the screen. “What does a cherry and a lollipop have to do with anything?”
“Cherry,” Ramona said. “Cherry and Lolli.” She looked up at her sister. “That’s what Dylan and I called each other the first time we met when we were thirteen.”
Olive’s mouth opened, then closed again. She squeezed Ramona’s arm, a gentle weight that Ramona needed right now.
And I’d wait there for you every day until the observatory closed for five days.
“Oh my god,” Ramona said.
“What?” April asked.
Only five?
“Oh my god ,” Ramona said again.
“What, what?” April said, her voice nearly a screech.
I figure that’s enough time for you to know if you wanted to see me.
Ramona counted the photos—today’s photo, posted just twenty minutes ago, was the fifth one. Ramona felt frozen, locked in place by a million emotions.
It was true that she needed time to fall out of love with Dylan Monroe. And no, she didn’t want to think about Dylan for too long, too much.
But that was before.
Before these pictures.
Before five minutes ago that changed everything.
Because yes, goddammit, yes, she loved Dylan Monroe.
And if she was reading this right, remembering right, and she knew she was, Dylan Monroe loved her too.
She looked up at April and Olive, who were waiting, their own breaths shallow, their eyes wide. And then she asked the only question that mattered right now, the only thing that mattered in the entire universe.
“How long does it take to get to the Griffith Observatory?”