Chapter Text
Ramona’s summer ends in a small room, if you can even call it that.
The faint feeling of floating on the water, the faint rustling of the throw pillows on the couch, moved by Oona’s fidgeting as she feigns indifference. Her attitude suffocates the air more than the smoke of her god-forsaken cigarette.
“Have a good time.”
In the end, all that Ramona can do is keep her head down and burn a hole into the stairs of the boat as she exits, praying that the numbness doesn’t make her trip and embarrass herself on top of everything.
In the back of her mind she wonders if Oona would rush to her if she did, check up on her like she used to, but she pushes through and exits into the cold breeze enveloping the dock.
“Ramona? I thought you were at Oona’s?”
Ramona looks up from where she's buried her face in her comforter, under layers of false comfort and security. The shirt she's wearing was one of Oona’s favorites – “it accentuates your collarbones, babe, you know I love your collarbones” – it was the one last sliver of vulnerability she could afford herself today.
“Yeah, well,” she starts to say but her voice betrays her, she can't get any words out and her eyes sting with the exhaustion of the week, of the month, of her life. “Don't think I’m, um– I’m gonna be doing that anymore.”
She’s so tired of losing things that she’s unsure if she's even processed anything anymore, if she's even herself right in this moment and it's not some made-up higher being controlling her body and choosing the worst option she can think of at every turn.
“Oh, oh, Ramona,” Annie breathes out before sitting on the bed next to her, “Are you okay?”
She has half the mind to actually say it how it is. To bear her heart out to her sister just one more time this summer, but she can't. She can't get it over her chest, not this, because saying the truth would be admitting that it matters and it's another thing to add on her list of shit for the month.
All she can really hope for is that sweet, sweet, insightful Annie pretends that she doesn't feel her shattering this time, just this once.
“I’m fine.”
New York is new. Different. Not bad, but not Muskoka either.
Steven is new, too.
She doesn't think of him as her dad, not yet, doesn't really think she ever truly will, but that doesn't mean she doesn't appreciate the presence. She appreciates going out into the kitchen and seeing a cup of coffee already waiting for her on the counter, wonders if Annie has someone doing this for her too, Ellis probably, she thinks.
She didn't bring a lot of her belongings here, opting to start over for the most part. Part of her knew that she wouldn't be here forever, that she'd need the clothes waiting for her there when she comes back.
What she did bring though is something a lot more silly and meaningless to the untrained eye.
A little box of trinkets that wouldn't be of any significance to anyone but her.
She sat at the foot of Annie’s bed, legs crossed, as she opened the box.
There's a wistful smile on her lips as she turns over the contents of it in her hands, nimble fingers carefully handling the paper like she was worried it would break under her fingertips.
She stares at the polaroid and presses the pad of her thumb on the smooth surface of the picture printed on it, feeling the glossy finish carefully.
I miss you.
(Do you miss me, too? She wonders, when she's all alone and the hum of the traffic outside is too much to even hear her own thoughts.
You've probably already moved on.)
Oona glanced at the girl sitting in front of her, her hair slightly falling out of its place from behind her ear, she had her head down, nose buried and fingers softly flipping through the pages of whatever book she had engrossed herself in this week.
It was such a rare sight nowadays, unguarded and calm Ramona, that Oona couldn't help herself as she picked up Annie’s borrowed digicam and took a picture.
Ramona’s gaze instead shot up from her book, finding Oona’s eyes immediately before spotting the object in hand and locating the source of the shutter noise.
Her eyes narrowed slowly, eyebrows meeting in that way that Oona thinks makes her look like an angry puppy, “What was that for?”
“I needed some inspo for a sketch,” She answered, shrugging it off, a grin already appearing on her face, anticipating Ramona’s reaction.
“Ugh, all the nature we are surrounded by constantly and you choose to sketch me of all things?” She whined in that way that she only gets when they're alone, nose scrunching up in irritation.
Oona’s eyes sparkled at that and her smile grew softer.
She'd sketched the woods and the water outside millions of times and yet, in her most in-love-and-stupid state, she thinks that Ramona could be covered in mud and her hair could be messy and she'd still look better than whatever nature can give her.
“Baby, you’re beautiful, you know that.”
A soft dust of pink covered Ramona’s cheeks and she covered her face with her hand and looked outside the window, pretending to find whatever’s happening outside more interesting than the woman in front of her as she struggled to muffle out a response, “You can’t just say that.”
“Can't I?”
Oona wakes to the sound of keys opening the door, she doesn't think much of it at first, must be Maple, her breath catching in her throat as the stray thought of “maybe it's Ramona and she's come home and is here to stay and she didn't listen to a word you said because you're a stupid idiot” makes its way into her head before she has to physically shake it out of her.
She hears the squeak of shoes before she hears a faint, “Oona, babe, can we get some light in here, damn?”
“I’m sleeping,” she manages to sound out before pushing back the curtain separating her bed from their ‘hallway’.
“Girl, it’s literally 6pm and we both know you don't take naps,” Sully states bluntly, never really been the one to skirt around the topic, “Besides, have you even eaten yet?”
“... Not hungry,” Oona turns herself and hides her face in her pillow, knowing that if Sully were to catch even a single look at her face they'd know she's full of shit. She was honestly silently cursing herself for giving all of her friends spare keys back when she was young (3 months ago) and stupid (still applies).
“Come on, dude,” they nag, pushing her shoulder with their hand, shaking her softly in that all-familiar way of theirs, “tell me what you wanna eat.”
“Sully,” she sighs, defeated, she tries to mask her feelings by pretending to be sleepy, hoping that Sully won't think much of it, “I’d really rather just sleep.”
What she's met with is a silence that tells her that the face that they're making right now would definitely make her break, so she steels herself and refuses to turn around.
“Please, just let me be,” she pleads.
She found herself sitting on one of the few outside seats that Little Gem offered, she wasn't wearing her uniform this time, just in her own clothes, legs crossed, probably on her 12th cigarette of the hour.
She did that a lot more nowadays, it helped, probably.
She felt Annie coming before she actually saw her, had half the mind to run from her, to escape from the look of disappointment that she will inevitably get. She seemed to get those a lot lately.
Still, something stopped her from moving, she fiddled with the rings on her finger and looked over as Annie sat in the chair across from her.
Neither of them say anything for a while, choosing to sit in the silence, knowing that whatever will come next won't be comfortable.
“Oona,” Annie says, breaking the silence finally, she didn't even need to say anything else. Her tone was incredibly soft and understanding, so much so that it surprised Oona, she'd honestly expected a lashing before this.
She honestly expected Annie to come over with a bat and hit her over the head with it; that doesn't really sound like Annie though, now that she thinks about it.
For some reason, that was all it took for Oona to look over at her and feel her heart jumping in her throat, all of her fake bravado disappearing without a trace and all that was left was a girl bearing her heart out to somebody she holds close.
“It hurts,” she admits, blinking away the fog that had begun to build up in her eyes, “I broke her heart Annie, but I had to.”
She looked up at Annie as she said it, holding eye contact for the first time since she got here, waiting for her reply.
She wants Annie to say that it's okay, that she understands her, that she's got it all wrong and that Ramona never actually left. She wonders if a faux sympathy from the girl’s own sister would heal the Ramona-sized wound left on her heart.
“It was perfect, it was the most perfect thing I've ever had, but, God, it wasn't gonna go anywhere, Annie.” she breathes in and feels her breath shake as she does, “It wasn't gonna go anywhere because she needed to prioritise herself and she wasn't going to. I would’ve been holding her back from living.”
She folds in on herself slightly, focuses on everything but Annie, waits for her reply as if whatever it is is the answer she's been looking for.
She waits for the other girl to lash out at her and tell her what an idiot she was for letting a girl like Ramona, someone who happens only once in a lifetime, out of her sight.
What she gets though, when she finally musters the courage to look up, is just a sad smile, Annie’s own eyes shimmering with unshed tears, “You broke your own heart too, babe.”
It takes Oona only a couple beers and unspecified alcohol that Sully shoved into her hand for her to find herself stumbling onto her bed with some random girl she'd found herself attached to for the night, Maple gone off to Annie’s for a sleepover.
The girl – May? Maysie? Marie? – She doesn't have a clue, all she knows is that she can feel the girl’s hands in her hair and her lips on her neck right before she starts to feel insanely aware.
Aware that she's drunk and doesn't even really want to do this, aware that she doesn't even know anything about this girl besides that fact that she's actively trying to get into her pants.
Aware that her hair is the wrong shade of blonde, that her stature is nowhere near as small as necessary, that her clothes aren't the clothes she's used to touching.
She gives herself a few seconds before promptly deciding that she needs to put a stop to this before she vomits fucking everywhere.
She doesn't even know how she does it, can faintly remember muttering a ‘sorry, I don't think I can do this tonight,” and letting the mystery girl to the door before promptly launching herself at her bed and groaning.
The next thing she knows, she’s pulling out the iPhone 12 her mother had given her the last time she cared to apologize to her for being gone, and feels more than sees herself dialing a number.
She hears it ring a couple of times before she moves to just turn off the device and go to sleep.
And then, like divine intervention, a raspy, tired voice flutters through the speaker, “Oona? Is that you?”
Ramona’s barely conscious herself, but her mind seems to be ahead of her regardless and immediately she can picture Ramona answering the phone in bed, faints lines imprinted on her face from her pillow, eyes closed in that cute way that feels entirely too Ramona.
She’s almost forgotten what she was even doing, when she hears Ramona on the other end once again, “Oona, are you good? It’s 3am.”
And god, she wishes she could say she was good, wishes she could pretend and act like everything's perfect and she doesn't miss Ramona at all.
She doesn't really know how to tell Ramona she didn't really mean it, that she needs her back even if she hopes Ramona is enjoying her new life without her.
Doesn't have a damn clue how to admit that maybe she acted rash, that maybe they could've talked it through, that they could've made it work.
So instead, she settles for the next best thing she can think of, “Yeah, uh, sorry. I didn't really mean to call you.”
Yes, I did. I’ve been staring at your number on my screen every single day since you left. I’ve been wearing my socks mismatched because it makes me feel like you never left.
“Oh,” is all that Ramona mutters and Oona hears rustling on her side, as if Ramona had realized that the voice she was hearing was actually her and not just another dream. “Oona, are you drunk?”
Good job, genius, now she's gonna think you're just getting drunk like usual and you're calling her to mess with her. As if you haven't done enough.
“Sorry, sorry, I’m stupid, I never should've called,” she hisses, more to herself than to the woman on the other side of the call, she fumbles with the rings on her left hand, “Sorry, I should go.”
Oona closes her eyes before turning off the call, she hopes Ramona hadn't actually heard any of her rambling, she hopes that she's tired enough to stay on the line a bit longer, that she might at least be able to hear her breathe when she falls back asleep.
She’s taken aback when she hears a panicked, “No, don't hang up, okay?”
They sit like that for a few seconds, neither of them saying a word, afraid that whatever they say might break the illusion of whatever they've got here.
And then, she hears the faintest whisper possible, one she probably wouldn't have heard had she not used 100% of her brainpower to focus on every single breath Ramona took, “I– I really miss you, Oona.”
She doesn't know if it's the alcohol or the exhaustion or whatever it is she's done to her body that makes her feel so drunk on the way Ramona says her name.
She can't really stop herself, never really has been able to stop herself when it comes to her, she'd always felt like a drug to her, when the words come tumbling out of her like a hurricane, “God, Mona. Baby, tell me how I can stop thinking about you.”
She sits there, waiting for an answer, feels herself dozing off a little, whatever the hell she drank hours ago finally putting her to sleep, thinks she imagines the hitch in Ramona’s breath coming from the phone, that she imagines the soft whisper of “Go to sleep, Oona”.
For the next few weeks Oona pretends the call didn't happen.
Pretends she doesn't see it in her call history. That it doesn't haunt her every waking moment.
She's always been quite good at pretending.