Chapter Text
The first thing Oona does the day after her breakup with Ramona is to hide away in her houseboat, the curtains drawn closed, curled up under her blanket with the dried tear tracks still on her cheeks.
“Oona?” Maple calls from their living area. “Breakfast at Sully’s?”
Fuck. She promised Sully she’d be at the cafe for breakfast. But everything in her hurts.
“I’m not feeling great,” she manages to croak out. It’s the most raspy her voice has ever been. Not even cheering on Maple at the talent show made her voice this raspy. “Tell him I say hi.”
When Oona hears the door to the houseboat shut, she believes she has some reprieve. She knows it was wrong to make Maple lie to Ramona yesterday, but she couldn’t fathom Ramona making the wrong choice about having the chance to bond with her biological father. It’s what Oona would have done if her father was even in the picture, but with her mom being a traveler, she was never in one place for too long.
Oona takes the quiet, listening only to her faint heartbeat underneath the covers. Her chest clenches as her body is racked with leftover sobs from the night before when she had cried herself to sleep.
Blimey, it hurts.
Losing Ramona was never supposed to happen. Even if they didn’t work out romantically, which Oona desperately hoped was not the case, there had been comfort in the fact that they had been best friends for so long. So why does it feel like she’s suddenly lost everything?
Light footsteps on the boat’s hardwood floors wake Oona up. The curtain by her bed is thrown open, and Maple’s concerned face peeks in. Behind her stands Sully, which is somehow even more embarrassing.
Oona immediately closes the curtain, wiping away any evidence of her breakdown earlier, before re-opening the curtain with a small smile.
“Hey babes, how are you feeling?” Sully asks, and Oona curses silently. He’s always been too damn good at reading her, so she knows it’s only a matter of time before she’s forced to open up.
“As if I got hit by a bus,” she says, trusting her voice a little more. It’s not as raspy, but she doesn’t sound as confident as she normally is.
“I’m going to meet Ellis at the marina for work,” Maple announces suddenly. “Want me to say you’ll be late?”
Sully nods, seemingly answering for him and Oona. Maple takes another look at Oona before heading out, her baseball cap thrown on her head. They can faintly hear her shouting Ellis’s name in the distance.
Oona lets out a sigh before remembering that Sully’s on her boat. She shakes her head, throws her legs over the side of her bed, and runs a hand through her blonde curls. She doesn’t even want to know what she looks like.
“Oona, are you okay?”
Her smile falters for a second before she throws her mask back up. She doesn’t bother turning to face Sully because she knows her facade will break. Instead, she focuses on picking out a pair of shorts to wear with her work shirt.
“Yeah.”
“You can tell me if you’re not, you know,” he says.
Oona knows this. It’s mainly the reason why she can’t. She knows that if she opens up even a little bit about how she laid her heart on a silver dinner plate, only for it to be served to a meat grinder, she’ll break. And she has too much to think about for that to happen.
“Mona and I broke up,” she admits once she’s found shorts to wear. She lets the nickname roll off her tongue like it belongs, because it does. Oona gave her that nickname, and to this day, she’s the only person who calls her by it. She remembers that first day so clearly, as if maybe life was always supposed to go like this.
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A knock at the houseboat brings Oona out of her book’s escaped reality just when the story had gotten interesting. Holding the book to her chest, Oona hears her mom greet the people at the door.
“Girls, come say hi!”
Oona sighs, glancing toward her little sister Maple, who’s already on her feet and heading for the door. She stands up and follows, stopping by the door when she sees who the guests are. A man and a girl. Oona hopes she’s around her age so she has someone to play with.
“Hi, I’m Gordon,” the older-looking man says with a bright smile. “I live up on the other side of the big forest. This is my granddaughter, Ramona.”
The girl in front of Oona looks up from the ground shyly, waving stiffly with one hand. “Hi.”
Oona looks her up and down, taking in her plaited blonde hair, the shorts that go down to her knees, and the knitted sweater. She grins, reaching out to shake Ramona’s hand, surprising the other girl with her motions.
“Hi, I’m Oona!” She states. If Ramona won’t talk, then Oona will. Oona points toward her sister. “This is my sister, Maple. She’s seven!”
Gordon smiles crookedly. “And how old are you, Oona?”
“I’m twelve! What about you?” She directs toward Ramona in the hopes of getting her to speak more.
Ramona looks down at her feet. “Eleven.”
“Do you want to go play in the water with me?” Oona tries again. Maybe if they’re away from the adults, Ramona will open up. “I have really cool goggles, and I can see everything!”
Gordon nudges Ramona toward Oona, and Oona’s mom smiles as Oona runs off to grab the goggles.
“That’s a great idea. It’s safe by the marina, right?”
“Oh, definitely. We have a lifeguard posted at the boat rental shop, so the girls will be watched after.”
Oona’s mom turns toward Maple. “Would you like to go too or stay with me?”
“Stay with you.”
“Okay,” she chuckles. “Oona, listen to Gordon and the lifeguard, okay?”
Oona grins and takes Ramona’s hand, leading her out of the houseboat. They walk hand in hand to the small beach where the lifeguard chair is.
“Do you like it on the island?” Oona asks. “We just moved here, and I love it! The water is so blue and shiny.”
Ramona just nods.
Oona holds out the goggles. “Want to try?”
“Sure.”
She holds back a laugh when Ramona slides the goggles on her face and dives underwater, resurfacing with a leaf on top of her head. When the leaf starts to fall off Ramona’s face is when Oona spots the smallest glimpse of a smile.
Success.
Eventually, Oona and Ramona are being called back for dinner. They drag themselves out of the refreshing water, and Ramona hands Oona the goggles back. Oona shakes her head.
“Keep them for next time.”
“Okay,” Ramona’s voice wavers. “Thanks for today. I had fun.”
Oona beams. A compliment. “Me too. I’ll see you soon, Mona.”
Ramona freezes at the new nickname, but Oona sees a smile tugging at her lips. The girls hug before turning their separate ways, and all Oona can think about is the mysterious girl whom she made smile three times.
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“Earth to Oona?”
Oona snaps out of her trance, feeling the movement of Sully’s hand in front of her face. She blushes at the thought of the memory before the heartbreak settles again.
“Sorry, what?”
Sully frowns. “You zoned out. Were you thinking about Ramona?”
Oona doesn’t trust her voice, so she nods.
“Oona, what happened? I literally saw you guys two days ago all lovey-dovey.”
“I’m not ready to talk about it,” she manages. “At least, not right this second.”
Sully nods and moves to open his mouth again, but quickly closes it.
“What’s going on?”
“Who says anything’s going on?” He counters.
Oona points at him with her index finger. “You were literally about to tell me something. What is it?”
Sully hesitates, as if he’s hanging in the balance of life and death. And maybe he is. “I didn’t want you to find out this way…”
Her heart beats faster, as if it is expecting what comes next, and her shoulders tense. “Find what out?”
A beat.
“Ramona’s gone.”
Oona’s ears start to ring, tuning out the rest of Sully’s sentence.
“She left for New York this morning.”
Oh, is all she thinks before her world goes black.