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I. The One with the Doorframe
"Absolutely not," Ramona said, staring up. Up. She hated up. "You cannot just do that."
Oona, a half a foot taller now, after what Ramona was choosing to call her Freak Accident Growth Era, leaned one shoulder against the doorframe of Ramona's kitchen like she owned it. Like she wasn't a full head and a half taller than she'd been the last time Ramona had seen her, back before the humility of ninth grade came and brought with it growth spurts for everyone– everyone it seems, except for Ramona.
"Do what," Oona said, all fake innocence, "exist?"
"Loom. You're looming. It's rude."
"I'm standing still."
"You're looming at me. There's a difference." Ramona crossed her arms and tipped her chin up another degree, refusing to take the single step back that would have made this conversation physically possible without a crick in her neck. "You used to be normal-sized."
"I was never normal-sized, I was your size, which is a specific and increasingly rare condition."
"I will end you."
"You'd have to reach me first." Oona grinned, delighted with herself in the specific way she'd always been delighted with herself, tall or not, and reached out to set her palm flat on top of Ramona's head like she was checking a doorframe for height. "Yep. Still down there. Hi."
Ramona swatted her hand away, and if her ears were a little red, it was clearly from the indignity of it, and nothing else. "I liked you better shorter."
"Oh, come off it, babe. I’ll have you know, the girls are loving the new taller Oona," she winked.
Ramona scoffed, “yes, I did. So what, you decided to become a giant just so you could kiss more campers?”
Oona laughed and tilted her head, “Never had a problem there. You’re acting like I chose to be this tall. Maybe you should go ahead and add a few inches, then. We will have to get you your first kiss sometime, Mona.”
Ramona frowned,
“Hey, it was a long year, you don’t know what happened in Barrie. Also, you don’t get to call me that while insulting me.”
Oona lifted her hands in faux surrender,
“Of course, RA-mona. Why don’t you go ahead and fill me in while we find you a step stool? My neck is starting to hurt.”
"I hate you," Ramona said, with her whole chest, and Oona just laughed, low and easy, and didn't move away from where she was standing far too close, taking up far too much space in a doorway that used to hold both of them without any looming at all.
II. The One With the Blankets
The cottage was too quiet the way it had been for three weeks now, ever since Ramona had come back from her grandfather's house with an ever increasing duffle bag of grief and a silence in her chest that didn't seem to be going anywhere.
She hadn't asked Oona to come over. She hadn't asked Oona to bring a backpack with a change of clothes shoved in the top like she was planning on staying, either, but there she'd been at seven, Sully- made food in hand, and no questions in her mouth, just hey, budge over, I brought the noodles you like.
They didn't talk about it. That was the thing about Oona. She never made Ramona talk about it, just made room, physically, actually, on the couch and then later in the bed, when Ramona had gone quiet in that specific way that used to mean nothing and now meant everything, and Oona had just said, "C'mere," and opened her arm like it wasn't a big deal.
It wasn't a big deal. They'd slept in the same bed a hundred times, since they were kids, since long before either of them had grown into whatever this was.
Except now Oona was so much bigger than she used to be, and when Ramona turned onto her side, Oona's whole body curled around hers without either of them really deciding it — one arm heavy and warm across her middle, knees tucked behind her own, Oona's chin resting somewhere at the crown of her head like Ramona was something worth building a wall around.
"You're doing the big spoon thing," Ramona mumbled into the dark, mostly so she wouldn't have to think about how much she didn't want it to stop.
"I'm aware."
"I could be the big spoon. Theoretically."
"Sure you could," Oona said, entirely unbothered, tightening her arm a fraction, and Ramona felt the words land somewhere soft and unguarded in her chest instead of bouncing off like they usually did. "Go to sleep, Mona."
She meant to argue. She meant to make some comment about personal space, about the sheer, unreasonable amount of Oona there currently was, wrapped around her like this was nothing, like this was easy.
Instead she said, "Okay," in a voice that came out smaller than she meant it to, and let herself be held.
For the first time in three weeks, the quiet in her chest didn't feel like something was missing. It felt like something safe. She didn't say that part out loud. She didn't have to — Oona's arm just tightened again, like she already knew, and pressed the ghost of a kiss to the top of Ramona's head that neither of them would mention in the morning.
Ramona fell asleep before she could decide whether she minded.
III. The One Against the Wall
It happened in the entry way, which felt insulting, honestly, given how long they'd both been circling this. Ramona had pictured somewhere with better lighting, or at least a couch, not the musty screened in porch she had spent hours playing monopoly and scrabble with Gordon in. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to complain as Oona slowed the kiss down and they separated, not far, just enough to lean their foreheads together and breathe.
"You're doing the thing again," Ramona said, breathless and dizzy with an overwhelming relief as the days and weeks of tension, fear and aching need to be closer, closer, was finally shattered.
"What thing?"
"The looming thing."
Oona laughs, a memory dragged to the surface of two kids in a much simpler time. When her mother was flakey, but around. When Goldie was still dead, but there were no secret families. When holding Romona’s hand was just something they did and didn’t light her whole world on fire.
"I'm not looming, I'm—" Oona's hand came up to brace against the wall by Ramona's head and she straightens back to full height, and just like that the height difference stopped being a punchline and became something else entirely: Oona's whole frame over her, close enough that Ramona had to tip her head all the way back to hold her gaze, closer than looming, closer than anything they'd let themselves be in years of almost. "I'm just standing here."
"You're really not."
"Do you want me to move?"
And that was the whole question, wasn't it, the one they'd been not-asking for years, dressed up in every fight about height and stools and who got to be the big spoon. Ramona could have said something clever. She had several things ready, actually, a whole arsenal of wit and teasing built over a decade of practice.
She said, "No," instead, quiet and certain, and that was apparently all Oona needed.
Oona kissed her like she'd been waiting to for years — because she had — one hand sliding to cradle the back of Ramona's skull, careful even now, even like this. She pulled Ramona closer as their mouths slotted against each other over and over. She was everywhere, was the thing, the way she'd always threatened to be, height and warmth and the low sound she made against Ramona's mouth, and Ramona's hands fisted in the front of her shirt like she might actually float away otherwise.
When they broke apart, Oona still didn't go far. Just far enough to look at her, a twinkle formed in her eye and smirk threatening to break through.
“You really are very short, though. We may need to get you that step stool, finally. For my back, ya know?”
"Shut up," Ramona laughed, and kissed her again, and this time neither of them was keeping score of who was taller. It stopped mattering, somewhere between the first kiss and the second, that Oona had to bend to reach her — it just felt like exactly the right amount of closeness.
+1. The One In Her Lap
It was supposed to be a normal night. That was the thing Oona kept trying to remind herself of, later, as if that would help — it had started normal. Movie on low, Ramona curled against her side like always, some argument about the plot that had dissolved into something else somewhere around the second kiss.
And then Ramona had just moved. Swung a leg over and settled herself into Oona's lap like it was nothing, like it wasn't the single most devastating thing that had happened to Oona all week. The familiar sight and feeling of her tucked into Oona’s side was replaced by all of her. Her weight and warmth, knees braced on either side of Oona's hips, arms looping loose around her neck like she'd done this a hundred times instead of exactly zero.
"Oh," Oona said, with real feeling, hands landing automatically at Ramona's waist like they'd been waiting their whole lives for permission.
"Problem?" Ramona asked, entirely too pleased with herself, chin tipped down now instead of up for once, and that alone nearly finished Oona off — the novelty of Ramona looking down at her, small and settled and completely, catastrophically in charge.
"No," Oona managed. "No problem. This is — you fit."
"I fit?"
"You fit," Oona said again, helplessly, hands flexing at her waist because apparently that was the only coherent thought left in her head. That for someone who spent half her life complaining about her petite stature, Ramona fit against her like this with an ease that felt unfair, knees tucked snug at her sides, close enough that Oona could feel her heartbeat, could feel her laughing, low and a little smug, right up against her collarbone.
"You're staring."
"You're straddling me, Mona, forgive me for being a little derailed."
"You've had years to prepare for this."
"No amount of preparation," Oona said honestly, and pulled her down by the back of the neck to kiss the smirk right off her face, "was going to prepare me for this."
Ramona made a small, satisfied sound against her mouth and sank further into her lap, and Oona's brain, several years of careful composure regarding one Ramona and her general everything, simply switched off.
"So," Ramona murmured, pulling back just far enough to look smug about it, forehead against Oona's, "still thinking about the stool?"
"I have never," Oona said, hands sliding up her back, voice gone rough and reverent all at once, "in my life, been less interested in anything." Her eyes softened then as she carefully spoke her next words,
“Mona, darling, you have always been perfect for me.”
Ramona grinned — the real one, the one that has always taken Oona’s breath away when it turned toward her, now aimed at her from an entirely new angle — and kissed her again like she had absolutely nowhere else to be.
She didn't.