Archive of Our Own

September 2018 (10&11) 

Oona’s miserable. She’s had a fun summer, really, and this is the best move yet that their mother has made them do. Her skin is a deep walnut brown from all the hours she’s spent outside, barely going inside their still-a-bit-weird-to-be-living-in-it houseboat. She’s made friends with several of the local kids around Sterling Point and in town, helped by the fact that her mother had a rare stroke of good maternal sense and sent her to the popular local summer camp for a week at the beginning of summer, allowing herself to ingrainate herself more with the neighbourhood. 

And of course, there’s Ramona. They met when Oona had barely been here a week. She had been sitting by the dock near their boat, nervously looking into the dark water that her mother had made her promise to not swim in without her floaties, because she still was far from a strong swimmer. Ramona, all titchy 1 metre of her, had stomped bossily up the dock towards her, and despite being a year younger to Oona’s 11, she had had no problems in making her way towards her and asking her what she was doing. At that age, Ramona lived under the impression that this was her island, her and Gordon’s, and therefore all the neighbourhood should be ready to report to her if she so asked. She’d seen this particular girl around lately with her mother and her baby sister, looking around nervously, but she still hadn’t seen her at the haunts where she and her friends spent the long summer days, like the playground on the mainland. 

“What are you doing?” she had demanded, an air of authority to her that forced Oona to stand a bit straighter, even if she could tell that this girl was probably younger. 

“Um…nothing? I was thinking of swimming, but I don’t really know how to properly yet, but my mother made me promise to not go in alone.” 

Her voice sounds insanely weird to Ramona, like it’s straight out of a movie, and should not be spoken by actual normal people on her island. However, Gordon has raised her to be opinionated and wilful, but not outright rude, so she doesn’t ask about it, not yet anyway. Still, a girl of their age, unable to swim? That’s just super weird, and she has to ask. 

“How come you don’t know how to swim?” is the next point in her interrogation. 

“I dunno, there weren’t any lakes or things back home in our part of Cheshire. Mum took us to the seaside sometimes, but the water was way cold, and I didn’t like to stay in for too long. And we’d go to a swimming pool sometimes in summer, but there’d be a bunch of kids and adults there, and they still made us wear floaties.” 

Ramona finds it hard to imagine a place that’s not surrounded with water, cannot fathom the idea of not hearing water lap against the shore in the distance constantly, not needing to get into a boat to get around. She finds the concept oddly exciting, as if this girl is straight out of one of her storybooks. She lives (mostly) on an island and not under a rock, of course, so she knows about England, half her favourite stories are set there, in fact, which lends Oona an even bigger air of exciting mystery and adventure to Ramona, who spends most of her days gobbling up any story she can get her hands on. 

“Well that’s just silly. Everyone should know how to swim. Come on, I’ll teach ya!” and Ramona had held out her hand with all the airs of an expert Olympic swimmer. Oona grabbed it, let the other girl haul her up from her sitting position on the deck, and followed Ramona back towards her boat so they could get changed and grab some towels. 

(That was the first time she ever let Ramona lead her anywhere, and she of course had no way of knowing now, but she’ll spend her next forever trying to follow Ramona wherever she goes, ideally holding her hand as she does so, hurting when she couldn’t, and only at peace when she’s allowed to again.) 

She did, in fact, follow Ramona as she dragged her all over the island for the rest of the summer, learning how to swim like a pro, how to dive without getting water up her nose (although her attempt to learn how to flip always ended up somewhat disastrously). They slept over at Ramona’s cottage, where the gruff but kind Gordon made them cheese toasties and hot chocolate, and let them watch hours of Disney movies on the old TV in the living room, hiding himself in his study to save himself from the strains of Elsa letting go for the upteenth time. They spent time with Maple, who was five and annoying, but Oona also already had a streak of protectiveness over her, so she’d let her tag along to appropriately Maple-friendly activities. Ramona had even joined her at the summer camp, and they’d had the absolute time of their lives, going almost half-feral with the other kids from the fun of it all. They’d made and exchanged a ton of friendship bracelets, which always ended up tearing or getting lost from all their wild adventures, but they just replaced them constantly. They even made each other matching mugs at camp, for each one of them to have her own mug at their respective houses, both with messed up but still functional handles, and multicoloured paint splatters despite all their attempts at being neatly careful. Really, it had definitely been the best summer of Oona’s life, in no small part because of her new best friend, who seemed to make even the colours around her brighter, music sound better, food taste better, just from being around her.  

But still, today, Oona was miserable, sitting once again at the dock by their boat, her green eyes glassy as she looked at the water, chewing nervously at her nails. Summer was almost over, and the threat of starting a new school, in a new country, was looming ominously over her, no longer able to be ignored like she had for the past couple of months. 

She wouldn’t have the solid presence of Ramona with her, because she had been heartbroken to learn that Ramona actually didn’t live here permanently in the winter, going instead to Barrie, a little drive up the mainland, and went to the local school there. Ramona had been quick to assure her that they still spent as much time as they could on the island anyway, since both she and Gordon preferred the calm of Sterling Point over the relative bustle of Barrie, but Gordon still had some business in the town, and so in the off-peak season they only half-lived on the island. “We’ll see each other on the weekends and over the holidays, and Gordon lets me use his laptop for homework so we can message each other all the time, and call, I promise!” she had earnestly told her, and Oona believed her, because Ramona always kept her word, always showed up when she promised Oona that she would (which is why, a few years later, it would devastate her so much when her presence and her promises stopped being the foundation upon which Oona could lay her entire belief system).  

So she’d be heading into school alone, and suddenly, the wave of homesickness that had been kept at bay the whole summer thanks to their daily adventures had washed over her, making Oona feel small, made her insides feel shivery with fear over what next week would bring. 

“Oona!” Suddenly, Ramona’s loud voice split the air, making her jump and look wildly about, seeing the by-now familiar sight of her best friend stomping her way over to her. “I’ve been looking all over for you, where have you been all day?” she grumbled, plonking herself down next to her, uncomfortable already with the notion of a day not spent with Oona soothingly in her line of sight. 

Oona just shrugged, worried that if she tried to speak, she’d start to cry. Ramona, for all her being younger than her, was so strong and so brave all the time, and Oona hated the thought of her new friend thinking she was weak and scared. She couldn’t possibly understand. 

Ramona looked over at Oona when she didn’t reply, taking in how Oona’s shoulders were up around her ears, how her eyes refused to meet hers, and how her face looked exactly like Maple’s did just before she started to bawl. Something panged in her stomach, because Oona was sad, and that’s impossible, her Oona was always laughing, always the best fun, always making Ramona double over until tears came down her face from her jokes. Oona was sad and Ramona needed to do something to fix it, because the notion of her not being happy made her world tilt on its axis, made everything feel wrong around her, filled her with an urgent panic. 

“Hey - Oona? Oona what’s wrong?” Ramona asked, a tinge of panic bleeding slightly into her voice. She reached out for her friend’s hand, which had barely left hers all summer, to the point that it had almost started to feel like it was an extension of her own. Oona continued to avoid her gaze, but at the show of her concern, her willpower started to break down, and her bottom lip started to tremble with the effort to not cry. Ramona felt close to tears herself, suddenly, just from sympathy and from knowing that something was hurting her so much. “Oona -” she repeated gently, “you can tell me, you know? We’re best friends, right? We can tell each other everything?” At this, Oona finally allowed herself to meet her eyes, allowed herself to trust that the younger girl wouldn’t laugh at her if she ‘fessed up. 

“It’s just…” she started slowly, tinny voice breaking over the words. “I’m…school starts, next week. And…and I don’t know what it’s going to be like. And I’ve loved being here, it’s been so fun, but… I’m kinda missing home? Because there I know what the next year would be like, and I know everyone in my class, and how to get around school without getting lost, and everything.” 

Ramona frowns at this in sympathy, that dear little frown that seems to make its way onto her face multiple times a day. “I get it. I always hate having to go back to Barrie for school. I wish Gordon would just let us live here all the time like Ellis, or at least in town with Sully, so that I can come to school with you guys. But you won’t be alone, all the others are gonna be there! Especially Ellis, he’ll be in your year, and he’s a gross boy but he’s not as gross as all the other boys, so he’s OK. He’ll show you around, for sure!” 

Oona nods at that, already starting to feel slightly better at the reminder that she’s made a whole bunch of other friends who will be going to school with her, besides Ramona.

Ramona continues brightly, gathering steam as she notices that her words are helping Oona;  “And I’ll be down here all the time, and we can talk everyday after school! You just make sure and tell everyone else that you already have a best friend, ok?” And here it’s Ramona’s own insecurities peeking out, the fear that her Sterling Point friends spend so much time without her during school that they’ll forget her always at the back of her mind. The thought has become even sharper and even scarier when it came to Oona, and she just wished she could go to school with her so that she could make sure that she didn’t make another best friend besides her. 

“Dude, of course!” Oona nods energetically, giving her friend a sideways hug and planting a big kiss on her cheek. “Best friends for ever, you and me, always!” Both girls’ shoulders relax at that, and they grin at each other, and the moment passes in the way that some childhood fears can be so easily resolved, before people learn that even promises between best friends can be broken.       

Ramona stands up, and holds out her hand to Oona to help her up from the dock. She’s curious now, as she tends to be about Oona’s life back in England, so she asks: “Sooo, what would you usually be doing right about now if you were back in Cheshire?” (Ramona now loves to hear Oona say the word, her accent shushing over the sounds that Ramona couldn’t really imitate in her own Canadian twang)

Oona shrugs at that. “I dunno. We start school a bit earlier then here, so I’d be hanging out with my friends after school. A bunch of us who took the same bus home from school would muck about in the playground in our neighbourhood for a while before going home. And it’s September, so a whole lot of programmes would be starting back up on the telly so we would have a lot to talk about, it’s the best time.”

Ramona cocks her head, having gotten used over the summer to letting Oona’s occasionally slightly unfamiliar turns of phrases wash over her. “So what’s your favourite show then?” she questions, a small twinge of jealousy in the pit of her stomach at the thought that Oona had shared favourites with anyone else before her. 

“Oh! For sure the Bake Off, I really really love it, even if it’s a bit silly sometimes!”

“The Bake Off?” Ramona asks, confused. 

“Wait. Don’t tell me - you’ve never seen it?” Oona’s voice goes high in disbelief, who is just about to get a rude awakening that the Bake Off is not considered staple autumn watching in the vast majority of houses in Muwake. 

Ramona shrugs and shakes her head, and that sets Oona off into a whole spiel. “So it’s this programme, right, it’s super popular back in the UK. Each year they get a bunch of home bakers - like, people who aren’t professional chefs or anything, they’re just normal people like grandmas and mums and students and just, normal people, you know? And there are these two judges who go around telling people is good. The judges used to be this really ancient woman called Mary Berry who we all loved and this guy Paul Hollywood, but then Mary and the two presenters left and only Paul stayed in the show, and it was a whole thing actually, but anyway, now we have Prue, whose ok although I still think it was a bit better before especially because the presenters were funnier, I think. And yeah, so there’s all these bakers, around 12 or so, and they compete over the summer in this massive, cute tent. And it’s always the same way, each week has a theme, like biscuits or bread or pastries, and they have the same three challenges for each week. And I know it sounds silly but I swear it’s the most fun ever!” 

Ramona blinks at the onslaught, having rarely heard her friend speak for this long and with so few breaths in between. She finally looks properly animated and like her normal self though, so even though she thinks this show sounds like something even Gordon would find boring, she nods along encouragingly. 

“So what do they win?” 

“That’s the best thing! Nothing, basically! They just get this fancy glass cake stand and some flowers, and the title of Winner, and that’s pretty much it. No money or anything. They’re just competing for the fun of it, which is what makes it so fun, because they’re not mean to each other like in other American shows, and they don’t try to trip each other up, ya know? A bunch of times they actually end up helping each other out, like if someone is done from their bake but someone else is running out of time, they all rush to help them and stuff, and - yeah”   

Oona seems to have caught up with herself and realised how long she’s been ranting, and an embarrassed flush creeps over her chubby cheeks. But Ramona is intrigued, because anything that gets her friend this excited, her friend who is older and way cooler with her storybook-accent and her cool clothes and all the colourful bracelets she wears, then it must be something, even if it does sound a bit boring. 

“I mean, it sounds like fun. Couldn’t we still watch it from here? I’d watch it with you, if you want, so we can still talk about it like you would with your friends back home.”

Oona grins at that, her heart flipping at the sweet gesture. “Oh my god, really?” She reaches out on instinct, gathering the younger girl into her arms, swinging her around a bit out of sheer excitement. “That sounds so so great, my mum knows websites where we can watch stuff that’s not on the telly, I can ask her. I mean, I think there’s still a couple of weeks before it starts, but we should totally watch one of the older seasons to get you up to speed and you can see how fun it is!” 

Ramona starts to giggle a bit, getting excited just from the other girl’s contagious happiness, still being swung around wildly by the older girl. Something small inside of her wanders at how easy it is to make Oona happy, at how good it feels to be the source of that happiness. Silently sets herself the mission to try and make her this happy as much as she possibly can, because the full force of Oona’s grin is almost blinding, filling Ramona’s own chest with zingy, warm bubbles of delight. 

“Yeah sure, it’s a plan!” 

Oona releases her, but grabs her hand again instead, and starts to tug her insistently towards the direction of her house. “Wanna go start now? I think mum should be home from work by now, we can have dinner and watch an episode? We can start from my favourite season, there’s this great group and the winner is the best, and it was still the old gang with Mel and Sue and Mary, and the winner became famous because we all loved her, and she got her own programme on the BBC and everything - “ and Ramona just nods happily and follows Oona home, listening to her explain the show at a million miles a minute, happy at the thought of a cosy evening in the houseboat with Oona, and maybe a sleepover, if her mum will let them. 

September 2021 (12&13). 

September has rolled around again, and Oona half-hopes that Covid shuts down the schools and pretty much everywhere else again. 

Last year, Ramona had been able to stay even longer than usual on the island, isolating with Gordon at the Cottage, considering it safer for him especially (he was over 70, by now, and his health was really not what it used to be, especially his lungs, weakened from decades of cigar smoking in his youth). After some serious begging on both their ends, Gordon and Oona’s mother had allowed their bubbles to mix, since they only ever saw each other anyway, and really Oona’s mother, so used to freedom, was at her wits’ end with a teenager and a seven year old in one houseboat, as she tried to work remotely at a customer care gig to make ends meet. So last year had given her an even longer time with Ramona, to the point that she barely noticed the world grinding to a halt around her, barely cared that she had to puzzle over her classwork alone over a laptop. 

This year, it seems like it won’t be as bad as last year, but school is still starting later than usual, and people are still being careful. Honestly, Oona mostly cares about the fact that this year, for now, she won’t have to wait until the weekend rolls around to watch the next episode of Bake Off with Ramona, and they can watch it the next day that it airs instead.

She hopes that watching the show with Ramona feels like it used to, before the events of this summer made Oona feel a bit…off. 

She hadn’t meant to say it, really. She had noticed, over the past year, that as she entered teenagedom, all the girls around her at school seemed to go positively insane. It’s like they were werewolves, or something, but instead of the light of the moon turning them into wolves, it was hitting that ‘-teen’ number and turning suddenly boy-obsessed. Oona had tried, she really had. She’d obligingly sat through all the TV shows that her classmates were obsessed about, quizzically examining each heartthrob’s face, waiting for his jawline or floppy hair to make her feel any sort of way. Instead, she found herself focusing always on their prettier co-stars, the ways their hair curled down their backs, the way their lips pouted, the way they arced their necks…the way that the feeling of Ramona’s hand, warm inside of hers all summer long, as usual, now had started to make her heart flip. The way that she had started to notice herself finding all sorts of excuses to hug her, to kiss her cheek, to spend every waking moment with her. 

She wasn’t an idiot. It was 2021, and her mother, for all her flaws, for all the string of boyfriends that she dragged into their lives all the time, had always been open with them about all the different ways and shapes that love came in, perhaps because she was herself love-obsessed. And of course, Sully himself had two mums, and they were just…normal mums, and everyone rolled with it. 

So it wasn’t like she was worried about it, or anything. She knew people wouldn’t so much as bat an eye. She had mentioned it to her mum, offhand, who had simply nodded and said “OK sweetie, I love you, you let me know if you need to talk more about it more, yeah?”, pressing a harried kiss on her forehead because Maple was wrecking havoc around the small boat. It was just…she had been worried how Ramona would handle the news. She had blessedly not yet been taken over by the boy-curse yet, and Oona was not sure whether that was because she was a bit younger, or because - but no, she couldn’t let herself hope for that. But what if that changed something between them? What if Ramona started putting some physical distance between them, because she didn’t want her lesbian best friend to be all over her, all the time?  

So she hadn’t meant to say anything, but then they had been binging She-Ra, and Ramona had been so into the story, so enthralled by Catra and Adora’s story, that it had just…slipped out. She hadn’t liked keeping anything from her best friend, and she couldn’t help it. 

Ramona had blinked up at her, just once. And then - “Sure dude. Boys are gross anyway” and with a shrug, continued to watch the show. 

But for all the outward normalcy, Oona had felt slightly unsettled for months. She had a feeling it was just her that was feeling this way, because she couldn’t see any sign of hesitance or discomfort from Ramona - and she now spent hours agonising over Ramona, what she said, what she did, what she wore, who she mentioned, so she’d probably notice if there was. Was Oona touching her too much? Was it ok to still hold hands everywhere they went? Could Ramona tell that sometimes, Oona would trip over her words around her, or that her breathing was coming out all weird, because Ramona had done that adorable scrunched up frowny thing that it did, and her heart had skipped several beats? It was exhausting, frankly. Is this what a crush was? Because it did feel like that - like her heart was being crushed, almost. In a way that hurt a bit when she was with Ramona, and hurt even more when she wasn’t. She wished she could just…go back to how things were. 

She knew she couldn’t, though. That she’d just have to get used to this new normal, hope that this overwhelming feeling eventually faded away. She didn’t mention it to her mother, or to anyone - couldn’t bear their pitying looks or their meaningful glances anytime she was hanging out with Ramona. So she’d just bury this feeling way down deep, and soldier on. She’d learn how to mask her feelings, from everyone around her (she would get terribly, frighteningly, too good at that, especially when it came to Ramona. Would lead the both of them down a world of hurt, for a while there, before she finally made herself stop).

So she hopes that, when Ramona comes over later to watch the premiere of this series of the Bake Off, she’ll be able to continue acting like nothing has changed. Like she isn’t analysing each centimeter of space between them, wondering if it’s too much, raising suspicion that something’s up, or if it’s not enough, making Ramona uncomfortable. Wondering if last-year-Oona would have nudged Ramona at this joke or not, or how long she’d hold on to her when they were hugging goodbye, or, or, or. 

(It doesn’t feel like normal. It feels like how things will always feel like with Ramona, for the next few years. Like there are a thousand tiny ants marching underneath her skin every time she brushes against her, like there’s a ringing in her ears when Ramona does something especially cute, like scrunches up her nose, or make one of her funny noises when acting out a bit, or exists.) 

(But Ramona will come over, and she will still want to cuddle up against her best friend, still want to hear her express her loud opinions over the overly-complicated bake that particular baker has chosen to do, haven’t they seen how sometimes too much is too much in previous seasons, what were they thinking, and they’ll have tea and snacks, and when it’s time to leave, Oona won’t be able to stop herself from pressing her usual goodbye kiss to Ramona’s cheek.)

September 2022 (13&14) 

Increasingly, Ramona has started to feel like she’s stretched too thin. Like there’s a bit too much going on, it seems like, and each day brings with it a new realisation that threatens to turn her world on its head again, and she just wants to run away sometimes, run away with a good book and find somewhere quiet to read where she doesn’t have to think, doesn’t have to learn how to do something new around the house. 

They hadn’t come to Sterling Point for Christmas, for the first time in practically ever. It had been terrible; just a few weeks before the holidays, when things were starting to get back to normal, with most everyone around them vaccinated, and life starting to feel like it used to, Gordon got Covid. And she had heard of plenty of people who got it, half the island really, but. He got really sick. He couldn’t breathe, his fever wouldn’t break, even though he had been first in line to get the vaccine. They had to take him to the hospital in Barrie, and Joe had come down for a bit to keep an eye on things. 

Just a few months away from her 13th birthday, Ramona suddenly had the crushing, life-changing realisation of just how tenuous her homelife was. She had always known, of course, that she had no parents. But Gordon was so big, so larger than life, that he had seemed eternal, had taken up a lot of the space that her parents would have. It was only then that she realised that Gordon was her grandfather, and chillingly, she ran through the list of her classmates that over the years hadn’t shown up to school for a day or two, and they were told that one of their grandparents had passed away. Gordon was old, and he was frail, and he was sick, and Ramona, who had never really let herself dwell too much on the fact that she was an orphan, because it made her too sad, had suddenly wanted to curl up into herself and cry for her mummy. At the age of just 12 years old, sitting at her grandfather’s bedside, watching his gaunt, grey face on his pillow, his chest go up and down weakly as a machine breathed for him, Ramona realised that she may soon have to learn how to take care of herself. 

Thankfully, those horrible weeks of illness and the excruciatingly long recovery did pass, and Gordon seemed to be able to get back on his feet. He never did go back to his old self though, and Ramona grew accustomed to worrying about him, about whether he was pushing himself too much, whether his breathing sounded all right, whether he was taking all the medicines he should be, whether he was sneaking out late at night to have the occasional cigar. She grew accustomed to following him around the house, pretending she had gotten a sudden new interest in home improvement, but really trying to learn all she could about taking care of the creaky old cottage so that she could take over from him, and he could rest. She found dusty, musty old cookbooks in the kitchen cupboard and took to experimenting with their meals (admittedly, she had picked up some kernels of cooking knowledge from the endless Bake Off marathons, and she liked it), so he wouldn’t have to do another chore. 

And of course, there was Oona. Oona, who had suddenly shot up to basically the height of a tree. Whose face had filled out and her grin was now a perfectly pearly white, ever since her braces came off. Who had figured out, thanks to Tiktoks, how to wash and dry her hair so that her curls now bounced about her face in a newly distracting way. And Ramona was still waiting for her own growth spurt (she’d give that hope up around her 18th birthday), and her face kept breaking out into horrible zits, and her hair looked so limp next to Oona’s curls, and why were all the girls that Oona talked to around town so tall? Ramona didn’t know what the feeling was, exactly - it wasn’t jealousy really, because she knew jealousy, it was the feeling she got when that annoying Prissy Chrissy in her Math class went on and on about her spa weekends with her mother, like she wanted to tug her braid, hard, so she’d just shut up. But she didn’t want to tug Oona’s hair - well, she sort of wanted to know what it felt like, now that it was curlier than before. It looked soft, and like it smelled good, and why is she even wondering about her best friend’s hair, that is so weird. 

Although, she did have a feeling, at the back of her mind, that this might have something to do with the fact that she was pretty sure she only liked girls. It hadn’t been that big of a revelation, because it felt like it had been something she’d always known. She couldn’t think of a singular instance where she was even so much as interested in hearing what a boy had to say, and shows where there were no queer women in them were so boring. She let the idea of it grow bit by bit, trying it out, seeing how it felt, and it fit. So then, when they were in Sterling Point over Spring Break, when she and Oona were holed up in her room, 3 seasons deep into a Wynona Earp binge watch, she had mentioned it, and Oona had grinned and fist bumped her, and agreed that Nicole Haught was totally super hot, and that was that. When she mentioned it to Gordon later, he had snorted and told her that she had come out to him when she was 7 and announced that boys were disgusting and she was going to marry a girl, and he had never doubted her for a second. 

And gradually, things had settled into a new normal at the beginning of summer. Ramona had more things to do around the house now, so Oona came over a lot. More often than not, she needed to bring Maple along, because Oona’s mother had a new boyfriend, and he was really lying it on thick, taking her out almost every night, sometimes keeping her out so late that Oona and Maple had to sleepover at Ramona’s. Oona didn’t care much, although she wished that she didn’t have to cart Maple around so much. She was cool, for an 8 year old, but still. Mostly they stuck her in front of the TV with a bunch of Disney movies (if anyone asked, they totally did not join her all the time to watch them, because Oona was 14, and way too cool to be having Disney marathons with her baby sister, thank you very much), and they’d do their own thing in Ramona’s room.

Then there was that weird week at summer camp. It already felt weird going in, because Oona had told her this was probably the last time she’d go, since she was getting a bit too bored with ceramics and arts and crafts and cupcake decorating. Ramona had tried not to feel offended at that, tried not to feel like this newly tall, filled out (really, really pretty) Oona was telling her that she was getting tired of Ramona’s company, because she knew that was stupid, Oona was constantly coming over, wasn’t she? 

So she had tried to forget about it, but it immediately got off to a weird start, because there was a new girl at camp - Laura - who was Oona’s age, almost as tall as Oona, almost as pretty as Oona, who dressed almost as cool as Oona did, and who had seemed to take an immediate interest in Ramona. She didn’t really know what to do; having the older girl’s attention on her made her feel squiggly inside, like she didn’t know what to do with her hands or her face and was her hair ok? And she wished she could ask Oona what she should do, but she was acting weird and moody and she wouldn’t be normal around Laura, being a bit mean and snappy, even turning that energy onto Ramona, a little bit. But whatever, Oona’s PMS can be monstrous sometimes, and she knew she was going to get her period soon because she had complained about it being due towards the end of camp, so she’s just having an off month. And then - Laura had sat down next to her, really close, at campfire. And they had sort of waited until most everyone had gotten up and left, until Oona had rolled her eyes and huffed off to bed, grumbling under her breath, and then she had taken Ramona’s hand as they walked back to their cabins, and it felt a bit weird, because she was more used to Oona’s hand, and somehow Ramona felt like she was doing something wrong. And then Laura had pressed a quick, soft kiss in the dark before running off to bed, and Ramona had stood her, thinking pretty much immediately that she wanted to talk to Oona. 

Then after camp - Oona started to want to go to all the town events, and started to talk to girls around town more. Ramona tried not to resent this, reminded herself that Oona was a bit older, and 14 year olds date more, after all, and hadn’t Ramona been the one to get her first kiss this summer already? But that was just one girl, and Oona was talking to a bunch more, was doing weird things like twirling her hair at them and blinking slowly, and putting on this weird act that was a bit more boisterous than her usual self, and Ramona watched and watched and watched, telling herself she was just trying to learn how to flirt for her future needs. Having another life-altering realisation, that someday, very soon, she may not be the only girl in Oona’s life. That Oona might even get a girlfriend, who would want to spend all her time with Oona (who wouldn’t? She’s the best), and Oona wouldn’t have time to come over and binge watch their favourite shows anymore, or listen to Ramona tell her about the book she just read, or help her figure out how to make a chicken pot pie for dinner. And it felt almost as painful as watching Gordon slip in and out of sleep on a hospital bed, like everyone and everything she knew was changing, slipping away from her. 

But Ramona is nothing if not determined, and it’s September, it’s Bake Off time, and this is their special yearly tradition, and no amount of the painful weirdness that has been this year will stop her from enjoying it, damn it. So she marches her way over to Oona’s house, that first weekend after it starts airing, and plops herself determinedly on Oona’s bed, and it’s going to be like it always is, because things are changing too much and Ramona is so tired of it, and she’s going to cuddle into her best friend and watch some nice people bake nice things whilst the judges say nice things about everything and nice music plays, so help her god. 

(And Oona holds her best friend, still trying to adjust to how it feels now to be able to wrap herself around the shorter girl, how it makes her feel to be so much larger, like she’s big enough to protect her from everything and anything, like nothing bad can happen to Ramona anymore if she’s in her arms. And her heart hurts because Ramona has been a more withdrawn than usual all year, and she’s trying to get used to this new, slightly more closed off person, who had made her year when she told her she was gay too but then had kissed someone else, and her heart hurts when she’s with her and when she’s not, and now that Ramona’s head fits beneath her chin instead of next to her own, she’s constantly surrounded by the smell of coconut, and her hair is soft, and she thinks she might be dying, a little bit.)

September 2023 (14&15)

Oona’s mother is gone again, for the whole long weekend this time. It’s a different boyfriend than last year, of course, but the pattern is the same, if not more intense. This is the first time she’s ever left them for multiple days at a stretch, and Oona chews at her lip in her quiet moments, worried that this will become the norm.

Still, she tells herself, this is fun, a weekend of minimal to no parental supervision, and with the promise of a new Bake Off series to boot. They can make a weekend of it, and it’ll be fun. She feels like she needs it, because she and Ramona hadn’t hung out as much the past month as they used to.

(Had anyone in their life heard her say this, they would  be merited in being confused about this, because hadn’t they seen them together practically every day this summer, like usual? But Oona can’t help but feel like she hasn’t properly hung out with her best friend in ages, because they were often with their larger friend group, or around other people, or with Maple tagging along, and they haven’t had a nice long talk in a while, and she missed her, which is weird, because she was right there all the time.) 

(Had Ramona heard her say this, she may have not been able to keep herself from snappily telling her that it’s own fault for going girl crazy this summer. That they might have had more time to hang out if Oona wasn’t constantly obsessing over some new camper or counsellor or rich girl ‘summering’ at the island or tourist or whoever else her sights landed on, leaving her to put on the act each time and end up with her disappearing into the forest with them for a few hours, always coming back looking terribly pleased with herself, and with leaves in her hair.)

So it feels like a relief, when Ramona comes over with freshly baked banana loaf (she’s gotten really good at baking, this past year), and settles herself into Oona’s bunk as usual for their annual start of series watch.

Still, she couldn’t help herself, and she felt herself say, as if she had no control over her own mouth: “You sure that you wouldn’t rather be watching this with Leah?” Ramona hopes that her tone at least sounds like she’s teasing, like how a person would normally pick on their best friend over a new fling, fully platonically, no added meaning whatsoever (god, let it be a fling. If she ever has to say the phrase ‘Oona’s girlfriend’, she’s worried she’d choke from the lump in her throat, and there’s no smooth way to play that off).

(Unfortunately for Ramona, she will very soon have to get accustomed to the phrase, because it starts coming up a lot the more as the years pass. It does make it way easier to say when it’s only ever referred to herself though, so.) 

Oona doesn’t notice how Ramona’s eyes seem unable to meet hers, doesn’t notice the slight downturn to her lips, doesn’t notice the crinkle in her brows, doesn’t notice doesn’t notice doesn’t notice (If only there was a singular working brain cell between them that wasn’t occupied with yearning, maybe someone would fucking notice). 

“Leah? Why would I want to do that, this is our thing babe, I would never!” she replies, hand splayed out on her collar as if to clutch her pearls, mock offended (and that’s a new thing, Oona has taken to calling everyone babe, and it’s great, because she calls her babe, but it’s terrible, because she calls everyone else babe too).

Ramona’s face smoothens out, feeling warm inside, because Leah might have gotten to kiss her last week at the town’s end of summer fair, but at least Ramona will always have this special part of Oona all to herself, their alone time (whenever they manage to carve it out) remains precious and untouched by anyone else. She just wishes she could stop thinking about how Oona looked at Leah, with that smug, shit-eating grin as she leaned in to tuck her hair behind her ear, using the movement to then stroke down to her neck, pulled her in, met her lips with hers - and Ramona had dragged her eyes away then, fully aware that she had been staring like a full-on creep, but she keeps replaying the moment over and over and over. She still can’t figure out if she is fixating on it because objectively the sight of two attractive girls kissing is exciting to someone with her non-existent dating life, or because of the fact that it was Oona who was doing the kissing, specifically. She tries to tell herself that this really was no different than when she goes on Incognito mode to watch Youtube clips of women in TV shows kiss over and over, hidden in her bedroom, a layer of embarrassed shame covering her as if she was watching something far more explicit. But something inside her knows that it’s not really the same.

But this - this is the same as it always is; letting herself be wrapped into Oona’s annoyingly large arms, feeling her head come to rest on her shoulder (making her feel like she cannot move her head so much as an inch, because she can feel Oona’s cheek against her own, and if she turned her head, her lips would be right there, and that would be the worst thing ever, and why can’t she keep thinking about wanting to turn her head?). Balancing the laptop on top of their intertwined legs, a slice of banana loaf and two mugs of tea standing nearby, and a new Bake Off episode ready to start. And if Ramona finds it hard to focus on what is going on, she’ll chalk it up to not getting much sleep the night before, and not on how warm, how solid, how soft, Oona feels against her. 

September 2024. (15&16) 

Ramona’s arch nemesis this summer had been the very concept of bikinis. She wished they had never been invented. Wished that it was not socially appropriate for a woman to be running around, pretty much half naked in public, clad in naught but a scrap of fabric that should really be ashamed to describe itself as an item of clothing, and some coloured string. Really, it was indecent. And what was it with girls who decided a bikini top was appropriate outerwear for pretty much every situation, just because it’s summer and it’s a bit hot? What about those people who had insecurities and didn’t wish to be parading themselves anymore than necessary? And would no one think of the lesbians in all of this? What were they, as a species, supposed to do if, hypothetically speaking, their stupidly gorgeous best friend got a rack over the past year, and now insisted on flouncing about in just her bikini top all the time? Like, you can try not to look, but for god’s sake, they- she, she means she, is right there, and she’s short ok, she can’t help that they’re literally at fucking eye level. And really, this is about sexism and the whole beauty industry and the expectations that are forced on young women, and that’s why she’s so grumpy all the time lately, why her head swims whenever Oona takes her top off (which is fucking constantly, again dear god could someone tell her to put on a shirt in a way that is not slut-shaming before Ramona’s head explodes?) 

No wonder she jumped at Oona’s offer to try smoking a joint with her early on in the summer, and why she’s taken to it with some zeal. They’ve had minimal parental supervision all summer. Oona’s mother has taken to spending almost all her weekends at her new boyfriend’s place. She left them for a whole week, twice. Gordon is - Gordon is increasingly frail, his once massive frame shrunken down. He keeps hiding test result letters in drawers where he thinks Ramona won’t obsessively sniff them out. 

So the weed helps the both of them, help the jittery ends of their thoughts smoothen out a bit, to just chill the fuck out. Ramona thinks she would chill out even more if Oona wasn’t so often sitting next to her, her thigh pressed right up against hers, her long fingers brushing hers as they pass a joint back and forth between them. Would be absolutely zen if only Oona would put on a fucking shirt. 

At least, Ramona allows herself to grumpily admit, it could have been worse. Oona’s girl-chasing has calmed down somewhat this summer. She still hooked up with some, of course, because she’s Oona, but (and Ramona hates herself for noticing, for reading into it) she seems to have stopped seeking it out herself. She’ll flirt back, if a girl approaches her (Oona had gotten a bit of a reputation, last year, so some girls approach her readily). And she made out with a couple of girls when they were at a few parties the rich high school kids have started to allow them to come to, when she was several joints in and had a drink or two. But otherwise…it’s been them a lot, this summer. And it’s been great. But terrible, because Ramona has become no better than your average horny highschool boy, and she keeps thinking of her best friend in her bikini. 

And there was that horrible moment, just a few weeks ago, when she and Oona discovered a secondhand bookstore in town (thankfully she put on a shirt for that outing), and had surprised her with buying her a book when she couldn’t decide what to get. And for a split second, for one terribly aching moment, Ramona really thought she was going to snap with the punch to the heart that was realising her best friend knew and loved her so well, and she very nearly reached out to her, very nearly grabbed her by the shirt, very nearly pulled her into her, very nearly allowed herself to kiss her. She’s insisting to herself it was just the muggy heat of the bookshop, the smell of old books, the tantalising prospect of a new book, the fact that she hadn’t had lunch yet - she’s telling herself a lot of things, really. 

(If only we could tell her that she’d do exactly that, in just about two years time. Patience, young one, good things come to those who wait.)

So here she is, as usual, in Oona’s boat, in Oona’s bed, in Oona’s arms, waiting for the new Bake Off episode to buffer on her laptop. And Ramona feels herself sinking into her friend completely. Whatever, she’s just having a no bones day, it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that Oona’s hand is making lazy circles over her back, with the fact that Oona’s T-shirt has ridden up her stomach. There’s bare skin barely a centimetre away from where Ramona’s hand is splayed on her waist, and could she get away with minutely twitching her pinkie, just slightly, to see if she could touch the golden skin on display, feel the warmth and softness of it? Oona laughs at something Noel says, the movement of her chest underneath her making Ramona’s head swim, because god her laugh is so cute. Ramona huffs out her own laugh, trying to cover up for the fact that she hasn’t heard a blessed word of their favourite show for the past several minutes, mind occupied as it is with Oona’s hands Oona’s hair Oona’s laugh Oona’s warmth Oona Oona Oona. She blinks hard, almost physically trying to drag her mind out of the confusing spiral it’s gone down, tries to centre herself back in the moment, makes herself focus excessively on the antics of the bakers on the laptop screen. Thankfully, one of them has just announced to the camera that they think they can get away with just a plain butter biscuit during the Showstopper Challenge, on Biscuit week of all things, and that sets the both of them off with incredulous exclamations that keep her distracted for a bit. 

(Well, mostly distracted. In the midst of their energetic discussion, they’ve both shifted slightly and now half of Ramona’s hand is on Oona’s bare waist, and she’s focusing really hard on not moving it, because she doesn’t know what would come off looking gayer, pulling her hand away, or keeping it there, and she’s frozen, and it’s so warm and so soft, and she’s not sure if she’s in heaven or hell but she’s somewhere all right.)

(Were she to check in with Oona, she’d promptly tell her it was heaven, actually, to have her best friend’s smaller frame draped over her, her head tucked snugly underneath her chin, filling her senses with the smell of her shampoo. She’d tell her that literally all her nerve endings seem to be tingling with pleasure from the contact high, and she can’t seem to control her own hands that are busy trying to maximise this opportunity by slowly stroking over every part of Ramona that she can get away with, that she can feel the heat of Ramona’s own hand on her waist, to the point that she’s almost half-convinced she’s going to find the imprint of it burnt into her skin later, and wouldn’t that be nice, to be physically marked as Ramona’s on her very skin? And wouldn’t Oona’s hormone-addled mind implode were she to know that in just a few short years, Ramona would really take to marking the skin of her neck, of her collar, of her chest with wild abandon, because yes actually it’s really nice to mark her as her own, and everyone should know she’s spoken for and she’s completely Ramona’s, and suddenly she won’t have a problem with Oona’s belief that a bikini top is appropriate constant summer wear, because there’s enough marks on her neck to indicate to people that they can stop looking, she’s spoken for.)

(But she doesn’t check in with Oona, so we’ll just have to leave them here, cuddling very platonically, starting yet another series of the Bake Off. Should someone inform them that platonic best friends aren’t supposed to be accustomed to feeling the other’s heartbeat through their chest, going a mile a minute, and that’s not what a normal resting heart rate feels like?) 

(Should someone tell Oona that, towards the end of the episode, when Oona’s fingers stroke at a particularly sensitive spot on her waist, Ramona has the single most life-changing thought she’ll ever have - ‘Oh god, I’m in love with my best friend’? No? We’re just leaving them like this? Seems a bit cruel, if you ask me, but if that’s what you want to do, I guess…) 

September 2025 (16&17)

This summer has been…intense, Ramona reflects, hands deep into the cookie dough mixture she’s kneading. It’s been hotter than usual (thanks, global warming), but that hasn’t been it, really. 

Gordon seems to be doing as well as he’s been ever since his Covid scare, although Ramona doesn’t know if that’s true or if she’s become accustomed to keeping an ear out whenever he starts one of his coughing fits, or whether she’s so used to seeing him every day that she can’t tell that he’s losing weight (She is, and he is). 

But Ramona hasn’t wanted to dwell on it. She’s thrown herself into summer, into hanging out at the lake with Ellis and Sully and Maple and Oona, and anyone else who comes along. They smoke weed and play stupid card games and help Ellis out on the marina, or take over The Gem when Sully or Oona are working there. And it’s fun, but - 

Oona’s gotten so so beautiful, that most times Ramona can barely look at her full on. Her heart hurts when she does, when Oona grins at her, eyes bright and shining. Her familiar accent loops itself around her head as she’s trying to sleep, keeping her awake well into the night - and about that, Oona keeps coming over, often with Maple in tow, to sleep over, so it’s not like sleeping gives her any reprieve from Oona’s overwhelming presence. Their mother had gone through some worse-than-usual breakup, Oona says, half-embarrassed, half-angry. She won’t cook, she won’t clean, she won’t get out of bed, she’s stopped going to work, and the air in the houseboat has gotten oppressive, so Ramona is more than happy to allow her two favourite girls to spend as much time as they can at the Cottage. 

Ramona’s worried that she may actually suffer physical health problems from the constant racing of her heart, thinks her cheeks will be stained permanently pink from the countless times she flushes under Oona’s gaze, under Oona’s attentions, from Oona’s pet names and non-stop flirting. She’d be happier with the latter if she didn’t know that was just who Oona was, and she’d flirt with a wall if the wall looked vaguely female. She’s worried that Oona will notice something, will at some point realise that her best friend is devastatingly in love with her. 

(Oona catches some of the glimpses, the awkward shuffles, the blushing, and wonders, wishes, dreams. But Oona, who's been in love with her best friend right back since before she even knew she liked girls, is almost certain that she’s reading into things. That Ramona is just generally a bit awkward, and her flustered, stuttered ‘uh- dude!’ has nothing to do with the big kiss Oona just pressed onto her forehead, it’s just how that awkward little bean is. She can’t let herself think anything of it.)

(A ray of terribly inconvenient, heart-breaking hope refuses to stifle itself, and it drives her absolutely mad. And if, just in case, she rejects the vast majority of the booty calls she receives that summer from all the summer residents coming into town, except for when she’s feeling at her lowest and her loneliest, when Ramona has been particularly stand-offish that day, then it’s none of anyone’s business, really.) 

And then, early on in August, Oona and Maple’s mother leaves. A brief, hopeful interlude, where she swore off all men, and got herself out of bed and out of the house, was rapidly followed by her declaring that she’s ‘found her people’. Her people are apparently an online community of middle-aged women (‘losers and nutjobs’, Oona will bitterly remark to Ramona later), who enthuse about the importance of finding yourself and becoming your own woman, about letting no one stand in your way of Becoming (‘Not even your own children, apparently’ Oona snaps at her mother, as she’s packing). So she decides it’s high time for her own live, love, laugh journey, and sets off to fucking India, of all places. Like, she couldn’t get further away from her kids if she tried. She promises she’ll pick up remote jobs once she gets there, and she’ll still support them, and this won’t be for long, you’ll see, she’ll be back in a flash, you’ll barely notice I’m gone, it’ll go by so fast!

But Oona knows. Her mother has always seemed uncomfortable, tethered to one place. Tethered to them. If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t try so desperately to find any man to take her away from it all, to give her a reprieve from being their mother. And at that thought, at the knowledge that the one person who is supposed to love her most in the world not wanting to stick around, not finding her enough to be happy with her lot in life, to just be their mum, something delicate and vulnerable in Oona shatters, irrevocably. 

It’s strange, after. Oona still acts almost like she always does. She’s just as loud, just as upbeat, just as ready to have a good time, to grab a smoke - although she stops going to parties, for a while. Maple is a bit too young to be left alone at home at night. Ramona however, can tell something is not right. It’s almost like Oona is reading the lines to the character of Oona, putting on a great show, but something vital is missing, and Ramona’s heart aches. Especially as, with all the worst timing in the world, it seems to her that Gordon has gotten incrementally worse; it’s taking him longer to get up the stairs, to walk down to the dock. He’s eating less, and she’s definitely sure he’s losing weight now. And she doesn’t know what to do, between worrying for Gordon and worrying for Oona, it feels like her heart might crack under the pressure. 

All she knows is that Oona is sad, and she still hates Oona being sad now as much as she hated it when they were kids and Oona was homesick, and she still feels like she must do something, anything, to make it better. 

So when she finds out that this year, in a lucky break, the Bake Off is starting a couple of weeks earlier than usual, at the very beginning of September when they’re still on the island, she comes up with a plan to cheer her up. 

She makes Sully order her some British-themed bunting to be delivered to his place, the exact same type that the Bake Off tent is always decorated with, as well as Oona’s favourite tea brand, and refuses to answer his pointed questions as to why she’s buying British-themed decorations, and is does this have anything to do with a particular British blonde lesbian, mayhaps? She goes into town, shoulders high around her ears in embarrassment, furtively looking around and hoping to god that no one sees her, and buys flowers at the florist, because fuck it, Oona might not be the girliest person in the world but she still loves flowers, she knows that. And she pores over recipes to pick the perfect bake as a snack accompaniment for during the episode. And she hustles and cleans and bakes and decorates and positions and re-positions the vase of flowers until she’s sick of looking at the damn things. 

And when Oona comes in, at her trademark 10 minutes late, she stops in her tracks, mouth agape, looking around the Cottage’s living room in astonishment. 

“Uh…surprise?” Ramona says, quietly, nervously. 

“Ramona, what- what’s going on? Oh my god this is adorable, what the fuck, dude?!”

“I um - I just figured, it’s a bit of a special occasion, since the Bake Off started early enough that I’m still on the island full-time for it. And. It’s been like, really rough lately, man. I wanted…you deserve to have something nice, you know? And, well, so, yeah” and god, Ramona berates herself, she couldn’t be more awkward if she tried, why didn’t she just put up a banner on the wall with a massive “I love you so much please be my wife”, it would be less obvious. (SShe doesn’t know it yet, of course, but when the time does actually come to ask her, she’ll decide to forgo the banner…but you’ll see). 

And Oona just - she looks at her, and the look on her face is so intense, that Ramona can feel her heart backflip and frontflip and sideflip and she’s not even sure it’s still inside of her body, actually, she thinks Oona might have it in her hands by now. She crosses the room in three giant paces (damn her stupidly long, stupidly hot legs), and gathers Ramona up in her arms, lifting her clear off the ground and swinging her around like she’s a big old gay ragdoll, mumbling her thanks into the crown of her hair. She squeezes her so tight, that Ramona half-hopes she’ll fuse to her and they can become one entity and she’ll never have to be apart from her, ever.

Eventually she sets her down, and Oona’s eyes are not teary but they’re weirdly bright, almost glassy, and Ramona doesn’t know what to do with herself, and her lips are so close, it would be nothing really, to just lean in slightly and let herself kiss her. It would just take one small, tiny movement - and one massive, insurmountable helping of courage. And she thinks that Oona might have shifted towards her, just slightly, so slightly that it’s difficult to tell if she has, really. And Ramona - can’t. She takes a step back, looking away, breaking the odd tension that had settled over them. Clears her throat. “Yeah dude, for sure. Anytime, yeah?” 

And if Oona looks slightly disappointed, for just a split second, Ramona chalks it up to her over-active, love-addled imagination. 

(Oona doesn’t, though. Over the next few days, she replays that afternoon over and over in her head. All the effort that Ramona had gone to, just to cheer her up. The way that she had clung to her when Oona hugged her, like she never wanted to let go. The way that, when Oona set her down, for just a second, Ramona’s gaze had drifted down to her lips, unconsciously licking her own. The way that Ramona had laced her hand through hers, later, when they were settled and snuggled up as usual onto the sofa, absentmindedly stroking her thumb over and over Oona’s own. And Oona, for once, dares to let herself really hope. Promises herself that the next time she sees her best friend, properly and alone, she’s going to do it, she’s going to ask her out, she’s not going to chicken out this time, she’s not going to doubt herself, she will. And for the next few nights, she goes to sleep trying to plan the perfect first date for her girl.)  

But.

Four days later, Gordon’s wild, hacking coughing wakes Ramona up in the middle of the night. She flies to his room, finding him leaning over the open window, trying to get air into his lungs, unable to get air into his lungs, his lips turning blue, his face ashen. She helps him put on his coat, gets him into their boat, and drives it like she’s never driven it before, not even when she and Ellis were daring each other to drive faster, to race around the lake. She pulls the throttle, unknowingly weaving the same breathtaking path that her mother and not-father took 16 years ago, the last time her mother ever crossed the lake. She gets him to the hospital, where eventually, after several interminable days, they tell her that there’s no more hope, no more treatments. He’s going to die, slowly, painfully, drowning in his own lungs.) 

Ramona leaves Oona behind, with barely a second thought in her grief and her desperation. She doesn’t reach out at first, tells herself she will, soon. Tells herself it’s enough that she replied to Joe’s messages with a short ‘We’re fine’. She’ll reach out, she swears.

It’s just. Everything is so much. Everything hurts, and she knows it’s Gordon who can’t breathe, but neither can she, because he’s dying, and she’s going to be alone, fully alone, no one to take care of her when she’s sick or to ask about how her day went or to just be her parent. 

And she can’t - she can’t deal with people’s sympathy, with people pretending to know what she’s going through, with them trying to tell her it will all be ok, because it’s not going to be. 

And Oona keeps messaging, and she keeps her phone switched off most of the time, has switched off all her notifications, only very rarely allows herself to scroll through social media, but she can’t help herself from occasionally opening up their message thread (is it still a thread if Oona’s the only one messaging?) 

Monday, 8 Sep at 09:11

Hey babe, Joe told me what’s going on. Are you ok? Do you need anything? I’ll come over the second you tell me I can come, I promise. Just call me, anytime of the day or night, ok? 

Tuesday, 23 Sep at 14:36

Hey. Joe said Gordon’s out of the hospital. I’m glad he’s comfortable at home, at least. How are u doing? Need me to come over? 

Wednesday, 1 Oct at 07:47

Ramona? It’s been 3 weeks, please text back. I miss you, I’m worried about you. 

Thursday, 23 Oct at 17:33

Ellis has gotten a crush on the new girl at school, he’s so awkward, it’s hilarious. I can’t wait until I see you and tell you all about it. 

Saturday, 1 Nov at 22:18

I ended up watching the Bake Off today, caught up with the new eps. Mum sent a postcard so I was feeling a bit sad, ig. I was waiting to watch it with you, but ig youre not really going to watch it rn. It’s a good group this year. You’ll like it. 

Thursday, 25 Dec at 09:15

Happy Christmas xx I hope you’re warm, it’s freezing here. I miss you.

Monday, 23 Feb at 08:37

We went to a class weekend trip to Ontario last week. I sent you a postcard. Did you get it? 

Tuesday, 21 April at 19:03

Dude did u see the announcement? Bridgerton’s gonna make one of the siblings a lesbian. Cool right? We’ll have something new to binge, cant wait 

Wednesday, 25 May at 18:05

Ramona, we heard the news. I am so so so sorry. Please, we’re all trying to reach you, we don’t know where you are. Please just come back. I love you, come home

And god, Ramona misses her so much, but the more time passes, the more she doesn’t know what to say, what possible excuse could make up for her absence. And in her worst moments (which are increasingly constant, because there’s no one else to talk to except for a dying old man and his home day carers, she’s long stopped talking to her classmates any more than necessary for group assignments, and there’s no one to bring her out from the darkness she’s slipped into) the more she thinks that this is for the best, that Oona and her friends don’t need to be dragged down this hole with her. That Oona would be better off finding some cool, hot girl, who doesn’t have any baggage, who will have no problem bridging that gap and actually kissing Oona, instead of being a coward like her. She’ll be happier. Ramona can’t make Oona happy. The more she sinks into these thoughts, the more difficult it is to figure out how to drag herself out of the darkness that has swallowed her whole. 

The more she just wants to talk to Gordon, to soak in all his stories and all his wisdom and his morals, before the illness steals even his voice from him (She’ll wonder, later, why he didn’t take these last few months with her to just tell her. To save her from the shock and the pain she’d feel a few weeks after he passes. But dead men can’t answer your questions.)

So she doesn’t reach out. She runs away, for the first but not the last time. She runs away from the pain and the people and everything, until her steam runs out, until there’s no more caring to do, until she feels like she has no choice but to go back home and face the last people she has in her life. 

And just a short drive away, Oona worries, and she hurts, and she hates to admit it but in her heart of hearts, she's furious at her best friend, and then feels guilty for being so angry when Ramona's the one who is going to be fully an orphan soon, and it all equally threatens to sink her into an ocean of misery. But Oona's survival instincts run deep and runs differently, so she kicks out wildly to try and keep herself afloat. She amps up the booze and the parties and the weed and the girls, so many girls and so many women that she's lost track now, that she's well and truly cemented her reputation from being a bit of the town flirt to an absolute womanzing terror, hide your kids, hide your wife. She's the absolute fucking life of the party, and no one would be any wiser that she is the loneliest, the most scared, saddest she's ever felt in her life. Except for maybe Maple, whose taken to curling around her sister in her bed most nights to go to sleep, because often when she doesn't, she can hear Oona cry softly in the quiet. 

(But don’t think about that. Think about how, in 13 years’ time, the Bake Off somehow, miraculously, is set to start its next series. Almost everything in the show has changed. The baking technology has advanced incredibly. Paul Hollywood is set to judge his 28th consecutive Bake Off series. He’s joined by a holographic version of Mary Berry. Ramona will recreate the same celebration she first did when she was 16, but this time cheering Oona up is not the intention. While her girlfriend is out with Maple on a carefully pre-planned lunch, she’ll stick up jaunty bunting and fairy lights around the walls of their brightly lit apartment, weaving in between their various knick-knacks and memorabilia from their several trips together. Their orange cat, proud owner of one singular braincell, attacks the dangling string of the streamers and generally makes itself a nuisance. She has cupcakes cooling on the kitchen counter, ready for frosting, and a tray of cookies ready to go in the oven, and of course they’re well stocked with Oona’s favourite tea blend. She’s gotten flowers - ok, so she’s gotten an entire flower shop, because she’s never forgotten how Oona’s eyes lit up when Ramona gave her flowers, that first time - and they’re littered around the room in an assortment of eclectic vases that Oona keeps buying from thrift stores because oh my god baby look how cute this one is can I have it? And Ramona will let Oona have anything she wants, absolutely anything. And when Oona comes in from her lunch, delighted and surprised at the extra effort Ramona has gone into for apparently no reason, Ramona will give her the softest of smiles, and go down on one knee. She’ll tell her she knows that Oona has way too many rings already, but would she mind having one more?)

(Oona really, really doesn’t mind).

(For the record, for all her obsession with rings, Oona never wore one on her left ring finger. The desperate romantic inside of her always wanted to keep it special, for when she eventually does. For when Ramona eventually places one there herself.) 

2026 (17 & 18) 

It’s agonizing, to gain everything and lose it, multiple times in one summer. Ramona feels like she’s been internally mauled, so much so that she’s surprised when she looks in the mirror and doesn’t see any physical evidence of her pain. Nothing beyond the tight downwards curve of her mouth, and the bags under her eyes. It’s hard to sleep, in the city that never sleeps - and she rolls her eyes at her own internal dramatics. 

And then - one day, just a few days after she leaves, her entire insides flip because the once-familiar “Oonalicious has sent you a message” Instagram notification pops up on her phone, and she nearly blacks out with the sheer wave of tangled emotions (anger-loneliness-melancholy-frustration-love-love-love) that overwhelm her in just an instant. 

She opens the message, half hoping to find Oona begging her forgiveness, asking her to come back, asking her if they can try again, reassuring her that she still loves her. Her heart falls into her stomach when after all the expectations that she’s managed to build in the seconds it took her to open their chat, it’s only some news story from a random meme account. She frowns at it - ‘Nigella Lawson set to star across Paul Hollywood in series 17 of the Bake Off’, accompanied with a promotional picture of Paul Hollywood next to an attractive woman, both of them smiling gamely in the Tent. Seriously? She thinks incredulously to herself. Just a few days ago this girl had taken her heart into her hands and crushed it into nothing, had broken the best thing they both claimed they’ve ever had, had broken her. And her first attempt to reach out to her is a stupid Bake Off update? 

Ramona throws the phone across the room at the couch, not caring if the stupid thing breaks, wishing she was throwing something heavier and more breakable, ideally at Oona’s stupid, stupid, beautiful face, and she picks up the pillow next to her and screams into it out of frustration. 

She’s so mad that her brain can only think of doing one thing, and she stumbles back up to pick up her phone from where it bounced off the bed, opens it, scrolls through her contact list, selects, and hits call. 

“Hello?” Comes a familiar voice, confused and heavy with sleep. 

“Dude, you will not fucking believe what Oona just sent me on Insta!” Ramona rages down the phone. 

Annie doesn’t bring up the fact that they haven’t talked since Ramona left, that things have been weirdly stretched between them after the way things ended, made all the more painful because of the departure it was from the incredibly comfortable ease they had been able to settle into, before. 

She hears the manic undertone of her younger sister’s voice, and settles in to listen to her rant about the past few minutes. 

“But why would she send you a message about this baking off -” 

“-The Bake Off” 

“Right, the Bake Off? What even is it?” 

“It’s…it’s like our show. Was our show” was the pathetically sad reply, Ramona’s voice quavering with unshed tears. God, she’s tired of crying. “We used to watch it, every year, it was our thing. We’d make a whole thing of it, bake cookies and stuff. Except for last year, I guess, when I was - well. But all the years before that, since we met.” 

There’s a small intake of breath from Annie’s side, who has now abandoned trying to sleep and has fully sat up in bed, subconsciously angling herself towards Ramona’s empty bed on the other side of the room, almost imagining her sprawled opposite her. “Wait, Ramona. So the first thing that Oona reaches out with is about your whole big yearly tradition?” 

“Well, yeah I guess, but still, a fucking update from a meme page is the first thing she does after she broke my entire heart?” 

 “Well yeah, but it’s like, Oona. It’s not like she’s been the most forthcoming with her feelings that often, right? She’s probably just…trying to reach out, in a weird, low-stakes way.” 

There’s silence on the line.

“She misses you, you know” Annie continues. 

Ramona scoffs indignantly. Yeah right. She’s probably already fallen between some other girl’s thighs, she thinks unkindly. 

“She does, I swear. She mopes about all the time, she looks terrible, honestly, and she won’t come to hang out with us unless Sully physically drags her out.” 

Ramona chews her lip at that. She doesn’t really know what to do with the information. 

“Yeah but who cares if she hasn’t brushed her hair or whatever the fuck, Annie, she broke my heart. She said - she said we were basically nothing, that she doesn’t care, and what? Now we’re supposed to go back to being Bake Off buddies and have cookies?” 

Annie sighs sadly, knowing that there is way too much pain there for Ramona to want to hear it. “I guess not… but is it at least a bit better, being in New York? Don’t forget to water the plant in my room, by the way, sometimes the maid forgets to do it.”

And with that, Ramona sinks into catching up with her sister, not caring that it’s past midnight. It’s only much later, after they’ve hung up, that she realises that in all her anger and frustration, she unconsciously reached out to Annie, and forgot to be awkward and hurt about her reaction to finding out she was Steven’s. So. Silver linings, at least.  

(Before she switches off to get to sleep, she opens their Instagram conversation one more time. Looks at the message unblinkingly until her eyes blur, the juxtaposition of it following the last message that Oona had sent her, a day or so before they broke up, a random reel about having the cutest girlfriend. Hah. She considers replying, considers just reacting to it with a thumbs up, but lets the phone drop from her hands without replying.) 

(Miles away, Oona is asleep, but the dried tear tracks on her cheeks are evidence that she had a rough go of getting there.) 

Still, it’s September, and it’s Bake Off time, and Ramona can’t help herself from torturing herself from watching it. And she tries not to think of Annie’s words (she’s probably just trying to reach out) while she watches the familiar show. 

And so what if Ramona, whose stories are usually few and far between, mostly blurry action shots of her friends, who mocks Connor relentlessly for his tendency to live his life out loud on his Finsta and on Tiktok, is suddenly very interested in capturing her Bake Off viewing experience? So what if her usually taciturn captions have become lengthy streams of consciousness documenting her thoughts on the events of each episode? So what if she specifically comments on what she knows she and Oona would have laughed over, like an accidental double entendre, and so what if Ramona doesn’t - she doesn’t - think of how she used to make Oona repeat soggy bottom and firm balls in her accent over and over and over till they were both crying with laughter?  Who are you, the Insta police? It’s New York Ramona, maybe New York Ramona will turn over a new leaf, start being more digitally open, you don’t know her. And so what if she checks if Oona’s seen the stories (she always does, almost immediately)? She has her list of excuses at the ready, because Annie will be annoying and ask, but somehow, she finds the tact to not press her sister on it, resigns to watch this lesbian trainwreck from the sidelines. 

And so what if Oona, whose feed is a chaotic mess (although Ramona knows that behind the apparent nonchalant hodge podge of shots, Oona does actually have some overarching aesthetic she’s aiming for - “nah, not the vibe babe” she’d decide, looking at a candid photo she’s just taken) uploads a photo of her dinner midway through October, with her laptop oh-so-accidentally positioned behind it to show the Bake Off episode playing in the background? So what if she was coincidentally drinking from Ramona’s mug that’s at Oona’s place, the twin to the wonky blue and yellow one that she keeps at the cottage? And so what if Ramona zooms into the corner of the photo, lightning fast, where the edge of another hand is visible, only to slump forward with relief at recognising Maple’s small hand, adorned with the friendship bracelets she made at camp?

So what if, after the final episode airs in November, Oona sends Ramona another message, this time a carousel of the best memes from this series? And so what if this time around, Ramona replies with an ‘😭😭’, instead of just ignoring it? And so what if Oona takes this as the smallest of olive branches that it is, and allows herself to occasionally, very sparingly and very calculatedly, send her other memes and Tiktoks that she knows would make Ramona smile, making sure to keep plenty of time in between messages? And so what if, around December, Ramona allows herself to send one back, just a silly thing about a dog kneecapping his owner mid-zoomies, who then falls into a lake? And so what if, come summer and Ramona’s planned visit back to Muskoka, there’s been a trickle of such posts - never actual messages, never any words, just inoffensive posts about their shared interests and funny posts - between the two of them, each one tugging at both of their heartstrings painfully from the unsaid words and aching hurt still stretching taut between them?    

Really, if any of this took place, one again, it’s really none of anyone else’s damn business. 

And in between, Ramona explores New York. She goes to bookshops and coffee shops and tries to make friends at her new school. She becomes slightly obsessed with Central Park, the only real green spot in this overwhelming, grey, concrete jungle, taking almost daily walks, trying to breathe in deep, trying to not miss the fresh, crisp air of Muskoka (she fails miserably). 

Sometime in November, after Ramona and Steven have cautiously gotten used to each other’s presence somewhat, after Ramona starts to gingerly, ever so slightly, let him into her life, he sits her down one day. Tells her about how devastating it has been for him to go through the events of 17 years ago, to have to process the death of his still-wife, giving birth to what he thought was her love child with another man. How he had tried to pick up the pieces, because he had two toddlers to take care of on his own, who he loved so much. How the only thing that got him through those first six months was one of his friends gently recommending therapy. How he still went, on occasion, ever since, and how he’s started back up in earnest now to try and process the events of this summer, to talk out his attempts at trying to be whatever Ramona needed him to be for her. And Ramona listens, at first confused as to why he’s telling her all this. He tells her, then, that if she wants, and there’s absolutely no pressure, he’d have no problem with increasing the monthly (very, very generous) allowance that he’d started to deposit in her bank account so she could make her way around the city, to cover the expenses of therapy. That he’d asked his own therapist to recommend a list of good therapists, ones with experience with queer women, even, but of course she’s welcome to do her own research. 

And Ramona’s first instinct is to scoff, to tell him exactly where to shove it, to tell him that she doesn’t need to be taken care of. Before she manages to do so, however, Steven raises his hands, as if to surrender. 

“I promise, this will be the last time you’ll hear about this from me. There’s absolutely no pressure on my end. I just think you’ve gone through much more than any kid your age should ever have to go through, and sometimes it’s just nice to talk things out with someone who has no real impact in your life, you know? I find that if I don’t, then I just run from my feelings, all the time, and I’m tired of running. So just in case, I wanted you to know that you have the financial resources to go for it, that’s all.” 

And he leaves it there, walking away to let Ramona process. 

A few days later, she awkwardly approaches her fa- Steven. Tells him in a low, embarrassed voice that she’s set up an appointment with Mya next week, one of the therapists from the list he gave her. And he smiles, and resists the urge to ruffle her hair affectionately. 

Ramona attacks therapy with the same dogged determination that she has tried most things in her life. She’s exhausted from feeling miserable, from being depressed, and the change in scenery to New York had not dissipated the empty pit in her stomach. 

And after several sessions with Mya, she’s gone through everything. Her mother’s death, and her mother’s betrayal, Gordon, his death and his betrayal. Discovering her true parentage, and how she didn’t know how to let Steven in, how to accept his awkward, bumbling attempts at being her family. Her new siblings, and her hurt when Annie had pulled away from her. How she doesn’t know what she wants from her life or her future. How much she misses home with a constant, dull ache, the air and the water and the trees and the softer Canadian accents over the rapid, harsher New York she’s surrounded with now. How much she misses her people back home…and Oona. 

It’s in one of her several sessions talking about Oona that Ramona finally finds some semblance of progress. She’d brought herself to finally retell the full details of their last conversation, to try and unpack whatever that mess was. She’s been speaking for about 10 minutes, and Ramona can barely see from the tears that are coursing down her face by now, Mya just a vague blur somewhere in front of her. She finally allows herself to whimper out the question that has been torturing her for months, ever since that horrible last day. “Why - why did she do that to me? She…she promised. That she wasn’t going anywhere. She said - she said -” but she couldn’t really continue any further. 

Mya allowed her a few more moments to gather herself, before she leaned forward, her kind eyes fixed on Ramona’s. 

“Ramona. I do not know Oona, and I cannot make judgments on her or her actions, beyond what I can infer from my external perspective of what you have told me. And I’m not saying that this is definitely what is going on, because we can never know what’s going on in anyone’s brain unless they tell us themselves, but… it sounds to me, like you and Oona have somewhat similar approaches when you’re going through difficult things. We’ve discussed how you tend to want to disappear, want to disengage with everything and everyone, and we’ve said that this is how you try to protect yourself from more hurt. It sounds like Oona also has her own self-protective mechanisms, and for her it’s pushing people away, because she can’t physically run away herself, she has too many responsibilities at home to afford the luxury. And… you’ve told me that this is a girl whose own mother uprooted her life multiple times, and then left her behind to basically take care of her sister on her own. That you herself didn’t speak to her for almost a year. It’s likely that being left behind, feeling abandoned, is a very big trigger for her, and she might have reacted very poorly and decided to push you away, before you decided to leave for here on your own. Make the abandonment her choice, instead of something that happens to her.” 

Ramona shifted in her seat, a flash of anger suddenly passing through her. “Are you saying she was in the right? Are you taking her side?” she demanded incredulously.

“Of course not, I am here to help you with moving towards where you want to be in life. You asked me why I think Oona suddenly pushed you away, acted like your relationship doesn’t matter to her, despite how she had acted towards you while you were together. You’ve said before that she has a history of hiding her feelings - she liked you for a long time, but never said anything and instead dated other women. She tried to ask you out, and then lied about it. It stands to reason that she is a person with a history of hiding her true feelings when it’s too hard for her to deal with them. So that’s what I think may have potentially happened, for her.” 

Ramona frowned at that. “So I- what, she’s a liar and immature?” 

“I didn’t say that. But perhaps, if you really want to know why Oona has acted the way she has, you need to try to see things from her perspective a little bit more, try to put yourself in her shoes, and that might shed some light on the situation. Like… how would you have felt, in her place, if something big and terrible happened to you - like finding out about your family - and then Oona simply left for several months, going no contact?” 

Ramona sat with that. She hated it a little, when Mya asked her these leading questions and she had to sit there and process them in the silence, but she was still determined to give this self-improvement, healing thing her best shot, so. She let herself sit with the question, imagine the scenario, imagining herself getting the most life-upending news ever, and then reaching out to her best friend for comfort, but she wasn’t there, she’d left without so much as a goodbye. “I…I’d be heartbroken” she admitted, shocked at the gut-wrenching reaction playing out that scenario in her head had given her. “I - that’s… I’d have felt like I wasn’t as important to her as she is to me.” 

Mya nods, and sensing that they’re on the edge of something, that Ramona is receptive, she pushes a bit further. “And then, how would you feel, if she came back, you eventually got together, promised you she wouldn’t leave again, but then she starts showing old patterns, starts to pull away again? And she gets the opportunity to leave everything behind, all the horrible things that have happened, the physical space where they happened, to start over somewhere new and exciting?” 

Ramona feels the words land like hot, painful stones in her stomach. Having someone external to the situation point out her actions to her so clinically made her feel like she was suddenly reliving the entire experience, but this time as if she was floating outside of her body, disconnected from her own emotions at those moments. The result was that suddenly, after months of being stuck in her own pain, her own hurt, she saw Oona’s hurt too. She was still so mad at her, but - but oh god, she had broken Oona’s heart too. She had - she had left her, multiple times even. She - she had made Oona sad. 

And suddenly, Ramona was ten years old again, on the dock, looking at Oona’s dejected, homesick, still chubby-cheeked face, and she was fifteen, trying to cheer up her friend with cookies and flowers and a Bake Off marathon. She felt that familiar, urgent panic she had always felt when Oona was sad, because she needed to fix it, she couldn’t watch her be miserable - but this time, there was nothing she could do, and she was the one that had caused the pain, and she didn’t think she could ever fix this, it was too big, too much.

Ramona slumped forward in her seat, bending over from the force of her emotions, head sinking into her hands. Her hands went to grip her hair, trying to ground herself, because she felt absolutely wrecked by it all. She was crying again, and she heard herself say out loud, her voice trembling, high and childish “I never - I didn’t mean to hurt her! I wasn’t going to leave her behind, this time, I swear!” 

Mya was gentle in her reply, her tone sympathetic. 

“Ramona, I hope you don’t take this negatively, because I don’t mean it in a bad way at all. You’ve gone through so much, more than most adults have to deal with until much later in their lives. But…you’re still just a teenager. No, you didn’t handle a traumatic situation in the most textbook emotionally secure way - and neither did Oona, for that matter. You’re experiencing things for the first time. When most people are kids they’re having flings and making mistakes and trying out all sorts of things to impress their friends, and instead here you have been having to deal with so much upheaval. You had to take care of your only family, watching him slowly pass, completely alone; you found out that everyone has lied to you your whole life; you have a family, and now they get a stake in the place that’s so precious to you; we’ve spoken about how your impression of your mother has become tainted. Of course you reacted in the way that you did, because that’s all you could compute at that moment in time, with the life experience you have. I’m not here to tell you that what you did was right or wrong, because I’m not here to be the morality police. But you can give yourself some grace and understanding of why you reacted in that way. Blaming yourself is not going to be any more productive than it has been feeling so angry at the world all the time. And now, we can work to handle things differently in the future, what do you think?” 

Ramona sniffs pathetically at that, nods, tries to get herself back together. And tries to do the work.

2027 (18 & 19)

So thanks to Steven’s bumbling affections, Connor’s annoying chaos, Annie’s almost daily calls, the wild, semi-distracting adventure that is New York, the gut-wrenching work of therapy - Ramona makes it through senior year, somehow. Graduates in a foreign country, with people she’s known only for a year, but found herself liking, despite herself. 

(On the day of Ramona’s graduation, Oona sends her a reel she’d carefully selected, a compilation of touching moments from high school graduation ceremonies, of loved ones cheering on their gowned kids. And she hopes against hope that Ramona still knows her enough to read between the lines. To understand what it means. Well done, baby. I’m so proud of you. I wish I could be there. You did so great.)

(Annie kindly sent a bunch of photos of Ramona in her graduation gown to the gang’s groupchat, looking all sorts of adorable, nose scrunching underneath her cap. And Oona downloads them all instantly, goes through them over and over and over.) 

So when Ramona determinedly buys her one-way ticket back to Muskoka, it’s with a two-columned list in her pocket that she’s written, painstakingly and over many bi-weekly sessions with Mya, of ‘Things I’m mad at you for’ and ‘Things I’m really sorry for’. And she barely lets herself wake up the day after she arrives, before she’s marching down the familiar path to Oona’s house boat, not dissimilar to how she stomped her way into Oona’s life 8 years ago, finding her almost poetically sitting on the same dock once again, the same sad expression that had adorned her face as a homesick pre-teen.

(She’d be more hesitant about her direct approach, were it not for Annie, Sully, Ellis, and even Maple taking careful, coordinated turns to drop tidbits about Oona over the past few months. That isn’t it strange, how Oona hasn’t so much as glanced at another girl for almost an entire year? That Maple walked in on her watching old episodes of the Bake Off and crying around Ramona’s birthday, weird right? And it’s so odd, they have to drag her to every party they go to, and she stands in the corner, looking like someone crapped in her cereal if a girl so much as tried to talk to the renowned hookup queen of Sterling Point? And she knows what the idiots are doing, but she appreciates it anyway.) 

And Ramona doesn’t let herself hesitate, doesn’t let herself give in to her instinct to turn around and bolt. She lowers herself down next to her. She grips the list in her pocket. And she takes a deep breath. 

So they talk. Properly, for once. Oona’s had a long time to think, and even though she didn’t have a fancy New York therapist, she had a well-read Maple, a well-meaning Annie, and months and months to come to regret the single worst decision of her life. So for once, no one runs away, and no one hides their feelings, and by the end of it, they feel raw and achy but in a weirdly cathartic way. 

They separate, for a day or so, just to process. And then - this time it’s Oona, making the determined march to the Cottage the second she wakes up and gets dressed, and she has no lists in her pocket and no more words to say for now, but by god, she has a heart bursting from how much she loves her best friend and she’s going to drag her outside, away from her sister’s curious, prying eyes, and she’s going to press her up against the wall again, and she’s going to kiss her absolutely silly. 

(And she does.) 

And it’s the same as before, but better this time. They feel safer in each other’s arms. It feels very close to what healing must feel like.

And Oona is still determined to take this slow, physically, because she’s been careless with Ramona’s heart but she’ll be damned if she’s careless with her body. And Ramone is grateful for it even while she also sort of absolutely hates it, because it’s been so long, and she’s been aching for it, for her, for a really, really, really long time. But she knows Oona is right, that both of them are emotionally raw enough as it is, and Ramona still carries a lot of insecurities, and they need to give themselves time, and anyway, it’s not like they’re being nuns about it, just. Careful. Intentional. Taking it bit by bit. 

In between, they catch up with each other and with their friends. Talk to Annie about she’s finally decided on what she wants to do, and she’s elected on going to University in Ontario, as close to Muskoka as possible, and she’ll still study business, but she’s no longer interested in the intense, high-rolling life of New York or larger cities. She wants to come back here, find a job or start a business of her own, and contribute to the neighbourhood that has welcomed her in and given her a sister, connected her with her mother’s past. 

They discuss how Ramona wants to take a gap year before figuring out where to go to college, making it clear that she’s not going anywhere that Oona doesn’t want to or cannot follow. They talk about how Ramona liked New York, really, but it was tainted by how in pain she was, how much she saw Oona in everything and everyone, and she’d love for them to go back there, together, for a while. Would Maple enjoy high school in New York? 

And when September comes around, and the Bake Off’s about to start. Ramona bribes both Annie and Maple to clear out for the day, gives Maple a truly insane amount of money to spend at her favourite bookstore, after which she’ll sleep over at the cottage. And she digs out the old bunting that she still had stashed in the depths of her closet, and she buys flowers again, and bakes cookies, and she decorates the houseboat while Oona is wrapping up her shift at The Gem. 

And when she walks in, she still has that adorably surprised face as she did two years ago, and she still rushes to gather Ramona in her arms, but this time around, Ramona doesn’t hesitate in rising on her tiptoes and pressing her mouth firmly to her girlfriend’s. Doesn’t hesitate from letting her hand gently fist and tug at Oona’s curls, swallowing the moan the other girl lets out, runs her nails torturously over Ramona’s quivering stomach, kissing down her neck. She has no hesitation about fumbling at the buttons of Oona’s shirt, about helping her out of it, about littering kisses onto the newly exposed skin, feeling Oona’s chest jump rapidly as she panted for air, because for all her commitment to this new, slower approach, she hasn’t gotten laid in over a year, and this is Ramona, and she feels like every single inch of her skin is burning up. 

And then Ramona pushes Oona none-too-gently towards Oona’s bed (god but does Oona love when the shorter girl bosses her around, makes her absolutely weak at the knees), and they fall haphazardly onto it, refusing to stop kissing for even a moment, not even to make the transition from standing to lying down a bit smoother. And Ramona straddles Oona, bracketing her hips with her own, kissing down her neck harshly, knowing she’s leaving several red marks, and the moan Oona lets out is positively sinful, and, and, and-

(And for the first time since they started to watch the show together, at least when they weren’t apart for it, they don’t press play on the episode. Actually, they end up not watching it that day at all, for that matter. They had much more important things on their minds.)

(Neither of them care in the slightest) 

2028 (19 & 20) 

After a long year of planning, of research, of talking, of letting themselves be together, fully and completely, Oona, Ramona and Maple spend the beginning of September moving to New York. 

Ramona still doesn’t really know what she wants to do with her life, beyond kiss Oona, be with Oona, touch Oona, marry Oona, so she figures her best bet is an English lit degree from NYU, because fuck it, she likes to read and she’ll figure the rest out later. Oona decides to join her, but she’s actually let herself admit to her secret aspiration to work in environmental conservation, with Muskoka’s nature now having ingrained itself into her blood, so she signs herself up to join the Department of Environmental Studies. Maple is starting at a local high school with a great academic record and a focus on the arts, with a particularly strong and active extracurricular writing group. She’s joined two book clubs by the end of her first month at school. 

And it’s hard, of course, because college is hard, and they’ve both been out of school a bit longer than most freshmen and feeling rusty about getting back into the confinement of education. And they’re also raising a teenager, who is much more self-assured and mature than most of her peers, but she’s still going through her crabby teenage years, and has her outbursts. And there’s arguments over curfews and eating healthier for dinner and her allowance, because they’re trying to raise her to not be an entitled jerkwad even if Ramona is loaded, and Oona’s dejected tone late at night, when she confesses, curled around her girlfriend’s smaller frame with her face pressed into Ramona’s shoulder, that she just wishes she could be Maple’s big sister and not her mother sometimes, even though she loves her more than anything. And Ramona will hold her face to kiss her forehead and cheeks over and over, and tell her that everything will be ok, and that they will figure it out, and that Oona is giving her more support and stability than their mother could have ever given her, and she’s so proud of her for it. 

And mostly living together is perfect, it’s beyond anything that either of them ever allowed herself to dream of, but of course they’re two headstrong, independent people, and they butt heads occasionally, especially when late nights over assignments and clashing class schedules have them feeling stretched out and disconnected. But they are better at managing it now, at making the time to talk to each other with intention and with care, at meeting the other where she’s at. And there’s always falling into bed together at night, no matter how late it is, and talking over the events of their day softly, fingers caressing soft bare skin as they catch each other up, making each other laugh because everything seems funnier in the dark, their eyes heavy with sleep. And you know, the sex definitely helps there too, because Oona meant what she said to Ramona two years ago, she’ll always find her so attractive, and Ramona equally thinks Oona is genuinely the most beautiful person on earth, and it’s hard to keep her hands off her most times anyway. 

Still though, it’s difficult, sometimes, because they’re still two quite-heavily traumatised barely-adults, but Ramona can’t help but feel that they’re solid, now, and Oona has started to trust that this really is permanent, and no one is leaving her.

And they have Steven, who for all his workaholic tendencies, his fumbling attempts at parenthood, is a great shoulder to lean on, and is a massive help with all the practicalities of moving three Canadians to New York, two of whom come with European passports, for school. He deploys his lawyers to smoothen out the process so that his kid can instead focus on the more important things, like which of her books get to cross the border with her, and how many of Oona’s and Maple’s posters can go up around the apartment walls, and arguing over closet space. He helps Oona figure out her scholarship, and works out the legalities around Ramona using some of the money from Gordon’s estate to pay for Maple’s high school. He makes sure they’re housed and well-fed, and still insists on piling extra money onto Ramona because, he argues, he should have been supporting her all along, and he’s her father could she just let him have one thing, it’s not like he tries to butt into her life otherwise and this is no strings attached money, he won’t even make her come to dinner (they still do, whenever they can). And it turns out that Ramona’s killer puppy dog eyes are genetic because Ramona can’t find it in herself for her old stubborn pride to win over just letting this kind, well-meaning, flawed guy try to be a father the best way he knows how. So Ramona accepts the cash because fuck it, Maple could do with a new laptop anyway, and she really doesn’t want Oona to have to also juggle a minimum wage job since they’re lucky enough to not have to, and she can deal with becoming a member of the privileged class on her own time. 

And they have Connor, who is hellraising at Columbia and steadily making his way through the entire student population, but still crosses the city weekly movie nights with Maple, who shares his obsession over weird, cult classic sci-fi (and to give Ramona and Oona a night out on their own, but you couldn’t pay him enough money to admit that he’s making the long weekly subway trip to make sure his sister keeps the spark in her relationship through a weekly date night). Occasionally he drags with him a new fling he’s seeing, making wild declarations that they’re the one this time, he swears, to which Ramona rolls her eyes and tells him he should just embrace that he’s a big old bisexual slut without making her try to remember the names of whoever he’s fucking at the moment, and Connor will flop over on the couch dramatically, clutching his chest and claiming he’s wounded. And Oona will nod sagely, and pat him on the head, and say that as the recovered chronic hookup queen of Sterling Point, she gets it, and it’s not his fault that he just hasn’t met his ‘Mona yet, and Connor will wrinkle his nose at her and tell her to stop being so gay about his sister for once, for the love of god. And Ramona will laugh and plop herself onto Oona’s lap, feeling her nuzzle into the back of her shoulder affectionately, pressing an absent-minded kiss to the back of her neck, and tries to shove her feet into Connor’s annoyingly lovable face.  

And Annie visits as often as she can, occasionally with Ellis, bringing with her the fresh air of Muskoka that seems to surround her now, and news and gossip of everyone at her Uni and back home. She corners them with powerpoint presentations of her next home improvement project at the Cottage that she still manages to fit in during long weekends and holidays when she makes the two hour drive from Uni. Ramona chews her lip and worries that Annie trying to take on the ancient plumbing on her own (well, with Ellis’ help, but his strength is more in electrical works, as they still so often tease him) is a recipe for disaster, but Annie is convinced she can do it, and Ramona has learnt over the past few years that she can trust in her sister whole-heartedly. The catching up is mostly for everyone else’s benefit anyway, because Ramona calls Annie almost every day, and they message constantly in between, sending memes across three different social platforms and constant updates (‘there’s this weird dude on the subway who is doing a crossword out loud, should I tell him he got one of his clues wrong because it’s highkey bothering me’ ‘omg no what if he stabs you. I need you alive, I cannot go back to dealing with Connor on my own istg’), so she knows what’s going on anyway. And Oona teases her that it’s a good thing that she technically vacated the best friend spot when she got promoted to girlfriend, because otherwise she’d be super jealous of Ramona replacing her. Ramona will roll her eyes and stick out her tongue, although she gets it, because Oona meeting any new person before, be it a friend or a hookup, used to fill her with an antsy, prickly feeling, like something precious to her is being threatened. 

Sully still manages a visit to New York at least once a year, although their schedule at the Toronto culinary academy and the apprenticeship they’ve gotten at one of the busiest restaurants in town means they’re busier than most kids their age, but they love to visit their “Big Apple Besties”. And if they occasionally disappear with Connor for an hour here and there while they’re in town, that’s frankly no one’s business but their own, and Ramona and Annie steer wildly clear from that trainwreck of a conversation. 

Of course, they still all congregate in Sterling Point for the summers, piling on top of each other at the Cottage for parties and movie nights and sleepovers, although Annie spends most of her nights at Ellis’ small apartment that he got in town to make more space for Ramona and Maple and Oona in the two bedrooms. Connor calls them all hopeless plebs and mostly finds himself some fancy place to bunk up for the time he’s there, because he absolutely cannot deal with having to figure out how and what to compost, thank you very much, but he’ll be over soon with wine and snacks. 

Steven visits for a few days each year, but it’s still quite painful for him to be back here, the place that he will never really be able to separate from when and where his life and marriage fell apart, from where he made the heart-breaking, soul-crushing realisation that he’d actually had another daughter, lonely and wishing she had known her parents, all this time. But he tries, because he’s made his peace with the fact that his kids are not Goldie. Even if it looks very likely that Annie and Ramona will eventually want to settle down here, that doesn’t mean he’s going to lose them, and it’s only an hour flight away anyway - closer, really, than if they had decided to move to west coast. And he does, eventually, warm up to the place, a little bit after his partner starts to join him there, but especially more so when the only children he can associate with the place are no longer his tiny children, who he had wanted for so long and loved even before he ever saw them, gripping their mother’s hands, pale-faced and scared at all the shouting between the adults around them. Instead he sees his grandkids running wild and half-feral in the woods, cannonballing into the lake with their aunts and uncles and all their friends, fingers sticky from all the ice cream and treats their old gramps keeps piling into them.  

But all of that is still happily to come, and for now, there’s this: Ramona pressed up to Oona’s side on their recliner couch, legs thrown comfortably over Oona’s, the taller woman’s arm wrapped securely around her, softly drawing circles into the skin of her arm. There’s a plate of chocolate chip cookies on Oona’s lap, still warm from the oven, the smell surrounding them deliciously. Their matching, wonky, decade-old mugs, that thankfully survived the international move, are waiting for them, a strong brew of builder’s tea at the ready (the English brand that Oona orders specially online because she refuses to accept the swill that American supermarkets sell as ‘tea’, insists that her British passport could be taken away from her if she did, actually, even if it’s been well over a decade since she’d last stepped on English soil). “Ready baby?” Oona asks softly, moving to press play on the TV remote. “Mmm” is Ramona’s contended reply, wiggling to press herself even further into the warm solidness of Oona. As the comfortingly familiar notes of the programme’s upbeat opening theme song starts to play, Oona allows herself to close her eyes, just briefly, and presses her smiling face into the top of her girlfriend’s golden, coconut-y hair, and feels herself continue to heal, just that little bit more. 

The End.