April:YOU WENT ON A DATE???
April:AND DIDN’T TELL ME???
“Okay, jerks,” Olive said, still reading on her phone. “This article says you’re not Dylan’s normal type and that she must be slumming it.”
“Oh, for god’s sake!” Ramona said, then pushed off the doorand took off down the hall, closing herself in the powder room. She sat down on the toilet lid, muted April’s still-buzzing texts. She just needed a second to think. To breathe. To get her head around this.
She knew this kind of thing happened to celebrities all the time—people wanted in to their lives, thought they were entitled to them even, but she never expected herself to be swimming in this fishbowl too. It was dizzying and overwhelming and, honestly, a little terrifying.
She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help herself. She opened one of the articles on her phone, eyes scanning the words.
Dylan Monroe is summering in a tiny hamlet called Clover Lake (yeah, we’ve never heard of it either), and it looks like she’s spending her time doing more than just filming her first rom-com (you heard that right—bad girl Killin’ Dylan is playing America’s sweetheart). Local girl Ramona Riley (she makes pie, everyone, and drives a very practical Honda)…
“I do not drive a fucking Honda,” Ramona said. She had no idea how they got her name, but she knew it wouldn’t be hard around there. Those photographers could’ve asked literally anyone in town—shaggy bangs, freckles for days, handmade clothes around curvy thighs. Ramona pressed her fingers to her temple, kept reading against her better judgment.
…looks more the part of America’s sweetheart, and even has the hips to prove it.
Ramona gritted her teeth. She was happy with her body—happy, or didn’t think about it at all, honestly—but she knew the wider world didn’t always look kindly upon curves and fat, despite thebody positive and body neutrality movements flourishing throughout society. And Hollywood certainly wasn’t regular society.
After Dylan’s explosive breakup with Jocelyn Gareth a few months ago (helicopters were involved, enough said), it’s no surprise to find Dylan holding the hand of someone who is one hundred percent not her normal type. Maybe slumming it in New Hampshire will calm Jack and Carrie’s wildling down a little. Good luck, Ramona Riley, and Godspeed.
Ramona swiped out of her browser, clicked her phone to dark, stuck it back in her pocket. She was tempted to toss it into the toilet and be done with the whole thing, but that felt extreme. Still, she couldn’t read another word, and didn’t want the temptation. Infuriating tears swelled into her eyes. She knew it was silly—these were gossip sites, for crying out loud. They weren’t factual, and everyone knew it.
Still, despite this knowledge, everyone read them and oohed and aahed and believed every single word.
She took a few deep breaths, but the tears kept coming—she wasn’t even sure why she was crying. Shewasn’tDylan’s normal type, and that was fine. She wasn’t even actually dating Dylan Monroe, for Christ’s sake. But she couldn’t help this feeling of being invaded. And even more than that, she felt silly, filled with an embarrassment she couldn’t seem to shake, which led to embarrassment over feeling embarrassed, a ridiculous cycle that pulled more tears from her eyes.
She swiped furiously at her face, willed herself to get herself together. She still had to be at Clover Moon in half an hour and had no idea how she was going to get out of her house. She pictured herself walking boldly through the journalists, acting as though theyweren’t even there, chin held high…Yeah no, she’d never pull it off. She’d lose her shit for sure, all that noise and clicking and yelling, and then they’d report on how she’d had a panic attack while getting in her car.
She dropped her head in her hands, tried to think. She’d just decided to duck out the back door and cut through the woods to walk to Clover Moon, when her phone buzzed again.
“God, what now?” she whisper-yelled, but fished it out of her pocket anyway.
Dylanflashed across the screen.
She sucked in a breath. She and Dylan had shared numbers that first day they’d met—or remet, more accurately—sitting on the couch in April’s office, but neither of them had used that information yet.
She slid her finger across the screen. “H-h-hi.”
“Ramona?”
She cleared her throat. “Yeah, hey.”
“God, I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” she asked stupidly.
“Oh, you haven’t seen? Thank god, don’t go on the internet, or—”
“No, I saw,” she said. “Sorry, I’m just processing.”
A beat of silence. “Right. I knew this might happen. I’m so sorry.”
“No,I’msorry.”
Dylan sighed. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine, okay? I’ve got so many eyes on me since everything with Jocelyn, and everyone is just waiting for me to fuck up this movie. I shouldn’t have dragged you into it. It was selfish and stupid.”
Ramona nodded, even though Dylan couldn’t see her. The lump in her throat was ballooning—Dylan’s words should be comforting, but somehow, they just made her feel worse. She closed her eyes, swallowed about seven thousand times until her throat felt normal again.
