“I rented out my house for the summer,” she said.
“You what?”
“And I closed Wonderlust Ink.”
“You…youwhat?”
Ramona had turned to face her, but April kept her eyes on the trees, the way the leaves flickered from green to silver in the breeze.
“April, what the hell?”
“I closed Wonderlust Ink,” April said again.
“Yes, I heard you the first time. That’s not what I meant bywhat the hell.”
“It’d been struggling for a while.” April shrugged. “It was time.”
“It was…it wastime?” Ramona asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just did.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
April turned to face her now. “And when would I have done that?” Her tone was sharper than she’d intended, and Ramona flinched.
“Apes.”
“No, really, Mona,” April said. “When should I have told you? At Thanksgiving when I was pretty sure that’s where the shop was headed, and you were with your family and Dylan’s family, and I saw youoncewhen we met for brunch at Clover Moon, and the whole town couldn’t calm the hell down over seeing you and Dylan again?”
Ramona’s shoulders lowered, her frown deepening.
“Or maybe during all those FaceTime dates we scheduled,” April said. “Except, oh, wait, you canceled most of them. Or, I guess, I could’ve told you over text, but call me sensitive, I’m not a huge fan of telling my best friend about major life decisions only to have it remain unread for forty-eight hours, which is probably why I also haven’t told you that I have an opportunity to show my work in the Devon. Because I just wasn’t sure if you had the time.”
Her voice cracked a little on the last word, and she hated herself for it. Silence filtered between them while she looked out at the woods, swallowed around her thickening throat.
“April,” Ramona said softly.
But April didn’t want pity or excuses or even rational explanations. Because her best friend was here. Ramona had come home forher, and April was infuriated that she couldn’t simply be happy about that. That there was all this baggage between them now, when they’d never, ever had secrets or distance between them since the day they met in the fourth grade on the playground at Clover Lake Elementary School.
So April opened it all up. Every secret. She told Ramona how it felt closing the shop, how she’d been in the red for nearly two years, and how her parents still didn’t know. She told Ramona about meeting Daphne, and the canoe ride, and how Daphne had no idea Elena had cheated. She told her about meeting Sasha and dyeing Daphne’s hair and how the curator from the Devon was anold client who had all but thrown April and Daphne into a competition for their very lives.
“And Ihaveto win that spot,” April said, her chest tightening more and more with every word. “I’m thirty-three, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, and I’ll be damned if Daphne Love, no matter how innocently, is going to take something else from me. I can’t—”
“Okay, okay,” Ramona said, pulling April into her arms and holding her tight. “Just breathe.”
April did, resting her chin on Ramona’s shoulder and kind of collapsing, arms loose around Ramona’s waist. She felt suddenly exhausted, but also lighter. She tightened her embrace and exhaled heavily.
“Anything else?” Ramona asked, rubbing April’s back.
“I may have dirty danced with my ex’s ex,” April said nonchalantly.
Ramona pulled back, but just enough to look April in the eye. “I’m sorry, what now?”
April laughed, because god, itwasfunny, and explained about the dancing, followed by Daphne hurting her ankle and their trek back to the cabin in the rain.
“And then I wrapped her ankle, and we watchedMaleficent,” April said, wiping at her smudged mascara.
Ramona’s brows could not possibly get any higher. “Are you telling me you engaged in lesbian wound tending?”
