And swallows back a yelp when she spots someone on the couch in the living room.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Lexi asks.
Ramona presses a hand to her pounding heart. “You scared me. What does it say about us that we woke up before all the kids?”
Lexi laughs, making room for her on the couch and tossing her a blanket. Her red hair is in a messy ponytail, her laptop open in front of her. Outside there’s a blanket of fresh snowfall.
“You’re really working over the holidays, huh. That’s dedication.”
“Or masochism.” Lexi shuts the laptop with a shake of her head. “I love it, though.”
“Environmental lawyer, right? I took marine biology thisquarter, and we learned about all these court cases that threatened various species. As soon as Nick told me about your job, I pictured you marching into the courtroom in a full suit of armor, defending all the whales.”
Lexi just gives her a curious look, like she wasn’t expecting Ramona’s interest. “That’s more or less what it’s like. Minus the armor.”
“Important work,” Ramona says, meaning it.
“Thank you. I try.”
They fall into silence for a while. For all her anxiety, Nick’s family has been lovely, welcoming her more than she imagined they ever would. AndAudrey—Ramona would probably die for her.
Yesterday on their snowy walk, Audrey opened up about the girls at school who’d been teasing her, the so-called friends Nick told her about on Halloween. She asked for Ramona’s advice, and while part of her wanted to sayfuck ’em, she knew that was not appropriate for a thirteen-year-old.
“You have so much time to have adult friends,” Ramona said. “The whole rest of your life, it’s only adult friends. I’m not saying you need to make nice with these girls specifically—frankly, you deserve better—but it’s not the worst thing, being thirteen, is it?”
“Sometimes it feels that way,” Audrey said, and Ramona’s heart ached.
“If there’s one thing I regret,” Ramona continued, “it’s that I didn’t make close friends when I was your age. I was too busy trying to make all the adults happy. And I really, truly wish that I’d been able to just…be a kid. For a little bit longer.”
And even thoughwhen I was your agesounds so cliché, it must be because of who she is that Audrey seems to take it seriously.
Then Audrey mentioned a new girl at school—“We both havethe same Arlie J pin on our backpacks!”—with the kind of optimism that convinced Ramona everything would be okay, especially after they spent the rest of the walk doing a deep dive through Arlie’s whole catalog.
Now Ramona’s eager to impress Audrey’s mother.
“Amazing that you have all this,” Ramona says, and she hopes Lexi understands that she doesn’t just mean the cabin.
“We feel really lucky.” Lexi crosses her legs, takes a deep breath. “Look, you seem great, and I see the way Nick looks at you—he clearly adores you. My daughter idolizes you. There’s no tactful way to ask this, but you have to know this is weird for all of us. Well, our parents don’t fully get it, but that’s to be expected. And I just need to know, with you and my brother…it’s real, right? Or is there something I’m not getting?”
There’s no cruelty in Lexi’s words, just a genuine curiosity.
He clearly adores you.
Ramona tries not to let her discomfort show. “What, you don’t think a psychology professor would ever go for someone like me?” Lexi cracks a smile, but waits for a real answer. “I care about him. A lot.” Even that feels like an understatement. “I get wanting to be protective, but I swear, I don’t have bad intentions here. And with Audrey…I don’t want to overstep there, either. That’s super new for me, to be honest.”
“You’ve been wonderful with her,” Lexi says. “I just…I don’t want her to get too attached if you’re not going to be around next month.”
This protectiveness—it’s natural, Ramona knows, for a parent-child relationship. And that’s why it yanks at something deep inside her chest, a yearning for that thing she never had.
“I wouldn’t want that either,” Ramona says in a small voice.
She’s uneasy all throughout gift opening, even as Nick cozies up on the couch next to her. They’re the sweetest family, and yet she’s suddenly unable to relax. Unable to let herself feel like she really belongs.
Maybe after last night, Nick sits a little closer, always makes sure he has his hand on her leg or his arm around her shoulder. Like he wants her to know how much it meant to him.
Ramona doesn’t regret telling him, but what she can’t understand is why she excavated herself like that after they agreed this relationship wasn’t serious. Does that instantly make it serious? And perhaps even scarier, what if that’s something she wants? Because even Lexi had to ask—in what universe do the two of them make sense?
Maybe she was testing herself to see whether she could truly get that honest with a partner, show him all the pieces she fears aren’t shiny enough for someone to love. And he responded better than she could have imagined.
