Page 146 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

“I still deserved to see them!” Olive said.

“You really want to talk about what we deserved?” Ramona asked, her eyes filling and spilling over. She’d held tears back for so long—all night, eighteen years. But now, as her sister, the most important person in her life, glared at her as though betrayed, she couldn’t stop the tears. Her throat shoved them upward, her eyes pushing them out, finally released.

“Sheleftus,” Ramona said. “Never looked back.”

“Shedid,” Olive said. “She’s sent cards and wants to see me and—”

“Did you find her? Or did she find you?”

Olive opened her mouth but snapped it shut again.

“Exactly, Ollie.” Ramona stepped forward, took her sister’s hands. Looked in her lovely brown eyes. “Because we’ve always been here. Right here. She’s always known where to find us.”

Olive shook her head, tears spilling down her own cheeks. “You don’t get it.”

“I do,” Ramona said. “I’m hurt too. I miss her too.”

“But youknewher.” Olive’s voice broke. “You knew her, had pictures with her you remember, and I never got that. All I got was—”

She cut herself off, looked down as she cried, but Ramona heard her words anyway.

All I got was you.

Ramona held Olive’s hands tighter, tears pouring silently now. She tried not to feel hurt, she really did, because she knew, better than anyone, that a sister didn’t replace a mother.

But she’d never had time toreallyknow that, had she? She’d had too many responsibilities, too much to do for Olive or with Olive or for her dad. She’d never slowed down enough to process it, and she felt like it was all hitting her at once now—the emotions themselves and realization that she hadn’t done the emotional work to sort through them.

And Olive deserved that chance, even if it tore Ramona in two.

She squeezed Olive’s hands once more, then let her go.

“Okay,” Ramona said.

Olive sniffed. “Okay?”

“I can’t stop you. You’re eighteen and if…if you want to see her, you should go.”

“Come with me,” Olive said, fresh tears spilling over.

But Ramona couldn’t. She wasn’t ready, couldn’t even begin to fathom seeing her mother right now after so long and zero effort on Rebecca Riley’s part to reach out.

No.

This was one thing she couldn’t help Olive do.

“I can’t, sweetheart,” Ramona said. “I wish I could, but I just can’t.”

Olive nodded, but her tears kept coming.

And then Ramona did what she did best—she took her sister in her arms and held her until she stopped crying.

Chapter

Thirty-Eight

Olive was gonefor three days.

In that time, Ramona worked. She worked and she kept her head down and tried not to go anywhere near filming, if she could help it. They were doing a lot of shots outside recently, as the weather was perfect for it, which meant Ramona spent a ton of time in her car running errands or sorting clothes at the Bonner house, as they were still using the main bedroom for wardrobe and makeup. She had a suspicion that Noelle might be keeping her out of Dylan’s path, but that didn’t sound much like the shark Noelle Yang was known to be, so Ramona just took it as a small blessing from the universe.