Page 29 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

A girl.

Around her age, she thought, though she’d never seen her before. A summer person, then, the vacationers who all but took over the town from May to September every year.

“Hi,” the girl said. She was skinny—too skinny even, like she hadn’t eaten a decent meal in a while—and wore cutoff jean shorts and a black tank top with the wordHalcyonprinted on the front in turquoise text. She sucked on a lollipop, her lips shiny with sugar in the moonlight.

“Um. Hi,” Ramona said as the girl came closer and then plopped down in the sand next to Ramona, as though they were old friends.

Ramona scowled.

The girl sucked on her lollipop and smiled.

“Are you lost?” Ramona asked.

The girl shrugged. “Maybe. Probably.”

Ramona had no clue what to do with that.

“What’s your name?” the girl asked, then grabbed Ramona’s arm before she could answer. “Wait, don’t tell me. Let’s make up names for each other. You can be…” Her eyes roamed Ramona’s face, then slid down to her shirt. “Cherry.” She grinned.

Ramona stared at her for a few seconds, trying to figure out how to play this. She just wanted to be alone. Just wanted to cry and feel sorry for herself before she had to go back home and pretty much be a mom to her baby sister.

But as the girl smiled at her, Ramona caught sight of her eyes in the moonlight—the lightest green, like the pictures she’d seen of those icebergs in the Arctic. Her hair was short, cut to her shoulders, and a milk chocolate color.

Her eyes though…it wasn’t just the color, but the look underneath them too.

Dark circles.

Her cheeks a bit hollowed out.

The girl looked haunted, her ghosts trailing behind her even, but she smiled and sucked on that lollipop—Ramona got a whiff of the sour apple flavor—and suddenly Ramona smiled too.

The first smile she’d managed in two weeks. The first real one, at least.

She even laughed, unbidden and surprising, the sound like a rusty gate opening for the first time in years.

“Okay,” she said. “You can be Lollipop.”

“Lolli,” the girl said.

“Perfect.”

The girl—Lolli—nudged her shoulder with her own, and Ramona felt a tiny swoop through her belly. She felt a lot of things all at once, actually—there was the smiling, of course, but there was also a sort of relief, because Lolli seemed just as hungry as Ramona. Not for food, but for…something.

Understanding, maybe.

Camaraderie.

Someone whogotit.

And with that haunted look in Lolli’s eyes, Ramona knew Lolli got it. She didn’t have to explain it. She didn’t have to tell her sob story about her mother, and she didn’t need to hear Lolli’s.

They just got tobe, right here, right now, under the moon and the stars, with their fake names and laughter and that lollipop.

Ramona didn’t realize how much she was craving that until this moment—justbeing. Since her mother left, even April, who could turn any situation into some sort of party, watched her with wary eyes, as though she was always waiting for Ramona to fall apart.

Lolli smiled at her, her shoulder still pressed to Ramona’s, and Ramona felt another feeling right then too. She’d been thinking about it a lot before her mother left, for over a year maybe, but in the last two weeks, she hadn’t had any room to process it, this…wondering.

About girls.