Page 86 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

“Their name is Harlow. They work in graphic design and we’re moving in together when I’m done here.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“I know,” Blair said softly, glancing back up at Dylan and tilting her head. “Just thought maybe you should.”

They stared at each other for a second, and for the life of her, Dylan did not get this person. Blair hated her, told her she was apiece of shit, then turned around and offered personal information both passive-aggressively and also in a way that seemed like Blair might have really wanted Dylan to ask about Harlow.

“That’s…a nice name,” Dylan said.

Blair smiled. “They chose it themself.”

Dylan nodded as Blair handed over her phone. Dylan took it carefully—the last thing she needed was to break Blair Emmanuel’s property during this fragile moment of peace. She looked down at the screen.

And blinked.

Then literally rubbed her eyes.

Because she couldn’t be seeing what she thought she was seeing. She’d breathed in some sort of mushroom spore last night, and it was causing hallucinations, surely, because the headlineChildhood Sweethearts Reuniteright above a picture of her and Ramona couldn’t be real.

Please, holy shit, let it not be real.

She refreshed the web page, but her stomach plummeted to her feet when she saw the screen was the same, headline and all. “Fuck,” she breathed out.

“So is it true?” Blair asked.

Dylan didn’t answer. Couldn’t. She scanned the article, short but devastating.

How?

Who?

Why?

A million questions jumbled around in her brain, like rocks in a tumbler.

Ramona?

No. Ramona would never share this memory with gossip sites. Dylan was pretty sure April knew the story too, as Ramona andApril shared everything, but April didn’t seem like the type either. Maybe it was Olive, if she knew, or even her friend Marley. But Ramona’s whole circle seemed fiercely loyal to one another, the sort of relationships Dylan had never experienced herself. No, this had to have come from her own side. She combed through her tangled thoughts, trying to remember if she’d ever written this memory down or told someone or—

“Laurel,” she said. “Goddammit.”

“You okay?” Blair asked.

Dylan shook her head. “No. Definitely not.” She handed Blair her phone, then plucked her own out of her back pocket to call Laurel, but of course, at that moment, Gia rallied everyone back together. Every curse word in existence kaleidoscoped through Dylan’s head, but there was nothing she could do about it.

She had to work.

She had to be professional.

No matter how much she wanted to scream that she had an emergency, do whatever she had to do to get out of here and figure this out, she knew she couldn’t. She was already on such thin ice.

She took a few deep breaths, then went back behind the counter. Blair watched her, brows furrowed, but Dylan didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to process the fact that this story about her and Ramona was—

Fuck.

Ramona.

She’ll see it.