Page 36 of Dear Ripley

I sighed. “It feels like betraying her. Reading someone else’s private thoughts… doesn’t really seem like the thing to do. Kind of an invasion of privacy.”

Morgan laughed. “I mean, you’ve literally been inside the woman. How much privacy is left?”

I winced. “I mean, sure, but that’s a little bit different, don’t you think?”

“Not really.” She looked at me like I was wrong. “But clearly you don’t agree.”

I didn’t, but I wasn’t sure how to explain it. Sex was intimate, of course, but reading someone’s private thoughts was something else. It was the intimacy I missed most. Alicia was beautiful and wonderful in bed, but I missed her thoughts. I missed being the one allowed to see those parts of her she kept locked in her head, away from the world. I missed the casual, beautiful intimacy of changing in front of your partner. Of seeing her dress and undress. It wasn’t the sex, it was the comfort, the connection, being the one she exposed her body and her soul to.

The letter felt like that. And I’d lost those privileges a long time ago. They’d been slipping away long before we’d said the words. They were the things we’d lost and couldn’t get back even then.

But now, Alicia’s best friend, of all people, had brought that part of her back to me, just a little bit. And I wasn’t sure what to do.

I was probably breaking all kinds of common decency laws by not just dropping the letter back with its author, unread. Or burning it so it wasn’t a temptation anymore.

How I wished I could be that strong. But I wanted to know. The letter was about me and my yellow carnation. I needed to know what it said.

Morgan laughed beside me. “I can practically hear your brain working. Analyzing every detail of why you’re a terrible person for wanting to read it, but wanting to anyway.”

“That’s not what I was doing,” I insisted, far too petulant.

She laughed again. “Sure it is. And, look, Ripley, the letter has your name on it. Maybe she wasn’t planning on actually sending it to you, but maybe she was. Why would she address a letter she was never going to send?”

It wasn’t as though my brain hadn’t thought that. I’d been wrangling with that argument for days. And I didn’t have a good answer, but I was fairly certain my brain was ignoring the perfectly rational explanation for it in favor of pushing me in the wrong direction.

I wiggled in my seat, going back and forth on what to do. I wanted to read it. I knew I shouldn’t, but… I really wanted to.

“You can read it, or I will,” Morgan threatened.

I shot her a dirty look. I was fairly certain she wouldn’t, but I wasn’t tempting fate.

After two more minutes of thought, I moved over to the console table I had the letter stuffed in.

The envelope was soft, almost like fabric now, from the amount of time I’d spent holding it, caressing it, wondering whether I should open it as my fingers played along the sealed edge.

Morgan was a terrible influence.

Or, I was the terrible influence and I just enjoyed a push in the direction I was already heading.

Or both.

It would have been a great time for the buzzer to go, our food to arrive, and for me to put the letter away, temptation temporarily removed. But no such sound came.

My fingers slipped under the edge of the flap. I’d come this far, surely I wasn’t turning back now?

It didn’t seem likely. I was a terrible influence on myself.

The envelope tore easily, and I could practically hear Morgan’s excitement behind me. She really was here for the drama. I wasn’t going to let her read it. It was bad enough that I was reading it. Spreading Alicia’s private thoughts to others was not an option, and Morgan knew that.

But she really loved the drama.

Alicia’s note was longer than the one I’d sent her, longer than the previous one she’d sent me. It was also achingly familiar, a memory of notes she’d sent me long ago.

I doubted this one would be quite the same.

I took a deep breath.

Harlow’s making me write this. She’s claiming I need to send it to you, a reply for the ‘fuck you’ flower and note—a nice touch by the way. But I don’t think I will. I think this will be my space to react, and then I’ll put it away and never have to deal with it again.

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