Page 41 of Dear Ripley

But she kept on smiling, and, finally, my leaden arm reached up onto the table towards the letter, every muscle in my body coiled tightly for rejection.

Chapter 14

Ripley

It’s weird to write back to someone who doesn’t even know you’ve received their letter, or when the letter wasn’t really supposed to be destined for you. But, here we are. I received the letter—forces beyond either of our control, I’m sure you’ll admit. You know, once you finish wanting to murder Harlow for it. I suppose the bigger question is whether I write like you did—honest, vulnerable, and like I’ve read it—or whether I ignore all the parts I’m certain you didn’t want me to see?

Though, I suppose, if we go with the latter, there’d be nothing to say, since you didn’t want me to get it in the first place. It’s not like I can’t tell which parts will bother you the most, though.

I guess we’re going with honest.

The easier thing would be to pretend I didn’t still know you well enough to catalog your thoughts. Far easier to pretend I don’t remember everything about you, or like you’re not still the same Alicia you’ve always been where it matters. Perhaps easier still would be pretending I never got the letter at all. Or returning it unopened.

That’s probably what I should have done. But, Alicia, I had in my possession a letter from you. Words you’d written for an idea of me. And, if I still know you well enough to know which parts you’d wish I hadn’t seen, then you must still know me well enough to know resistance was not an option.

Some things never change, huh? I never did have much force of will when it came to you.

The flower was a casualty of that, too. Sorry. It was a terrible, cruel gesture. One driven by hurt and anger—emotions I should have been dealing with myself, or by asking less aggressively what you meant. There’s really no excuse, even when another course of action feels impossible.

This older, wiser version of me wishes I could go back and react differently. The same me that’s always been inside tells me nothing would go differently, even if I got a second shot at it. I’d read your note, become hurt and frustrated, and I’d lash out. It’s not fair to you, and I genuinely am sorry. I wish I could take back hurting you. That was never the goal. The goal was, selfishly, to make myself feel better, to show myself I didn’t need you, and you couldn’t hurt me. Instead, I fear it demonstrated the opposite, and it hurt you too.

We’ve done some damage to each other over the years, huh? I didn’t see it going that way either, honestly. I thought we’d get that fairytale ending too, but life’s funny like that. Sometimes, you don’t realize what you’re losing, or the damage you’re doing, until it’s too late, and, by then, you can’t go back and change things.

I’m sorry.

Rejection is a complicated subject. Part of me thinks you’re right, that divorce is the ultimate rejection, but I want to be able to think about it differently. Maybe I just don’t want to feel like that was you rejecting me in the worst way. Maybe that’s foolish of me. But I do wonder whether that’s what it was for us?

Our divorce wasn’t supposed to be ‘fuck off forever’, was it? I guess that’s where we ended up, but, when we sat down to have that conversation, that wasn’t what it felt like. It felt like two adults, admitting what their needs were, and admitting they couldn’t be met together. Was it really rejection? Or was it, finally, acceptance?

I don’t know. Maybe I’m overly optimistic, or foolish, or maybe what eight years have given me is rose-colored glasses over the whole thing. And maybe I ruined it all with the carnation, but, if not, does it matter if it’s foolish hope that wishes our divorce wasn’t rejection, but, rather, fearless love and acceptance? I hope not, because I really think I prefer that.

Well, I’ve written more than I planned to. I guess you weren’t the only one with things to say. And I clearly did go with honesty. Maybe that suits us. Ignoring each other’s existence for eight years doesn’t seem to have been serving either of us especially well. Maybe honesty is how we actually get through this?

Or maybe you’re going to hunt down Harlow for giving me your letter, and then hunt down me for having the audacity to read it and reply. I always was audacious, huh, Liss?

Keeping a copy of my letter had been a weird choice. Was the goal to torture myself? Because that was the only purpose it seemed to be serving. Two letters—one from me to Alicia, one from her to me—now kept side by side, and on me, so I could pull them out at any time to look at them. It was a genuinely weird choice, but I supposed I was a genuinely weird person, so it tracked.

Though, if I could do weird stuff that didn’t tear at my heart quite so much, I think I’d appreciate that.

It had only been two days since I’d given Harlow the reply. As expected, she’d been far, far too excited. She’d almost ripped the thing open to read herself before I’d snatched it away. The way she and Morgan were acting made me feel like they hadn’t been there for the breakdown of my and Alicia’s marriage. I knew for a fact that they were, that Morgan had spent weeks sitting with me as I’d cried, but they were both acting like we were two people who had newly met, and everyone wanted to get together. Which might have been fine, if we didn’t have the history we did.

But was I really any better? I’d photocopied my reply, and couldn’t stop looking at it or Alicia’s letter. I guess we were all poking at old wounds with no care for the fallout.

Except Alicia, of course.

If she’d read it, I was certain I’d have heard about it. Probably not directly from her, but through the very nosy grapevine, gossiping about a falling out between Alicia and Harlow. Or from Harlow herself, showing up in the shop, scolded and contrite, bearing a message from Alicia to leave her alone and return the letter I never should have read.

Perhaps Harlow hadn’t even given it to her yet. Sure, I’d sat with hers for days before opening it, but I doubted Alicia would have the same qualms, so the likely answer was that she was yet to receive my letter. Did that mean I had time to ask for it back?

But what would be the point of that? Replying was a way of moving us from this weird stalemate. Maybe we’d go back to being distant and distanced strangers, or maybe we’d move forward. Either way, it would be better than this.

There was something deeply uncomfortable about being strangers with someone you’d once known so well, an acute heartbreak in the one person who used to know you completely knowing nothing about you anymore. But it was still better than this horrid, swirling middle ground.

“I’m dying,” Morgan called as she practically threw herself into the store, startling me as if I hadn’t been waiting for her.

I fumbled quickly with the two letters laid out on the counter before me, struggling to stuff them into my apron pocket before she could see them.

“What are you doing?” she asked, frowning at me.

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