Page 7 of Dear Ripley

I ordered a taxi to the airport, took one more look around the place, and headed out.

???

As a general rule, I loved massive, international airports. They were filled with potential, possibilities, and the promise of adventure. However, even I had to admit that regional airports had their charms, particularly if you were in a hurry to get through security, or out the door.

As it happened, I was not.

The flight had been smooth, almost annoyingly on time, and significantly faster than I remembered it being. Of course, I’d only done it once, and in the opposite direction, when I’d been fighting back tears and the urge to insist they turn it around and take me back. When I’d wondered whether I could get on my knees and beg Ripley to take me back, to promise we’d figure it out, that it didn’t matter that we were heading in different directions in life because I still wanted to do life with her, so, honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure how long the flight felt. But, when you were praying for it to go slowly and, with every inch you took, your anxiety ratcheted up another notch, it felt far too fast.

Wexford Regional Airport felt far too familiar too, even through the overwhelming wave of panic that hit as we came in to land.

The person beside me shot me a sympathetic look as my hands gripped the armrests and we raced towards the ground. It made sense. I looked like the world’s most nervous flier, unable to handle even the smoothest of landings, but the truth was infinitely worse, so, today, I could be the nervous flier. I could pretend I didn’t spend half my life jetting around. I could pretend the terror wasn’t from being back in my hometown for the first time since divorcing the woman who was likely the only love of my life I was ever going to get. And I could pretend I wasn’t scared out of my mind at the prospect of running into her.

I couldn’t quite pretend that the niggling little voice telling me I’d be disappointed if I didn’t see her wasn’t there. I was trying very hard to ignore it. I knew seeing her would be infinitely worse than not seeing her. And yet… The heartbreak, the pain, the wounds our divorce had left on my heart and my soul were there, waiting patiently to be ripped open again, almost begging to be realized.

Perhaps that made them real. Eight years without her. Eight years of keeping everyone at a distance. Eight years of feeling very slightly out of sync with the rest of the world. Maybe I just wanted to feel alive again.

It was the most dangerous game. Ripley was a wild, open flame. One I’d danced through time and time again. She’d never burned, until, one day, I went up in flames. There was no coming back from that. But maybe you could burn again. Maybe I wanted to. Maybe that was a terrible thing to think. And maybe I didn’t care.

My heart was uncomfortably fast when the seatbelt sign dinged off and people around me jumped from their seats like they’d been electrified. Only the fact that I was in an aisle seat, and the person next to me was relying on me to move got me from my seat. Every part of me felt like lead, like I didn’t want to move ever again. The panic wanted me to stay in the seat, to go with the plane to its next destination, no care for where that was, so long as it wasn’t here. But someone needed me to move, someone who was probably happy to be here in Wexford.

In a twisted way, I supposed I was, too. Wexford wasn’t Jackson Point. There was still time to change my destination, time to go somewhere Ripley didn’t live, somewhere my former home didn’t stand, and nobody knew my name or my tragic love story.

Inside the terminal was no better. It was a million times worse. Too familiar, too many memories—family vacations, trips with Ripley, the flash of a photograph I’d taken of her in front of one of the massive glass windows, the sunrise dancing through her dark red hair and gleaming golden in her brown eyes…

My skin was crawling. Wexford wasn’t Jackson Point but it was already too close, too filled with so much history, a time I thought I’d left behind.

I felt myself aching for the massive airports. The ones where you were trapped behind security for a while once you landed. For international trips where you had to clear customs, and border patrol wouldn’t let people at you too soon. I wanted to get lost in the airport.

But I couldn’t even if I tried. My feet knew Wexford too well. They carried me quickly across the carpet and to the escalator, down it, and out. Free. Lost without any protection between me and Jackson Point.

And my family was already waiting.

With 'welcome home’ signs.

My heart twisted. Staying away wasn’t supposed to hurt them. They’d said they understood, that they were happy to come to me, and that it was okay that I couldn’t come back. But those were not the faces of people who were okay with me never coming back here.

“‘Bout time you came back around these parts,” Joel said, coming at me and punching my shoulder. A blood cousin who’d been adopted by my parents when he was young and who, now, was every bit a brother to me, even if I hadn’t been around him much over the last eight years.

I was certain he’d grown since I saw him last.

“Ouch,” I replied, rubbing the place he’d hit only just hard enough to hurt. “Can you blame me for staying away if all you do is beat me up the minute I come back?”

“Pfft.” He waved me off as if he’d never dreamt of touching me.

“Play nice,” my mom said, wrangling her end of the banner she and my dad were holding, and pulling me into a tight hug. “It’s good to see you, darling.”

“You too, Mom,” I said, smiling at my dad over her shoulder. “Can’t say the same about Joel.”

“Fuck off,” he complained loudly.

“Language,” Dad warned in a growl as if Joel wasn’t a fully grown adult these days.

Joel shot me a shit-eating grin. “Language. Noun. Key in human communicati—”

“Yes. Thank you.” Dad rolled his eyes. “Glad to see all that college money’s not going to waste.”

Joel grinned at him warmly and there was something soothing about the whole thing, even in spite of it happening here, in Wexford, only half an hour from Jackson Point. I might not have been here in eight years, and being back might be fraught, but my family never changed, and I still got to be part of it. I felt like I was fifteen again—or twenty, back when two-year-old Joel came to live with us, and life was all college, and Ripley, and feeling infinite.

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