Page 75 of Dear Ripley

Ihadn’t liked Ellie for quite some time, but I’d never thought of her as a physical threat. I still didn’t think she was a physical danger to Harlow, but, as the evening ticked by and we waited for Ripley to arrive, I couldn’t help but worry something terrible might have happened to her.

I could barely sit still, bouncing between the lavender velvet armchair, with my eyes on the clock, the window that looked out at the street below, and the bookcase in a bid to find something to distract my mind. All the while, Harlow chatted with Morgan and the two of them watched me far too contentedly than I thought the situation deserved. Neither of them seemed especially concerned that Ripley hadn’t arrived yet.

Though, I was certain they’d tell me it wasn’t time yet if I did bring it up, so perhaps they had a point.

I just couldn’t shake the feeling that Ellie might go after Ripley. I wasn’t sure why I felt that way—it didn’t really make sense—but I couldn’t stop my brain from circling back to the possibility every few minutes. The look on Ripley’s face when she’d burst into Didi’s, having just met Ellie, might have been the reason. It wasn’t her fault, of course, but I still seemed to know her expressions like the back of my hand, and something about that one had me worried for her safety.

Of course, Ripley’s expression was simply concern for Harlow, and a desire to keep her and the baby safe. My brain was interpreting it as a threat to Ripley, and I couldn’t decide whether that was a fair worry or whether I was simply too attached to Ripley and my brain was fixating on her and making things worse.

Because that was it, wasn’t it? For all the trying to deny it, for all the ways I’d tried to move on, and for all the time we’d been apart, there was still nobody like Ripley. Talking to her in the letters had been one thing, being in the same space with her again was like breathing in the most beautiful and hypnotic of scents—something that filled you up and healed you, something that relaxed every muscle in your body. And, now, apparently, my body couldn’t stand to be apart from her when I thought there was someone potentially dangerous around.

Would I be on edge forever if I didn’t get to be around her? That hardly seemed healthy.

As I stood before the bookcase once again, my eyes scanning over the most bizarre array of books I’d ever seen in one person’s home, the door to the apartment opened, and Ripley stepped in, carrying three pizza boxes. Huge ones.

Something like a sob of relief threatened to break free from me. I stomped it down, but I couldn’t explain the way Ripley being there, being safe, made me feel. I really had never gotten over her.

I feared I never would.

Harlow shot me a smug look as I felt my shoulders relaxing. I purposefully avoided her gaze as I walked back to my recently vacated seat to join the group.

“So, how did it go?” Harlow asked as Ripley set the pizzas down on the table.

Ripley shrugged, slipping off her coat. “Pretty smoothly so far. No sign of Ellie, the flowers are back at the shop, and I left her a message to call me back in regards to her order. So I guess we’ll see what happens.”

“Was my mom okay?”

The tiniest of creases appeared in Ripley’s brow. I was certain Harlow wouldn’t notice it, but I did. I was the only one who knew Ripley’s face that well, who looked at it that closely. Intimacy was so much more than sex, and some forms were so much harder to shake.

“She was good,” Ripley said, sounding fairly convincing. “Not the most comfortable liar, but I already knew that. She played her part and got back inside without any incidents.”

“Well, we don’t know whether Ellie was even watching you take the flowers over,” Morgan said as she flipped the lids open on the pizzas. Three of that size seemed a lot for a group of four, but they were different flavors, and we’d all been through a lot today.

And anything was better than whatever we’d have been forced to make from the pickled ginger, marshmallow fluff, and single zucchini Morgan had in her fridge.

“We do not,” Ripley agreed. “Probably not if she didn’t answer when I called, or immediately come in to see me when she saw me walking back to the store with the flowers, but it was still important to play the part properly.”

Morgan snorted around a bite of pizza. “Play the part? You’re not a thespian, you know?”

Ripley rolled her eyes fondly, reaching to take a slice of one of the pizzas. I followed her movements the best I could without looking like I was becoming a stalker too, and it was then that I realized she’d gotten one with feta, spinach, and olives. Ripley hated olives on her pizza, but she’d remembered. She’d gotten that pizza specifically for me.

I looked at her as surreptitiously as I could. She was playing the same game. Our eyes caught for one moment and the rush of emotions was, again, entirely overwhelming. How was it that there existed a woman with whom one moment of eye contact could feel more consequential than a five-year relationship? Her gaze made me feel raw, physically and emotionally naked, and safe—known, understood, remembered completely, and wholly accepted.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We didn’t understand each other completely. We’d been on different paths, unable to say the things we needed, when we needed to. We still couldn’tsayall the things that needed saying to one another.

So how was it that I felt this way around her?

She smiled slightly, leaning back on the sofa as she ate her own slice, and I could feel her awareness of me like a charge across my skin as I reached forward to take some of the olive pizza.

I’d wondered for years at Ellie never getting Harlow’s favorite color right, but as I took a bite of the pizza, my heart pounding in my chest, it occurred to me that Gabe had never known my favorite pizza toppings. For five years, I’d simply let him order whichever flavor he wanted. For five years, I’d only eaten my favorite pizza while alone. Perhaps it wasn’t hard to keep your favorite things hidden when you were in the wrong relationships. Not because you were trying to, necessarily, but because you were still protecting yourself, often in unplanned ways, in ways you didn’t understand or even notice until later. I wasn’t sure that applied to Ellie, but Gabe didn’t know my favorite pizza toppings because I’d subconsciously been protecting parts of myself. Ripley was the one I’d let all of my barriers down with, and it had ended horribly, and with more pain than I’d ever felt in my life. So, when it came to other relationships, I sealed parts of myself away, without ever even realizing it. If you don’t get too attached and entwined, it won’t hurt so much when it all falls apart.

Part of that was true. Breaking up with Gabe barely hurt at all. But the damage had been there all along. It wasn’t a real relationship, we hadn’t had a real connection, I’d been cutting myself off from truly being happy, and all without realizing it. I hadn’t truly been living or connecting with anyone in eight years. And it was an odd sort of experience to have your ex-wife and a pizza teach you that, but here we were—back in Jackson Point, back around Ripley, back to feeling alive. Back tofeeling.

I wondered who I’d been over the last eight years. Whoever it was, they were a shell of the person inside of me. How odd to have that happen and not realize it. Divorce did weird things to you, especially when you were still in love.

The realization did little to help me now. Things were weird with Ripley, but I was certain we were both trying to be friends—the pizza an olive branch of sorts—and I didn’t want to mess that up with more complicated feelings than our barely established dynamic could handle. I’d been too flirty in my last letter to her, friends didn’t write like that, and, if I wanted any chance of healing and actually moving on with myself and my life, I was going to need to avoid putting myself in situations where I gave into those urges, where I put a friendship with Ripley at risk. Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that something had come up to distract her from however the letter had made her feel. This way, we could move past it and pretend it had never happened. If all she had to offer, and all I had to hope for, was friendship, I was hoping for it with all my might. And I wasn’t going to mess it up.

I focused back on the room and the conversation around me when Ripley asked Harlow, “Do you think she’s going to listen to you, and actually leave you alone?”

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