Page 97 of Dear Ripley

People had wanted me to celebrate getting to do my own thing, prioritizing myself, and not worrying about what someone else wanted. And, sure, I’d done that in my own way. I’d built the lifeIwanted. But I’d never celebrated getting away from Alicia, and, now that she was back, I was glad of it.

Something about divorce made people uncomfortable. I didn’t think we, as a species, were great at sitting in complicated sadness. At least that was my experience. And, it would have been easy to give people what they wanted, to let them turn it into a good riddance party. But, sitting across from her at Didi’s again, sipping milkshakes with shy smiles that told me we both remembered, I was glad I’d never celebrated losing her. I’d sat with the sadness, felt every ache of it, and now, I could look her in the eye, knowing I’d never been glad to be rid of her.

I sniffled, attempting to cover my ridiculous sentimentality with a show of shudders from the cool milkshake. I’d lived with complicated feelings over Alicia for years now—everything about us was complicated and personal—so this was no different. I could be happy, scared, hopeful, tentative, eager, and cautious all at the same time. I could wonder whether the looks she gave me really meant we were on the same page still. I could wonder about the path forward for us while being realistic that there might not be one. And I could melt every time she smiled at me.

We’d just watched the final break of a relationship that got compared to ours but, in the end, it was nothing like it, and didn’t that say so much? There was nothing like a real-life example to show you the truth of an issue.

Harlow and Ellie weren’t meant to be together. Ellie had manipulated and used Harlow, and Harlow had, justifiably, reached her limit. Ellie needed to work on herself, and Harlow needed to work on building the life she’d always wanted. This was her time, and, while I knew she’d find the love she deserved, she was clearly perfectly happy doing things solo for now. She’d be better for it in the end.

A bad relationship could show you what you didn’t want. A good one could, apparently, show you not to settle for anything less.

Eight years of being alone. I was better for it. I’d needed that time for growth, for understanding. And now, there was no denying that part of staying single had been because nobody could ever have loved me the way Alicia had.

Perhaps that wasn’t true. Perhaps in twenty years, I’d have found someone else. Perhaps a lot of things. But it was a fact that eight years hadn’t rid me of Alicia or the way she’d loved me. The years hadn’t changed the way I loved her, or the way it felt to look at her again, to sit with her as friends.

“Oooh, look what we’ve got here,” said an all-too-familiar voice.

“Hello, Mrs. Sylvester,” the four of us said in unison.

“Does she always sound like the creepy witch from Hansel and Gretel when she does that?” Alicia muttered, just for the two of us.

I shot her a look, stifling my laughter as I nodded. “Always.”

She grinned back at me, and there it was again. That feeling that we were the only two people in the world. That we were on the same page. That life was happening in the space between our words.

“I see you did run into Ripley,” she said, grinning at Alicia.

Alicia frowned, clearly trying to place the conversation Mrs. Sylvester was referring to. “Oh. Right. Yes, well, I’ve been back for a few weeks now. It was bound to happen. Jackson Point’s not that big.”

Mrs. Sylvester hummed. “I don’t know, dear. You and I have only run into each other a couple of times, and I don’t see us getting lunch together.”

“Oh, it’s just brunch,” Alicia replied, as if that made any difference.

I giggled as I watched it dawn on her what she’d said. She floundered, looking for a way to fix it. I’d always loved those rare moments when her brain malfunctioned, and she said the first thing that came to mind, even if it made no sense.

Mrs. Sylvester smirked. “Well, we aren’t doing that, either. And, I’m sure, if you’re dining with your ex-wife, you must have run into each other quite a few times…”

It was clear what she was hinting at, but I looked at Alicia with my head tilted, a smirk on my face. Had we really been running into each other? We’d mostly been running away from each other while we passed notes, like nervous schoolgirls, unable to talk to their crush.

The word sent a thrill through me. There was no point denying it anymore. We’d each admitted enough things, we’d shared enough glances and secret words and stolen seconds—I had a crush on my ex-wife. And I was pretty sure she had one on me too.

How lucky to fall for the same person a second time around.

Although, weren’t all relationships falling for the same person over and over again? Wasn’t that where we’d gone wrong? We hit a bump in the road and, ill-equipped as we were, we ran scared from each other. What we should have been doing was getting therapy and falling in love all over again.

Hindsight was twenty-twenty. Especially when you’d grown as much as we both had.

When neither of us answered, Morgan cut in to save us. Or to give us a moment. It was probably that one. We were, after all, looking at each other like besotted fools, I was certain.

“Oh, we’re just celebrating,” she told Mrs. Sylvester—and the rest of us.

“Oh, yes? Are they back together?” Mrs. Sylvester leaned in closer over the table.

Harlow forced a laugh—or, actually laughed, but made it sound different for Mrs. Sylvester’s sake. Her glance back at us made it seem like the latter. “No, nothing like that. Ripley’s agreed to do the flowers for my baby shower. And a standing weekly order for my new home.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Sylvester sounded somewhere between disappointed and confused as to why that would be something to celebrate.

I tried to arrange my face into something other than surprise at hearing this news for the first time.

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