Page 56 of Dear Ripley

“Alicia?”

Of course she’d known. I’d talked about Alicia and our relationship a lot in therapy—less so recently, of course, but, over the years, we’d covered a lot of that relationship and its terrible downfall. I’d even talked about the fact that she was back in town. I had, however, omitted the fact that I was avoiding going outside. Mostly because I found it embarrassing to admit to my therapist that I was effectively hiding from my ex-wife, and partly because I thought she’d tell me that was an unhealthy and unsustainable plan.

“Yes,” I mumbled eventually. “Her.”

She nodded. “Am I interpreting your words correctly if I infer that you’ve recently run into Alicia?”

Why did everyone have to be so insightful? It was annoying.

“Yes. We ran into each other at the grocery store and at a restaurant.”

“So, you’ve still been leaving the house for groceries?”

“Yeah. Morgan would be angry if I never left the house, and it feels ridiculous to ask her to do my shopping for me.”

Genevieve cracked a small smile. “Fair enough. It might also be nice to get out of the house occasionally, I imagine?”

“Well, yeah. I guess so. But I still go to work and stuff.”

Her expression suggested she’d assumed I was still working but was glad of the confirmation. It probably would have been a more dire situation if I was struggling to even go to work because my ex was in town.

“And you've still been going out to restaurants?” she asked, watching me through the screen.

I shrugged. If we were going down this path, I might as well tell the truth. “Not really. Morgan made me go last night. I felt bad for messing with her life so much lately, so I reluctantly agreed.”

“Did you want to go to the restaurant?”

Something that fascinated me in therapy was the way she always asked what I wanted. We both knew that some situations required sacrifices for others, but Genevieve always took the time to establish where I was at when nothing else factored in. It had been hard to work with at first—a life of being trained to put everyone else first did that to you—but now, I anticipated the questions and I was, usually, able to answer them.

With this one, however, I hadn’t even really thought about it until she asked. Morgan had wanted to go out, she’d wanted company, I was her best friend, and I owed her, so, eventually, I’d agreed. Whether or not I wanted to go hadn’t really factored in.

I thought about it, looking away from the screen and around the spare bedroom of my apartment that had become something of an office since Alicia moved out.

Did I want to go to the restaurant? Did I want to go out? Did I want to hang out with Morgan in places other than our homes and the grocery store?

Yes.

I nodded slowly. “Yeah. I… kind of miss my life.” I shook my head, fighting against the well of emotion in my chest. I’d been so busy trying to manage whatever was going on with Alicia, and working hard to stay away from her, that I hadn’t even had the time to think about whether or not I was doing okay in the arrangement I’d built for myself. “I hadn’t realized it, but yeah. I really miss feeling free to walk around, do whatever I want, go wherever I want…”

Genevieve nodded. “That makes sense. It sounds like you’ve really restricted your life since Alicia came back to town, and, after how hard you worked to reestablish and reconnect with your community there after your divorce, this probably feels quite overwhelming?”

My brain had gotten there only a moment before she implied it, but she was right, this was painfully similar to the ways I’d pulled away from everyone when Alicia first left. Morgan had stayed by my side, but I’d taken time off work, I’d shut down from everyone and everything, and the battle to get out of the deep depression divorce had left me with wasn’t easy. Made harder still by the way I was so in denial about it all.

I’d spent months—almost a year—telling myself everything was fine, I liked my life the way it was, that I was protecting myself from everyone’s judgment, and spending time by myself to get over the divorce, but the truth was, it wasn’t that. I was shutting down, shutting everyone out. I was forcing myself to be alone because I thought I always would be. I retreated inside of myself because nobody had ever told me how to navigate a divorce—even less when it was a mutual decision and as amicable as they could be. I hadn’t felt I was entitled to the hurt and despair I was feeling because nothing terrible had happened in the breakdown of our marriage. I’d agreed to the divorce, so who was I to feel broken by it? I couldn’t be around other people because they had opinions, but they also had judgments if I was struggling with something I’d chosen, at least in my mind.

Eventually, I’d hit the wall. I needed to go back to work—or, as actually happened, find a new direction for work, something that made me happy. I needed to be around people, to feel safe in my home and my town, to feel connection and joy. And I’d gone to therapy. It had taken a long time, but we’d worked through the heartache, the negative thoughts, the fears, and, slowly, I’d rejoined the world.

Jackson Point had been more gracious and forgiving than I’d imagined when I’d been in the pit of despair. Nobody judged me—at least to my face. They sympathized with the toll divorce took on your life, I heard stories from others who’d restarted their lives, mixed things up, and found their own path after bitter breakups, and I’d found the ability to laugh and actually feel it again, not simply that hollow imitation of a laugh I’d done when I was feeling somewhere else and lost.

And that was one of the worst parts of shutting myself away now—the fear that the pit was coming for me again.

I blinked hard against the burning in my eyes and nodded. Genevieve had been there for all of that, she was the one I could tell about it now. “I’m scared of the depression coming back.”

She nodded. “Have you been feeling any of those symptoms again?”

Something in my stomach eased at the word. Depression had been easier to accept and manage when I’d seen it as an illness, something that made me sick, had symptoms, and that could be managed and improved. Genevieve knew that, and something deep inside of me told me she was evoking that on purpose right now. It was the reminder I needed that the community I’d worked so hard to build back up was still there, I wasn’t alone. I could face this whole situation and survive it.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I think it’s just the fear of it happening again and the… I don’t know, memory of it? Every time I refuse to go out, or I’m sitting in my apartment alone, it’s there, creeping around the edges. Alone time feels scarier than it did before Alicia came back.”

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