Page 65 of Dear Ripley

I shook my head, appreciating her insistence and the way she always saw the best in me. “No, I was. It’s okay. I was never truly in it, you know? Always one foot out the door. Maybe even more than that. For a while, I liked him. Then it was just convenient, I guess? It was just the way things were, and I didn’t want to rock the boat. But it was never like…” I trailed off, knowing we were both more than capable of filling in Ripley’s name in the silence.

“Yeah, well, you were healing from a divorce. It’s normal that you’d be cautious.”

I shrugged. I’d had enough therapy to understand the situation. “Maybe, but that doesn’t mean it was fair to him. It’s okay to still be healing, to need time, and to not know what you’re ready to offer, but you should be open and honest with the other person about it. I barely admitted that stuff to myself half the time, I definitely didn’t talk to Gabe about it, just left him hanging at arm’s length.”

Harlow scoffed. “That dude was not left hanging anywhere. He liked things as they were perfectly well, and, maybe, if he’d been more understanding and supportive, you’d have told him about it. But, no, he was just a dick about stuff instead.”

I sighed. I could argue more, stand up for Gabe better, and there were places I owed him that, but there were also places I’d given him more than his fair share of the benefit of the doubt, plenty of times I should have been firmer with my boundaries or his comments, but hindsight was 20/20, and I didn’t want to argue with Harlow. Not about this, at least. If she told me she wanted to name her kid Teaspoon, I’d happily argue, but Gabe was over and Harlow was too good a friend to ever see his side against mine.

She moved to bump me with her hip, gesturing with her eyebrows when I looked at her in question. “We’re here.”

I followed her gaze to Petal and Pebble. We were indeed there.

The emotional whiplash of going from thoughts of Gabe to thoughts of Ripley was more than enough to highlight how things with him were never going to have lasted, even without the god-awful political views. There was just something undeniable about Ripley, being around her, and my feelings for her—and none of that had ever really gone away. For years, I’d kept it in a little box in my heart and mind, but now? Back in the same town, and writing each other letters… there was no way to keep it locked up.

Harlow laughed. “Are you going in?”

“Definitely not,” I replied immediately, only then realizing that I’d stopped in the middle of the path.

“Why not? You two talk now.”

I looked at her incredulously. “No. We write. And we act like nothing’s wrong. But we do not communicate in person.”

“Not if you don’t try,” she replied, sounding pouty and unimpressed.

I laughed, feeling hollow. “Just let me have my letters in peace.”

“I will not.” She crossed her arms pointedly. “I’m on a mission to get you back here—and, you know, to make you happy or whatever—so I need you and Ripley back together.”

“So very glad my happiness is so high on your list there.”

“You’re just going to have to trust me that I know what’s best for you, and you’ll be happy once you’re back here, back with Ripley.”

I scowled at her. “It’s lines like that that will have your kid showing up at my house needing a place to get away from their overbearing mother.”

“You’re just saying that to distract me, but it won’t work, because I’m going to be a great mother, and I’m going to listen to my kid.”

“But not to your best friend?”

“Not when she’s sabotaging her own happiness. And mine.”

“The true crux of the matter.”

“Indeed.” She gripped my arm again and began towing me towards Petal and Pebble.

I wasn’t sure whether she was bizarrely strong or whether I was just reluctant to fight back properly because I didn’t want to hurt my best friend, or a pregnant person, or my pregnant best friend, but it felt like she had a vise grip on me, and getting away was impossible.

Despite my protestations, one wild thought in the back of my head wondered whether it was all thatandthe fact that I secretly did want to see Ripley.

However, one step inside the store scared that thought away immediately.

Ripley stared, wide-eyed and confused, at the spectacle before her. I felt my face go bright red as Harlow greeted her, far too upbeat, as if nothing weird was happening.

“What can I do for you?” Ripley asked her, looking at Harlow, but assessing both of us in her peripheral vision. I could see it happening.

“Oh, Alicia here just wanted to—” Harlow started, her voice full of glee, before I cut her off.

“Here,” I said, shortly, wrestling the letter awkwardly out of my pocket, and throwing it across the store at Ripley.

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