Page 78 of Dear Ripley

We weren’t great at speaking out loud to each other yet, but maybe we’d get there. Back then, we’d never even tried writing things out, so, even if we were still struggling in places, maybe we were already doing better, and maybe I could take it further. Maybe I owed us both that. It definitely felt like I owed myself.

And, more than that, Iwantedto try. I was sick of loving her and never letting go, never being able to get over her, but never doing anything about it. I needed to dosomething.I was so incredibly late to the party, too busy sitting in the corner, pretending everything was fine for too long, but here I was—finally ready and willing. And I was going to give it my all.

Chapter 27

Alicia

It had been a long time since I’d slept on someone’s living room floor with a group of my friends—one of those things that seemed like great fun when you were a kid, sometimes necessary when you were a student, and that you eventually grew out of, your body no longer friendly with you if you kept doing it after a certain age without the right equipment. Morgan, however, hadn't gotten the message. She’d insisted that we all stay in the living room together, for fun, and refused to let Ripley leave to go sleep in her own bed. It was both very Morgan and very inconvenient.

Morgan’s apartment was a decent size, but, with four grown adults and a living room full of furniture, it was hard to avoid being near Ripley. Or, maybe it wasn’t that difficult, I just wasn’t trying particularly hard.

Something had been bothering her for a good chunk of the evening, I’d seen it on her face as clear as day. She’d done a good job keeping it from Harlow and Morgan, but I’d seen it in the moments her mask slipped. She was mulling over something big, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether it was related to the four of us being together. Even after all this time, I still wanted to know everything that was going on with her. I wanted to help lighten her burdens, if at all possible. It was just like that when you loved someone, and that didn’t just go away.

But, after some coercing from Morgan, Ripley had agreed to stay and had taken up a spot on the floor, supported by Morgan’s sofa cushions—much to Morgan’s dismay. Though, when she’d tried to argue, Ripley told her that was what she got for forcing us all to sleep on the floor, and Morgan harrumphed but stopped fighting it.

As I curled up on my own bed of cushions and blankets, I tried hard not to overthink things, to be less aware of Ripley, but it didn’t work. Her presence demanded my attention. Something deep inside of me still yearned for her in a way I hadn’t experienced with anyone else. It was ridiculous. I was so certain I’d moved past that whole thing, but one night in a room with her was enough to bring it all screaming back.

And, as much as I wished I could complain about it, and dislike every little thing about it, I really couldn’t. I’d wanted, for so long, to be over Ripley—in some ways, I still did—but something about being around her, even when things were awkward and loaded, just made sense. Some part of me that had been dimmed, almost snuffed out, years ago, felt as though it relit in her presence. Every little thing in life felt just a little bit brighter, and more alive when she was around. The stakes felt higher, the losses catastrophic, and every bit of life suddenly felt so real and worth living. Ripley came with the memory of first love and teenage yearning. She came with beauty and wonder, and the gift of feeling so fully seen by another person. She came with the gift of taking years off my life, even as the knowledge that we’d ended things and I wasn’t supposed to want her made me feel ancient and broken.

And still, I couldn’t bring myself to regret a single second of it.

I found myself grateful that I’d been given the ability to work remotely for as long as I needed. When I’d first heard those words, I’d been dreading it, looking for a way out, a path away from Ripley. Now… well, that was a different story entirely.

When I was certain she’d fallen asleep, I’d been unable to resist watching her. The sight was so familiar, so much like home. I knew I’d missed it in the last eight years, but I still hadn’t been prepared for the physical aching it set off in my chest.

In the aftermath of our divorce, so many people had told me that, sometimes, love just wasn’t enough. You could love someone with every part of your being, and, sometimes, it still wouldn’t keep you together. Nothing had ever felt truer as I watched her sleeping so peacefully, whatever had been bothering her slipping from her face with ease. If love had been enough, the two of us would still be together. The question of it, built up from years without her, was suddenly gone, and I knew with certainty that it was true. If love were enough, there would never be a world, or a time, or a place to exist without Ripley and I being together in it.

Not loving her hadn’t been what tore us apart. Losing sight of what love looked like in daily life was. Being unprepared and foolish, misunderstanding the work it took to stay together in the battle against life, that was what took us down.

By the end, I was sure she thought I didn’t love her, no matter how many times I said it as we parted, no matter how many tears we each shed, no matter how much it felt like dying, I wasn’t sure she knew how much I still loved her.

And that was the problem. Love wasn’t enough because sometimes, you forgot to keep showing that love, little bits of it slipping away each day until the other person felt alone and abandoned. By that point, it was too late, and there was no walking it back for us.

I wondered, again, whether I should have tried harder, whether we could have made it work? The problem was, that by the time we were actually talking about it, we were so far gone that we each worried that any fixes were only temporary, spurred by the shock and terror of having to get divorced, so neither of us would have felt secure.

If only there had been a way to show her this moment in time, the one where I hadn’t seen her for eight years, but where I’d never stopped loving her, not for one second.

I finally fell asleep with tears in my eyes, my heart filled with love and despair for Ripley and our story, and the hope that I’d dream another world, one where we were still together. Or one where we somehow managed to make our way home to each other.

When I woke, I wasn’t sure if I had dreamed that, but she wasn’t there, so whatever dreams I’d had of her would stay firmly lodged in the impossible, imaginary world either way.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Morgan called, looking far too awake for so early in the morning. She’d always been a cranky morning person. I hadn’t forgotten that in the last eight years.

I watched her with narrowed eyes. “Who are you and what have you done with Morgan?”

I heard Harlow laugh from within the kitchen.

Morgan grinned at me. “Don’t worry, dear maiden. ‘Tis I, Morgan Franklin, Goddess of the Morn.”

I shifted around in my blankets, ignoring the slight twinge in my hip and my neck from sleeping on the floor, and sitting up to look at her. “Firstly, that’s not a real thing. Secondly, I haven’t been away that long, Morgan. There’s no way you’re a morning person now.”

She snorted into her mug. “Yeah, okay, fair point. I’m only this awake in the morning when wonderful things are happening.”

I watched her curiously. She’d spent the night sleeping on her living room floor with her best friend, her best friend’s ex-wife, and her best friend’s ex-wife’s best friend, who also happened to be being stalked byherex-wife. Unless Harlow had somehow vanquished Ellie at the break of dawn, I couldn’t imagine anything that would have Morgan so cheerfully delighted.

“Don’t you want to know what I’m excited about?” she prompted when I didn’t ask.

I sighed. “Does it matter?” I did want to know, but I still liked to play the game. “You clearly want to tell me, so I get the feeling I’ll find out anyway.”

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