Page 89 of Dear Ripley

She wanted more too.

Morgan clambered to her hands and knees, crawling into the space between us. “Ugh. If you’re going to laugh, then I can’t trust you at all.”

“So, what? You’re just going to sleep between us instead?” Ripley asked, not nearly as bewildered by Morgan’s behavior as I felt.

“Exactly. That way you won’t be able to talk to each other, I’ll be able to sleep, you won’t wake Harlow up, and I won’t have to hear you complaining tomorrow about not getting enough sleep.”

I watched, mostly horrified as she got comfy in the space between us. Ripley and I weren’t so close together that Morgan being there made things crowded, but it was going to be difficult to talk over her.

And her timing was awful.

If she’d interrupted the conversation earlier, it would have been annoying, but at least it would have been manageable. If she’d interrupted later, I’d at least have gotten Ripley’s reply.

As it was, my answer was out there, Ripley seemed like it was the answer she wanted, but I still didn’tactuallyknow. If she was happy that I would always want something more, I desperately needed that confirmation from her directly.

I liked Morgan, and I appreciated what she was doing for Harlow, but she really did have the worst timing ever.

Too scared to speak, or move, or do anything that might disturb her, I sat there in silence, my heart beating out of my chest, fighting to keep my breathing quiet. It felt like a lost cause, but, since Morgan didn’t yell at me for keeping her awake with my almost gasping breaths, I figured I must have been doing an okay job.

Across the room, Harlow slept on, and I was glad of it. I wasn’t sure whether I was ready to tell her—or anyone—about my conversation with Ripley yet. I wasn’t even sure what the conversation was myself. My mind and my heart and my body felt like they were in turmoil. Three different types of turmoil, each careening off in a different direction, somehow trapped in one body. It was beyond confusing.

But also a little exciting and hopeful, and a million other things I wasn’t sure I was supposed to be feeling.

That was Ripley all over, I supposed.

When I thought Morgan had drifted back off to sleep, I chanced a glance over at Ripley. My eyes had adjusted to the low light enough to just about make her out. She was still awake, watching me. I wasn’t sure my lungs knew how to function anymore. There seemed to be a distinct possibility I might asphyxiate, which would definitely wake Morgan up, and I doubted she’d be much into the idea of me dying in her living room.

Ripley smiled, something a little nervous and shy about the gesture. She didn’t smile like that at many people. I’d only ever seen her do it with me. I suddenly found myself hoping there wasn’t anyone else she’d been smiling at like that lately.

I smiled back, every muscle in my face feeling awkward and uncoordinated as I tried to figure out what was going on. Iwantedto smile at her. Ialwayswanted to smile at her. But, the move felt unfamiliar and unsure in the face of everything that had passed between us, lying unresolved around us.

“No, huh?” she whispered, sounding like she was holding her breath.

“What did I just say?” Morgan barked from between us.

I cringed. I was so certain she’d fallen back to sleep. Ripley must have been, too, if she’d started up the conversation again. She loved Morgan more than anything, but I had the feeling this was something we both wanted to keep between the two of us, at least for now.

“Sorry,” she whispered to Morgan, a wild laugh coloring her voice. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was every bit as eager and on edge as I was. There was something comforting and wondrous about that.

She looked from Morgan to me again, wincing slightly as she shrugged her shoulders exaggeratedly, making sure I saw.

I nodded. There was nothing to nod at, really. It was more the acknowledgment that we weren’t getting any more conversation time tonight, that we both wished we were, and that, just maybe, we might be on the same page here, after all—even with how frustrating that page was with Morgan’s interruption.

I almost laughed thinking about how annoyed Morgan was going to be when she finally heard the story of tonight. She’d either be annoyed with herself for interrupting such a pivotal moment, or, she’d be annoyed at not realizing what was happening, turning on all the lights, and sitting as witness to the moment.

I was really glad she didn’t do the latter. The former was bad enough. The latter would have been excruciating. Whatever Ripley and I had to say to each other, and it was undoubtedly ample, we needed to do it alone, without a Morgan-sized audience.

Ripley nodded too, and, without even being able to see her, I knew we were on the same page. We both understood each other and the situation perfectly. And maybe that meant we could revisit it later. Whether that was in the daylight, I wasn’t sure. This evening was huge and, night or day, there was nothing that could hide the enormity of what I’d just admitted, but I hadn’t lied when I’d talked about the cloak of darkness, and how everything felt safer and easier under it.

Though, even if we couldn’t talk in daylight, it wasn’t going to hurt too much waiting for tomorrow night. I was impatient, for sure, but I’d waited eight years for this moment. I could wait a few more hours. Ripley and I were undoing the ways we’d lost each other, all the ways I’d destroyed the best thing that had ever happened to me. If we needed to find each other in the dark first, I would wait forever for that.

I slid down in my blankets—somehow more comfortable now—and struggled not to simply stare at Ripley. We weren’t getting any more alone time tonight. Watching her over Morgan’s sleeping form would be ridiculously weird, intrusive, and deeply embarrassing if Morgan awoke and thought it was her I was watching. Having to explain wouldn’t be much better, either.

I lay there for a while, my head spinning and my heart pounding, thinking they might never slow down. There was still so much to figure out that it didn’t feel real. Admitting that I could never only think of Ripley as a friend didn’t magically explain what we would be, it didn’t take away the pain of the past, and it didn’t solve the problems of it, either.

With that in mind, what I wanted to say to her, what I’d been trying to figure out all day how to say, finally came to me. It had been there the whole time, I was sure, just hidden behind the fear of rejection, the horror of potentially misunderstanding what she was saying, and the risk of embarrassment. Now, we’d brought that façade down together. She hadn’t gotten a chance to say whether she’d only ever think of me as a friend, but she had sounded happy that I wouldn’t think of her that way, and I supposed that was the best I was getting.

Besides, this was the woman who knew more of my secrets than anyone else in the world. Sure, we’d broken down towards the end, but she was still the person who had known me best in this world. So, what difference did it really make if I bared my soul and it wasn’t what she wanted to hear? The fallout couldn’t be worse than what we’d already been through. We were proving right now that we were adults who could navigate difficult things together. If it went badly, maybe we’d navigate that together too, somehow. It probably wouldn’t be whispered secrets in the middle of the night—painfully romantic and surprisingly vital—but it would be something.

---