I shake my head. “I didn’t have a ring.” That’s one of the reasons why I was able to convince myself that calling off the engagement was no harm, no foul—nothing was official. No solid plans, just two kids and their desperation to stay together after peering into their future toward a path that diverged in opposite directions.
He merely stares at me, not saying a word.
“No.”
He holds out an expectant palm, which I drop the ring into. Alex’s gaze travels to a place and time I can’t see, a shape in the fog of his memories. “After Dad died, Mom put a little money from the settlement into a trust I got access to when I turned eighteen. I was going to use it for school, but when we decided to get married, I wanted to get you a ring right away. The band was my grandmother’s. It had this sapphire in it already but was missing the two other stones, which fell out ages ago.”
He appraises it thoughtfully. “Your grandma gave me an emerald from a ring of hers, which I took to a jeweler to have added. Gone now.” He taps the empty prongs. “I couldn’t afford much, for the diamond, but it was a beautiful ring.”
“You got a ring,” I repeat hollowly.
“Well, yes. I wanted to marry you. I mean, I knew we were underprepared financially, and the concept was a lot to get my head around initially, but I got... attached to the idea. I pictured you walking down an aisle toward me, all in white, with flowers—” He clears his throat, voice a little scratchy. “Flowers in your hair. Funnily enough, because this was long before you ever wore flowers in your hair.” He winds one of my locks around his finger, then lets it slowly unspool. “A couple days after you ended the engagement, the jeweler called to tell me the ring was ready. Put it in a velvet box, big smile on his face. ‘Good luck, kid.’ ”
Alex isn’t smiling. White noise creeps between his words, slurring in my ear.
“But your mom—you said shefoundit? Gardening?”
“I threw it.”
It takes me a second to comprehend. My face falls into my hands. “Oh.”
“I couldn’t have it around me. I needed to get rid of it; couldn’t stand having it in the house.”
Even though I remain rooted to the spot, I’m simultaneously falling through the bed, through the floor, lost. “You seriously wanted to marry me.”
“Yeah, but it’s okay.” He rubs my arm. “Really. I was crushed, but I got over it—”
“Did you?”
A few beats pass. “No. But you were gone, and the world kept turning, and I had to figure out how to walk around without feeling like a piano was sitting on my chest.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, a tear rolling down the bridge of my nose. He leans toward me, gaze curious. His forehead creases. “You didn’t want it, sweetheart.”
I have nothing sensible to say.
DidI want it? At the time? Or did I want an unbreakable promise, a certainty? Would it have drastically altered our futures, if I’d known?
He wipes away my tear. “At first I held on to it because I thought you might come back. When... after that voicemail you left, I tried giving the ring back to my grandpa, but he was stubborn, kept insisting that we were meant to be.”
The mention of Joshua King is another cut.
“My mom told me to keep the ring. Use it whenever I proposed to another woman someday, but one of the stones was your grandmother’s. I couldn’t give some other girl a combination of our two families’ heirlooms.”
My throat closes.I am the luckiest person, I think,and all the others have missed out. He’s been walking around in broad daylight like a priceless treasure, and nobody’s tried to snap him up? What were they all thinking? What wasIthinking, when I let him go? Too bad, rest of the world! Your loss! I’ll stitch my shadow to this man’s shoes like Peter Pan.
“So, one day I was sitting on Mom’s back porch, miserable. Angry and missing you. Then without thinking, I just.” He reels his arm back, demonstrating. “Threw it as far as I could.” A shadow crosses his face.
“I thought it was gone. Then, I’m talking to Mom right before we’re about to pose for the wedding photographer, and she puts this in my hand. Tells me she found it while gardening. Mom said she’d been watching us all week, the way we looked at each other, thought maybe I’d want this back. It’s been in her jewelry box for years. Your grandma’s emerald must have fallen out in the dirt... I’m so sorry about that.”
He’s watching me silently lose it. “You didn’t want the engagement anymore. You didn’t want a ring,” he repeats, less sure this time. “I thought you didn’t want it.”
I turn away, the tears falling faster. He’s got his arms around me in an instant.
“I would have kept it if I’d known you wanted it,” he tells me, voice thick with tears he’s trying to hold back. “I was bitter and angry and so goddamn sad. I wish we’d talked it out. I was so in my head about you changing your mind, thinking you changed your mind aboutme, not just a wedding. But you said so yourself, you didn’t actually break up with me. In retrospect, I see all the places where I should have said this, should have done that, but I didn’t.”
“Neither did I. We were both stupid.” I heave a ragged exhale.
He got me a ring. He got me a ring. He wanted me.
