Keep the Ring

Okay, so here is my short story "Keep the Ring." This is what I'm planning to enter into the short, short story competition. If anyone has any comments, please let me know. I have to submit this in the next couple of days.


Keep the Ring
by: Jennifer Nelson

I didn't know how to deal with school and my Mitchell. I loved him, but he wanted all the time I had. I figured that maybe if I made him understand just what I was dealing with in my classes, then he would get the hint that I needed some space.
He came over one afternoon while I was working on a big structural design project for an airport runway. It was a big project for one of my civil engineering classes, and it had my dinging room table covered with paper, books and coffee cups.
“Baby, I don't know what I'm going to do about this project,” I said as I threw my pencil down. “My group won't get together to finish it. I just want to scream.”
“It's going to be okay,” Mitchell assured me. “It can't be that bad.”
“It is that bad,” I insisted. “I've never had a group project with so many lazy people in my life.”
“Who's in your group?” he asked me.
“Bobby, Daniel, Melissa and Robert. Robert and I are the only two doing anything.”
I pushed some pages around and heard him shift positions on the couch. He leaned in closer and asked, “Robert? Your ex-boyfriend Robert?”
As I turned to look at him I felt all the questions he meant to ask me. I knew he was nervous about me being around my ex-boyfriends. Robert and I had a long history, starting back before high school. We went to every dance together, we spent all of our time together and he was my first kiss.
“Yes, but don't look at me like that, sweetie.” I took his hand. “You know that's over.”
“Does he still try to ask you out?”
His grip on my hand grew tighter. I tried to squeeze his hand back to show that I noticed, that I cared, but the hurt look was back on his face. I never knew how to make him feel that he was all I wanted.
“Every once in a while, but I tell him no. He's not a problem for you, don't worry.”
Even with those words, he pulled me a little closer to him, while keeping his grip on my hand. I didn't like this jealous side of him.
“Okay, I'll try,” he said.
“Good,” I said looking at him. “You know I love you.”
“I love you too.” Mitchell was staring at the ground.
He kept holding my hand without speaking. I turned back to my work but nothing could keep my mind focused on the perfect runway design. My eyes kept drifting to pictures of smiling faces, little angel figurines from my mother, and anything else in the room that pulled my attention away from my thoughts.
Everything in the apartment had a memory, some good and some bad. The pictures of my family, with my mom, my brother and my two sisters, I could not look at for long. It made me remember my father, and never wanted to remember him leaving us for his secretary.
The plaque from sophomore year that proved I was capable of doing my job shined amongst my books. I could have looked at that all evening because it made me feel the independence I longed for. The flowers that were wilted in the corner made my eyes start to water. Mitchell bought those for me a couple weeks ago.
“Have you thought anymore about it?” he asked suddenly.
I looked at him briefly and smiled. “About what?” I felt my eyes drifting back to the first edition section of books on the top of my bookshelf. I knew what he wanted me to say.
“My proposal.” He gently touched the place on my hand where he had tried to place a ring. I shivered and pulled my hand away. I felt like the flowers in the corner that were so full of life when he gave them to me that day. The excitement was best in that moment, but now weeks later it was dying.
I told him I needed to think. I made him take the ring back, even though he insisted I wear it. I wanted to focus on getting out of the semester passing with the stress of work and my dad trying to come back into our lives.
“Do we have to talk about this right now? I really want to finish this project and my sister wants to eat dinner with us tonight. Plus, I still have homework for two other classes.”
“It's been almost two weeks though,” he said. “You said you needed a little time.”
“So I need a little more. This is a big decision. I don't want to regret this.”
“Are you having regrets about us?”
I paused. In all honesty I was having regrets. I regretted becoming so stuck in a relationship. I wanted the independence my mother never had. I looked away and stared at a picture of the two of us at the park last year. It was just before we started dating, but we were so happy. The bench we were sitting on broke an hour later and we laughed about it for weeks. That laughter had been on vacation the past few months.
“Tracie?”
“No, that's not what I meant.” I turned back to him.
“What do you mean then?”
He had me on the spot again, just like that night at the park. Everything was perfect, the exact way a girl would expect her proposal to be and I told him I needed time. Now I had to add to my perfect proposal story saying that I made him wait weeks to hear my answer.
“I mean I don't want to talk about it right now. I need time. Twenty-four hours in a day isn't enough time to get everything done that I need accomplished.”
I pulled myself away from him and turned back to my work. I grabbed the pencil but had nothing to write down. He sat staring at me as I closed him off. I was hoping that he would just accept the answers I was giving him so I wouldn't have to think about it.
“I'm here to help you, Trace. Why won't you let me? Plus, Danni would probably help you with the wedding planning.”
“I know. By the way, what do you want for dinner? I need to call her.”
“Who?” he asked.
“Danni. She's eating dinner with us tonight, remember?”
“Oh, right,” he muttered. “I don't care. We can eat anywhere.”
“How about Tony's?”
“We just had that the other day.”
“You just said you don't care. Besides, I'm stressed and the cheesecake always cheers me up.”
“Fine. That's fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I said it's fine.”
He sat on the couch and turned the television on. I grabbed for my phone and dialed my sister's number. We hadn't always been there for each other, but I was counting on her to help me through this night. She didn't answer, so I left her a quick voice mail to let her know we'd be there soon to get her.
He continued to mope on the couch while I worked on the calculations for the appropriate distance of the runway. The tapping of my pencil was beginning to irritate me, so I set it down. I pushed the pages away and grabbed for another book.
“When is Danni getting here?” he asked as he stood up.
“We're picking her up in about twenty minutes,” I said, not looking up.
He came and sat down across the table from me. He fumbled through some of my work to try and keep himself busy. I felt his disappointment in my indecision, but I could not make my heart feel that any of this was right.
“Does she know?”
“I don't want to talk about it, Mitchell.”
I pushed the paper I was working on away, got up and went to the living room. I found my purse and went back to the dining room table to face more questioning.
“I just don't understand why you won't talk about it. Maybe I can help you process your thoughts.”
“I don't need this right now. Let's just go pick up Danni, please, can we just go have dinner?”
“Will you talk to me soon.”
“If I promise to talk to you soon, can we go eat dinner in peace?”
“Maybe.”
“Baby, please,” I pleaded with him. I just had to find the way to tell him no, that I couldn't accept him right now.
“Fine. I'll leave you alone a little while longer, but we need to talk this out soon.”
“I promise, I just need time.”
He hugged me and I pressed the send button on the phone as we walked out. He tried to take my left hand, but I began to fumble with my keys to lock the front door. We walked down the stairs, he was silent and I barked orders at my sister. She told me she would be ready by the time we got to her dorm room.
Danni made my thoughts of dinner so much happier. She already knew about his proposal, but she wasn't pushing me to say yes. She kept asking if dad knew about him yet, which he didn't. I never introduced them because I was trying to ignore my father.
We got in his car and I immediately turned the radio on. A rock song ended and the station shifted to a slower melody.
“It's our song,” Mitchell said, turning the volume up. I sat, listening to him attempt to meet the tune for kiss from a rose. I used to giggle and hold his hand, but now I sat staring at the street signs as the passed, trying to ignore the fact that he was so off key. “You remain, my power, my pleasure, my pain,” he sang.
“Stop,” I said, turning the radio off. “Mitchell, I can't do this anymore. I'm sorry.”
He looked from me to the street several times. We were about a block from my sisters apartment. We sat silent until he finally asked, “Was it that bad?”
“Not the song. I'm not ready to be engaged. I'm not ready to think about planning a wedding. I'm not ready for any of this.”
“Okay, then we won't be engaged. We'll just go back to being us. You and me, the way it was. You should have just told me.”
“Mitchell, pull over.”
“We're almost there. Don't worry, we can talk about this later. Take your time on it and just let me know when it's right.”
“Please, pull over. We need to talk about this now.”
“Seriously. Your sister's complex is right there.”
“Pull over.”
He pulled into the gas station across the street from Danni's apartment. He parked the car then turned to look at me. He grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze, but it just sat limp in my lap. I was fighting back tears because I knew it wouldn't be fair to him.
“What's on your mind?” he asked.
“I'm not sure I can do any of this anymore,” I said. “Not just the engagement. The whole thing.”
“Okay.” He pulled his hand from mine and put it on the steering wheel. I looked over and saw a tear escape from his right eye.
“We've had fun, and I do love you. I know that's not the right thing to say. Mitch, I'm just not ready for marriage, commitment, saying that someone else's life is more important than mine. I know that's selfish, but I don't want my marriage to end up like my parents.”
“I'm not your dad,” he said.
“I know that. You've proven that time and again. But you're having to fight against my warped sense of all this. I believe they married too young. They fought all the time and hated each other for what they gave up.”
“You don't have to give up anything. I've never asked you to.”
“But I'm making you give things up.”
“No you haven't,” he said. “What have I given up?”
“You've given almost two years of your life to a girl you loved that didn't know what she wanted. A girl who has wanted to be alone.”
“You've wanted to be alone this entire time? How long have you known this?”
“I'm not sure. I was selfish, I'm so sorry. I wanted to keep you and have my own life.”
He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “I don't want this to end. I love you.” He looked down at the piece of plastic that covered his floor board.
“Mitch, I'm really sorry. You'll find someone else. Someone that can love you enough. I know none of this helps. I've got to go.”
I grabbed my purse from the floor board and opened the car door. I walked toward the street, careful not to look back at the car. When I got to the road it was clear so I headed into Danni's apartment complex. I headed toward the back and ran up the steps to the third floor of building G.
At door 349 I knocked and heard her say, “Just a sec.” I heard some ruffling in the living room and then the door unlock and open. “Hey, oh no, what's wrong, Tracie.” I just shook my head at her, not able to get words out. She took my hand and guided me into the living room. Danni grabbed a box of tissues from the coffee table and took a few out for me.
We sat for a few moments, her holding me on the couch while I sobbed into tissue after tissue. She ran her hands through my hair and let me cry until my eyes ran out of condensation. When the storm subsided, she asked again, “What's wrong, honey?”
“I just broke up with Mitchell. And when I got out of the car, he didn't come after me. He let me go.”
She sat quietly for a moment, and handed me another tissue. “Well, didn't you want to end things with him?”
“Yes, but I thought he would try a little harder to keep us together. He always fought to keep us working.”
“Well, you did have the boy waiting three weeks or so for an answer to his proposal. Maybe he finally understands.” She pushed her hand through my hair again.
“I didn't expect this. Why does it hurt so much?”
“You were with him for a long time. If it didn't hurt this much I'd be scared for you. At least now you know that our parents haven't killed all the feelings in you.” I laughed. “See, that's right. It is a bit funny.”
“He told me he's not my dad when we were in the car a few minutes ago.”
“Well, he's not. But it's tough for anyone to be as uncaring as dad has been.”
“Will I ever let someone love me, Danni?”
“Yes, you will.”
I looked at her. “That was short.”
“Well, it's true. Someday you'll fall in love.”
“I was in love with Mitchell.”
“No you weren't. You were comfortable with him. It was easy with him for awhile, then not so much for awhile. Someday you'll really be in love.”
“Thank you for being honest.”
“What do you mean?”
“Other people would let me sit and wallow.”
“Well, I'm hungry and I really want you in once piece to go get dinner. You still want Tony's, don't you?”
“Yes. That cheesecake sounds even better now.”
“Okay, let's get going then. Well, first go wash your face. I've got my eyeliner and mascara in the top drawer if you want to use it.”
“Do I look that bad?”
“No, but you should definitely at least wash you face. Your eyes are red and puffy.”
“Again, thanks for the honesty.”
“Anytime. Hurry up, I'm hungry.”
I walked to the bathroom to clean my face off and try to get some of the redness out of my eyes. I came back out and asked, “Better?”
“Much. Now let's go.”
“You're going to have to drive. I kind of walked away from Mitchell at the gas station, and we were in his car.”
“I'm glad I just got gas today. Come on, let's go eat some dinner and flirt with a cute waiter.”
I smiled and hugged her. “Thank you, Danni. I really appreciate this.”
“Oh, no problem. Anyway, dinner is still on you.”