Held by a Ring

Every time when I look at myself into the mirror, my eyes would wander to my neck where it hung a ring necklace. At the sight of the necklace would make me tear a little. Every time I daydream, I would fiddle the ring. And with that, those sweet memories would come to life right in front of my eyes, but the second I blinked, it would disappear and that really breaks my heart. Every time I sleep, I would dream of the past but whenever I wake up in the middle of the night and found out that it’s just all a dream, I would eventually cry myself to sleep. Every time I would ask myself why did this happen? ‘Why?’ I would ask. I regretted into letting this happen.
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When I was 9, I met a boy who was from a junior high school near my middle school. His name is Jesse Carmichael. I met him through my cousin’s 15th birthday bash. My cousin, Emily and he were schoolmates in the same form. We talked and chatted during the whole party and I really enjoyed it very much. After the party, he asked Emily for my number and she did give him. We talked and chatted a lot on the phone and we texted quite a lot too. Soon, my phone bill raked up and my parents were going ballistic. Soon, we started IM-ing each other using the net since it was cheaper back then. Soon, I had a little crush on him but I was young and I didn’t know whether my feelings for him were genuine. My birthday falls on Valentine’s Day coincidentally. The day I turned 10, he told me he had feelings for me. I was very shocked when he told me that. Very seldom I know boys his age in my housing area dated girls around my age. He was 16 while I’m 10. Our age gap was VERY big. But one thing led to the other, we started going out.

I know people say I am too young to know anything about love at that time. But at that age, I was already very mature compared to people my age. We dated for about 2 years. We were celebrating Valentine’s Day and also my 11th birthday. We just wanted to hang out together. We were walking in the mall downtown when Jesse said this to me, “Hey, Hayley? Wait here for a while, I wanna get you something…” and he just went off. I assume he went to the bathroom or something. He left me sitting by my own on a bench, looking at people walking past. I was starting to get anxious when he didn’t show up for the next 15 minutes. Mind you, I was just only 11 at that time. I kept my eyes out, trying to find him. I was getting scared after half an hour. It was only close to one hour when he finally showed up. “Jesse, where were you? I’m so scared…you were gone so long…” I said when he came over to me. A tear fell from my eye. “Hayley, I went to get something…don’t worry, I won’t leave you, you know that, right sweetheart?” he asked and he kissed me on my forehead and wiped the tear away. “I left for awhile to get you this…” he took out a maroon box and put it into my hand. “Opened it…” he said with a smile. When I saw him smile, I myself involuntarily smiled too. I just love his smile. “Okay…” I replied. I opened the box and saw this metallic ring sitting in the box. “Oh my…” I was shocked. He took out the ring from the box. It was connected to a chain and made it look like a necklace. He opened the necklace latch and put it around my neck. My fingers fiddled with the ring and I looked at him, “What’s this for?” I asked. He smiled and said, “This is for your birthday…and also for Valentine’s Day…I even have one too…”He took his ring out from below his shirt and showed it to me. It was the exact same ring. “This is our ring…” he told me. I didn’t know what to say, “Wow…thank you…” I hugged him. Since that day, I didn’t take off the necklace. I wanted to let be like what the way it is. Our relationship went strong until I turned 12. My parents didn’t know about our relationship until one day when my mum caught us making out in the kitchen. She was fuming and kept screaming at me about it. She didn’t want me to see him anymore. I was crying very badly but I never disobeyed my parents’ wishes before. So, I deleted his ID number from my phone and also his name from my IM account and other various Internet chatting applications. Whenever he called or texted me, I just ignored it. Even I had stopped using the Internet chatting sites or whatever. It’s heart-wrecking for me to do so. But, I never disobeyed my parents and I was afraid to do so at that time. Soon, I never heard of him again but I still see him from time to time. My family moved to Iowa because dad had a new job there and since then, I really never heard of him already for two years already. I was 14 by then. Even after leaving my old home, I never once took off the necklace he gave me when I was 11. In my new school, my new girlfriends kept asking me was it my boyfriend who had given me that necklace because when other people just touch it a bit I would get angry scream in their faces. I would always reply a simple, “Yeah…” I loved the boy and no other boy had been so nice to me before.

A few months later, I had gotten a call from Megan, Jesse’s sister, “Hayley? This is Megan? Jesse’s sister?” I was very surprised to hear from Megan. Megan is Jesse’s little sister who is a year younger than me. “Yeah, this is Hayley. What’s up? Are you and Jesse doing great?” I asked. I was very surprised to have gotten this call and was curious about Jesse. But something told me that something was not right. Something in Megan’s voice was worrying me. “I’m fine…I…I’m just…just calling to tell you…about….well, something about Jesse…” she hesitated. When she said Jesse’s name, I was hoping for the best and brace myself for the worst. “What about Jesse? Is he alright?” I was beginning to worry for him because I still care for him and now out of the sudden there was some news about him? It was just making me even more worried. I was fiddling my ring while waiting for Megan’s reply. “Hayley, my brother is dead…” And with that, she just broke down at the other end of the line. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. In one hand I was clutching the phone very tightly while the other was holding onto the ring. I was hoping it was just some sick joke. “Wha-what?!” I screamed into the phone. “It’s true…he’s gone…” she sniffed and she continued to sob loudly into the phone. When I know my ears weren’t fooling around, my knees just gave way and I fell, sitting on the floor. Without thinking, tears flow down my cheeks. I tried consoling Megan but deep down in me, I was literally breaking, piece by piece. From bits and pieces from Megan, I found out that Jesse died in a car accident up Iowa. He wanted to find me and to pay a visit. “He…he wanted to find you…” Megan sobbed. I couldn’t stand it. I slam the phone down and cried and cried. I couldn’t believe it, I really couldn’t believe it. Megan texted me the date of the wake but I know my parents wouldn’t let me go there and I also know I wouldn’t have the guts to go there too.

Every time when I look at myself into the mirror, my eyes would wander to my neck where it hung a ring necklace. At the sight of the necklace would make me tear a little. Every time I daydream, I would fiddle the ring. And with that, those sweet memories would come to life right in front of my eyes, but the second I blinked, it would disappear and that really breaks my heart. Every time I sleep, I would dream of the past but whenever I wake up in the middle of the night and found out that it’s just all a dream, I would eventually cry myself to sleep. Every time I would ask myself why did this happen? ‘Why?’ I would ask. I regretted into letting this happen.
Since the day I found out that Jesse was gone, my mum knows something was wrong. She kept asking me what was wrong. Only after a month later, I finally told her. “Baby, what’s wrong? You look so sad…these days…you wanna talk about it?” And with that, I just went to her and cried in her embrace and bit by bit I told her. She tried consoling me but I know that it won’t work, the wound is deep and it may not even heal properly. I had been like that for a very long time. The day I got my driving license at the age of 16, I drove my way back to my old home. I decided to pay a visit to Megan’s place. After I knocked onto the door, I heard some shuffling inside the house and a few seconds later, Megan opened the door. “Hayley?” she was very surprised to see me. I smiled at her and said, “Hello Megan, how are you?” She just nodded, “I’m fine…” She ushered me into the house. “Mum and dad are not in town at the moment…they are doing some business outside of town…” she explained. “But, why didn’t you go with them?” I asked. “Having a major exam soon, staying back to study. C’mon, you just sit here while I get some tea for you…” I sat down at the couch and just looked around. I noticed a lot of photo frames on the cupboard. I stood up to get a closer look at all of them. There were a lot with Megan and her parents. There were also a few with Jesse inside. But there was one with him alone, smiling happily. I took the photo and peered into the photo. I traced his jaw line and also his hair. “He was 20 then, a few months before he died…” Megan said. I was a little surprised at Megan’s presence there. “Oh…” She placed tea on the table. I sat down on the couch again but I was still looking at the photo. He was still wearing the ring necklace he got for both of us. “Megan, did he…did he died wearing that necklace?” I asked. Megan nodded, “Yeah, he did. He even buried wearing it…he told us before he didn’t want to part with it, he never took it off before…it was that special to him…I wonder why…” I was fiddling with mine when she said that, ‘The ring was that special to him…I was that special to him…’ Megan noticed me fiddling with my ring, “Is that the same ring with my brother’s?” she asked. I looked at her, then to the ring and back to her again, “Yes…it’s the exact same one as his…he bought both of it for the both of us…when I was 11…it was our ring…” I replied. She looked at me in disbelief. “So, it was you all along…and that letter…it was meant for you…” she said, looking very relief. I was very confused at that moment, “Letter?” I asked. She stood up and pulled me along, “C’mon up, I have to give you something…” We walked up the stairs and brought me up to Jesse’s old room. She opened up and that familiar smell came flooding out. It still looked the same to me. On his study table, there were a photo of him and I. I was only 12 and he was 18. I looked so different. He looked different, too, compared to the photo when he was 20 in the photo, but he looked the same familiar self in this photo. I picked up the photo and peered into it. Megan went into his closet and pulled out a box. Megan saw that I was holding the photo in my hand, “You can have that if you want and if you also want the photo when he was 20, I can get one for you and email it to you…” she said. She took out an envelope from the box and gave it to me. “Here, this was left in my brother’s possession and was supposed to be given to you but we didn’t know it was for you…” She passed the envelope into my hands. She also put the photo frame into my hands. She agreed to email me the photo of Jesse when he was 20. Megan told me where they had buried him. I waved goodbye to her and when to my car. I took the other photo frame of him and me and put it into my handbag while holding tightly onto the envelope. I drove off to the florist and bought the freshest lily flower, his favourite. Soon after that, I went to the cemetery. I took my handbag, the flower and also the envelope and walked over to his grave. “Hi Jesse…” I put the flower on the grave and sat down on the grass. I took out the letter and started reading it:


“Dear sweetheart,
I haven’t heard from you for awhile now, I hope you are doing alright. I miss you. I have no idea why you had suddenly stopped answering my calls, my texts and my emails. I got the feeling that maybe it was because of your parents and since you are always the good girl in the family, you would never disobey you parents, right? But I just want to tell you that I still love you…even though of our age gap, I still love you…I don’t know whether do you still love me? Remember the ring I have and the one I gave you? I still have it, I never took it off. If there’s anything that had happened to me, I want you to know that I still love you and that I want you to be happy, always. I also want you to know that if there’s anything that had happened to me, I want you to move on in life, but please don’t forget about me. Take care and I love you…
Love,
Jesse”


When I read the letter, I was already crying my eyes out. ‘I still love you, Jesse…and always will…’ I ‘talked’ to him for about an hour while looking at the photo. I traced his jaw line. I really missed him. My life was in a mess that time. Somehow, I really hoped that Jesse would be alive now and just talk to me. If he were still alive, he would be 22 now. Before I left, I felt a breeze when past me. It felt very familiar to me. I thought that Jesse was there with me. That night after I got back home, I was ready to sleep when I heard someone called me, “Hi Hayley…” I spunned around and saw Jesse sitting on my bed. ‘Oh my God…’ “Jesse?” I ran over to him and hugged him oh so tightly. “I missed you…so much…” I said, suddenly tears from my eyes came flowing all over again. He didn’t change one bit, he still looked the same to me. “I know…I miss you too…” he said, as he stroked my hair. We talked for about an hour. Then, he tucked me into bed. Before I slept, he showed me his ring, “Remember this? I still wearing it…what about you?” he asked. I smiled and showed him mine too. He smiled widely. “Hayley, you have to remember to go on with life…I still love you…you could still find love even after me…remember I will be watching over you, and helping you…” He then kissed me and my eyes just closed because of exhaustion. That night was the best night of all, I could sleep.

All that had happened 12 years ago. Jesse kept his promise and really looked after me from above. I met David when I was 20 and now, we are engaged. If Jesse was alive now, he would be 32 now. David asked me before about the ring before and I told him about Jesse and he seems to be okay with it. He even let me to wear the necklace. He doesn’t get jealous about it which really made me feel happy. He understands and that’s what I like about David. A month before our wedding, I brought David to Jesse’s grave and introduced him to Jesse. “Jesse, this is David, my fiancé…you are right, Jesse, I could still find love…thank you for helping me…”

This story was inspired by a dear friend of mine...enjoy.