20191002

ring

I didn't have many friends, growing up. Plenty of people who admired me, plenty more who wanted to be on my good side, but a true friend, someone I could trust and confide in--those were vanishingly rare. It was a lonely life--but admitting that to anyone, even those few friends I had, could have been catastrophic. I needed to project perfect confidence at all times.

Sometimes it was easy. Other times, not so much. One one of those occasions, one of those friends--my oldest, truest friend, the one I knew would stay with me through any danger, whose loyalty was absolute--gave me a little ring. She had carved it out of pinewood, given it a simple floral pattern, and on the band carved our initials. "So whenever you feel like you're alone in this world," she said, "you can remember that you have me." I was wealthy enough that I tended not to care much about my possessions, especially when I was so young, but when I promised I would treasure that ring forever I meant it. I kept it on a silver chain around my neck and wore it everywhere.

A few years before . . . everything else happened, I was traveling far from home, traveling with only two guards as an escort--a mistake, in retrospect, but back then I felt so invulnerable. There were problems in the world, of course, but nothing could stop me. The future was so bright. We were robbed on the road, and no matter how I pleaded they wouldn't let me keep that ring. They took it along with everything else of value that we carried.

Having something stolen from you, something you care about, is a jarring experience. The world suddenly seems sharper, everything you thought was a soft surface or rounded edge suddenly becomes suspect, and you feel like somehow you are diminished by the experience. My friend consoled me as well as she could, but I had invested so much hope in that little ring. Somehow without it I knew that bright future I was so certain of before would be forever out of reach now.

Part of me knows that's nonsense, of course. That everything that happened after wasn't because some thieves saw an easy target, that when she finally betrayed me, along with everyone else, it had nothing to do with losing that little ring that bound us together. But I can't help but wonder if things could have been different.

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