Diamonds in Drawers

Bee didn’t find out about the ring until a year after they broke up.

It was a simple band, platinum with a single round cut diamond secured between prongs. And there it was resting in a black velvet box locked in Jake’s bottom desk drawer.

They hadn’t talked about marriage, at least not seriously — she didn’t think so anyway. But somehow Jake mistook their musings about brown suede couches and subway-tiled bathrooms and backyards with space for two dogs for reality.

Was it ever?

He was still living with his parents while they dated — three years out of college and they still had sex in his twin bed underneath airplane wallpaper and only when his family was out of town.

He’s saving up for a house, she would tell people, and she only half-believed this statement. It’s convenient. I actually love having a real home to go to.

In truth Bee was really fucking tired of looking his mom in the eye when they came through the front door together, back from a night at her one-bedroom apartment. Mrs. Hoffman could send their souls to a fiery hell with one knowing look.

Sure, saving money is nice, but what about the freedom? Their conversations on the matter never got further than a shrug of his shoulders and a call to his mother — we won’t be home for dinner.

Bee couldn’t imagine moving back in with her parents now that she had been away. She could barely stand more than a weekend back in her pink-painted bedroom.

But Jake didn’t mind his, so she pretended she didn’t either.

Maybe it wasn’t just his fear, or stubbornness — maybe it really was the savings, a pile for a down payment growing month by month rather than disappearing to rent and utilities and IKEA furniture.

But then she found the ring, and she knew what all of it was for.

—

She twists stories like she twists the rings around her fingers. All she wants is to know her wants are justified, her hand-holding is not wasted. So when all else fails there she sits, twirling the rings, mind lost behind her eyes, drawing up a tale of when a boy met a girl and fell deliciously, dangerously, destructively in love.

Old habits die hard.