To Remember

The Prompt: “Pawn it.”

Her words assaulted my ears. She’d always been blunt, but this was too much. I held the ring in my hand, carefully, as though the slightest movement would break it. I knew diamonds didn’t break like that, but sometimes it doesn’t matter so much what you know as it does what you feel. “Jessie, pawn it.”

“I can’t.” My voice was small, hardly managing to bubble out of my throat. For a moment I thought it hadn’t, but Autumn grabbed it from my hand. “Hey, don’t!” I protested, but it was weak at best.

“If you can pawn it then the bastard did something right. Unless he gave you a fake ring. What do they call it, fool’s gold? The diamond version.” Autumn held the ring up to the light, as though she could tell the difference just by looking.

"Cubic zirconia," I told her.

“Whatever. I’m sure you could get something for it.”

“I don’t want to pawn it,” I said. I took the ring back from her rough hands and closed my fist tight around it. I needed to protect it. It was a diamond and like all diamonds, it was flawless. Just like our love was supposed to be, but wasn’t. If the ring realized that, would it crack? Shatter into a thousand imperfect pieces? It would have been poetic, but life so rarely is. “It’s mine.”

“It’s from him.” She reached for the ring again, but this time I blocked her. It was mine. “Look, you’ve got to move on. Selling the thing isn’t just for the money. It’s symbolic. Throwing your final token of his love away. Good riddance to him. It’s- what’s that word? The Buddhist thing. Cathartic.”

“It’s not Buddhist,” I told her, but she never listened.

“Whatever. Like it matters.”

Everything matters. Maybe not monumentally, maybe it won’t change your life, but everything matters. “I’m keeping it.”

“To do what? You can’t wear it. The bastard cheated and left. You can’t wear his ring.” Autumn scowled at me, her dark eyes severe and judging. No, that she was right about. I couldn’t keep wearing the ring. I didn’t want to. But I needed to keep it, perhaps locked away in some jewelry box. But I needed to know it was still here. A reminder. That’s all it was, a reminder. A reminder that at one point he had loved me. Our love had been pure, just like the diamond. Flawless. Nothing flawless ever lasts. Nothing flawless except a diamond, that is.

“Just to have,” I said. I opened my fist to see the light glinting off the tiny stone. “To remember. It wasn’t all bad.”

Hanna- 100 Word Scene

Hanna sat at the dinner table with Beth and her father. Three people at a rectangular table was an awkward number, always left an open space that should have been filled. When Graham visited he filled that space.

“How was school?”

The perfunctory question came from her father, too tired from a long day to come up with something a little more original. They were the first words he’d spoken to her since arriving home. Beth had called her to dinner.

“Fine,” she answered, putting as little thought into her answer as he had the question. “It was fine.”

Hanna- Setting

Hanna stood alone in her kitchen. The window above the sink let bright light stream in, illuminating the dishes that had been left there from breakfast. The counters were clear and bare of any food or utensils. The cabinet doors were all shut tight, except for the one with the crooked door that hung off kilter from the rest.

Hanna sank into one of the wooden chairs around the table. It stood straight and sturdy with a stiff back that she couldn’t comfortably lean against. The table was covered in a blue tablecloth and the cereal box from her breakfast hadn’t been put away yet.

No one had been there since she’d left that morning and it was late afternoon. Hanna glanced toward the refrigerator, the only part of the room with any kind of personality. It was covered in magnets, some hers from her childhood and some belonging to her older stepbrother who lived across the country. There were pictures too, but only one of the whole family together. It had been taken at the wedding four years before. Graham had been twenty and he had his hands on twelve year old Hanna’s shoulders. Beth and her father stood on either side of them and all were smiling. A seashell magnet obscured part of Beth’s dress.

Sighing, Hanna stood. She needed to clean out the sink before anyone else came home.

Indirect Characterization- Hanna

Hanna was at the pool with all her friends and she was worried. She hadn’t left a note and her father was getting off of work soon. He didn’t like it when she went out with her friends and didn’t let anyone else know. He was strict in that way and Lacey never seemed to understand that.

Hanna didn’t like making her father upset, especially after a long day at work. It would be best for everyone if she managed to convince Lacey to take her home early, but it seemed no matter how hard she tried Lacey was just too stubborn.

Hanna could be stubborn too when she wanted to be. Having Beks or Ashton to back her up would have helped, but they both spent their days at the pool flirting with any cute guys they could find. She was often on her own when it came to arguing her own side.

After a bit of arguing she convinced Lacey to drive her back home, although Lacey didn’t seem too happy about it. All Hanna wanted was to get home and avoid getting into trouble. She never understood why her friends didn’t get things like that. It made her feel isolated sometimes.

Direct Characterization- Hanna

Hanna bit her lip. “I think I should go,” she said, her voice quiet.

“What? No! We’ve got loads of time.” Lacey leaned back on the towel, dark shades covering much of her face.

“Dad will be home soon and he doesn’t like it when I go without leaving a note.”

“That’s crap. You’re sixteen. Plenty old enough to come down to the pool with us.” Us included Beks and Ashton, both flirting in the pool with a group of senior boys.

“I don’t- I should just go, okay?”

Lacey shrugged. “Suit yourself. Have fun walking.”

“You have a car. It’ll take ten minutes. Won’t you just drive me?”

There was a break in the conversation. Then- “Let’s go see the boys. I bet one or two of them can change your mind.”

“That’s not- Lace, don’t! Just drive me? You don’t even have to get dressed. You’ll be back before they notice you’re gone.”

Lacey looked at the pool, then back at Hanna. She sighed. “Your Dad’s really gonna flip?”

Hanna nodded.

“Fine. But I swear, tomorrow I’m not letting you bail early.” She grabbed her keys and Hanna breathed a small sigh of relief.

“Anything,” Hanna promised.