She Kept the Ring I Gave Her When We Were 12… Years Later, She Asked, “Do You Remember?”
Chapter 3
Lily was already waiting beneath the oak tree when Ethan arrived.
She wore the same green coat.
The ring hung from her neck.
“You came.”
“You asked.”
She smiled.
Then she reached into her bag.
“I found this.”
She handed him an envelope.
Ethan looked at it.
His name was written across the front.
Ethan.
The handwriting was his.
He stared.
“I don’t understand.”
“I found it in my mother’s attic.”
He opened the envelope.
Inside was a letter.
His letter.
Dated fifteen years earlier.
He began reading.
It was written shortly after he moved away.
He had apparently written dozens of pages.
He told Lily about Seattle.
About missing her.
About wanting to come home.
About being afraid she’d find new friends.
At the bottom was one sentence.
I’ll come back for you someday.
Ethan swallowed.
“You never received this.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“My mother found it.”
“Why would she keep it?”
Lily looked down.
“Because she thought I was too young.”
“For what?”
“To understand what you were promising.”
Ethan stared at her.
“She kept my letter?”
“She kept several.”
“Several?”
Lily nodded.
“My mother told me years later.”
Ethan sat beneath the tree.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know until after she died.”
He looked at Lily.
“When did she die?”
“Two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
She sat beside him.
For a while, neither spoke.
Then Lily said:
“I found all the letters.”
Ethan looked at her.
“How many?”
“Eleven.”
His eyes widened.
“Eleven?”
“You wrote eleven times.”
“I thought you ignored me.”
“I thought you stopped writing.”
They laughed.
Then Lily became serious.
“There was another thing.”
“What?”
She pulled out an old photograph.
It showed two children beneath the oak tree.
Ethan took it.
“Who took this?”
“My father.”
He stared at the picture.
They looked impossibly young.
Innocent.
Certain the world would stay exactly as they left it.
“I wish we’d known,” Ethan whispered.
“Known what?”
“That neither of us had forgotten.”
Lily looked at him.
“Maybe we weren’t supposed to know.”
“Why?”
“Maybe we needed to become who we are first.”
Ethan smiled.
“That’s a very nurse thing to say.”
“What’s an architect thing to say?”
“That timing is everything.”
She laughed.
Then her smile faded.
“Ethan.”
“Yeah?”
“I kept the ring because it reminded me of a promise.”
“Which promise?”
She looked at him.
“That someone once believed I was worth remembering.”
Ethan’s chest tightened.
“Lily…”
She interrupted him.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to ruin this.”
“Ruin what?”
“This.”
She gestured between them.
“The fact that you’re here.”
Ethan looked at the ring.
“I don’t think you’re ruining anything.”
She smiled sadly.
“Not yet.”
He didn’t understand.
But he would.
Because the next day, Lily told him why she had really asked him to come back.
And it had nothing to do with nostalgia.
