Promise Ring

I made a friend today. I was walking out of the library, headed over to the Hartford to tell my math instructor that I had dropped the class, and to thank her for speaking to me in her office the other day. Another young woman was leaving the library at the same time; she would have been just another faceless student if she hadn't been wearing a green shawl. Instantly I thought of my blue one and how I don't wear it anymore. So I said,

"That's a pretty shawl."

She turned and around and smiled. "Thanks."

"Did you make it?" I asked.

"No, my mom did."

I nodded, because at this point we were outside and each apparently going our separate ways. But after a moment, I realized we were at least headed in the same general direction. On the street corner, waiting to cross to the Hartford building, she turned around and said,

"I'm Tory."

At first I was stunned that she'd so freely given her name, but then I recovered, offered my hand and said, "Whitney."

We talked about shawls a moment longer; she saying that hers is rather warm and how it's drawn up as a shawl but can double as a blanket, me about how mine is collecting dust in my closet. As we waited for the elevator (since both of us were going to the 6th floor, for math classes) she noticed the ring on a chain that I was wearing.

"Are you getting married?" she asked me, and a burst of happiness went through me. I had worn the ring before, pretending that it was a promise ring. But then, that day, I wore it actually as a promise ring, if only in my mind. I had put it on that morning thinking of Santo and how happy just talking to him made me, about how yesterday we had made it "official" that we were dating.

I smiled and held the ring in my hand to admire the sparking jewels for a moment. "Not yet, but I tend to think of it as a promise ring."

She smiled and nodded. Then our elevator arrived. It went first to the 5th floor, then the 6th and in the hall we parted ways,

"Enjoy not going to math class," she said.

I laughed. "You enjoy yours, too."

I'd never seen Tory around campus before, and I'm not sure that I could recognize her again without her lovely green shawl, but her simple words, "Are you getting married?" meant something to me on a human level that until recently had been dormant. And for a long while, I’ll carry that memory and the happiness she brought me.