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I elbow her and exaggeratedly roll my eyes. But she has a point. Ade’s voice, especially when it gets husky and gravelly, does things to me.
I carefully lift the lid of the box and almost immediately my eyes fill with tears. “Oh, Rhi,” I say, clutching my chest.
“He thought these might help you feel more at home here,” she explains, pulling me in for a hug. When she lets go of me, I pull out the sweater my parents gave me for my last birthday with them and hug it tight. Then there are numerous picture frames and photo albums, and the keepsake box Rhia made for me.
Aiden remembered every item I told him about that day he came over to comfort me. “When did he call you?” I ask.
“Your first weekend here.”
“That would have been only a couple of days after I told him about these.” I point to the items in the box. “He’s just so thoughtful, always looking after me and making me feel special.”
“That’s because you are. Never doubt it. I’m so glad you finally have someone who treats you right. Took you long enough,” she jibes.
Leaning against her and resting my head on her shoulder, I say, “He really is amazing. I don’t know what he sees in me. All I can bring to his life is trouble.”
“Shush, now,” Rhia admonishes. “No negative self-talk allowed. He’s bloody lucky to have you.”
I pick up the keepsake box, patting it affectionately. “I remember when you gave it to me,” I say wistfully.
“There’s something else I found when I looked through your cupboard for the box,” Rhia says, pulling something out from her jeans pocket. She holds out her hand to me, closing her fingers over whatever’s lying in her palm. Then she opens it, revealing two rings.
“Oh my god. Our friendship rings?” My hand flies over my mouth. We found these rings at a flea market a few months after we met. The two rings are identical and simple in design. Two interwoven strands of silver; that’s it. It was like they were calling us.
“I thought we lost them the day of that awful swimming carnival when we had to take them off because no jewelry was allowed. How old were we? Sixteen or something? Where on earth did you find them?” I ask, staring in disbelief at the long-lost treasures.
Until that day, we wore these rings continuously, except for one time when Rhia was fourteen and was taken to hospital to have her appendix removed.
I was beside myself with worry. And Rhia’s way to calm me and tell me that everything would be okay was to give me her friendship ring for safekeeping until after the operation. I clung onto that ring the entire time until I saw her again, and somehow it really helped me be less anxious.
“Remember, you put them in your backpack? Well, you’ve still got that backpack.”
And Rhia teased me often for hanging onto it when it got worn out just because it was a gift from the boy I had my first ever crush on.
“But we searched that bag over and over and concluded someone had stolen them.”
“I know! But when I saw you still had it, I had a look through it again. There was a small hole in the lining and the rings had fallen through.”
“Wow, how did we not see that back then?” I gasp in disbelief.
“Buggered if I know,” Rhia replies drily.
“Aren’t you glad now I’m too sentimental to throw things away?” I tease.
“Sure am, hun. And your Da was right. Remember how upset we were when we couldn’t find them and he said, ‘They’ll turn up.Nothing is ever lost in the universe.’ It took a long time, but here they are.”
I take the ring from Rhia’s outstretched hand and slide it on the middle finger of her left hand. It’s where we always wore it.
Rhia’s face lights up as she admires it. Then she does the same to me.
“Perfect,” she says as we clink our rings together.
With Rhia here and my new job, the next few days fly by.
I don’t even get a chance to miss Aiden, though, he is constantly on my mind. We talk in the mornings and before bed, and text multiple times during the day.
Rhia keeps me occupied and we have the best time. It will be so hard to say goodbye to her again on Friday, but it’s not time to think about that yet.
We dissected the differences between Tiero and Aiden over ice cream one afternoon, and while my feelings for Tiero are still there and probably always will be, how could any sane person not pick Aiden?
