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“Aren’t you going to open it?” Kyra, a girl from our seminar who was also Eric’s latest target, pointed her beer bottle at the package. “What did you get?”
I set the letter aside and picked up the box—the first of its type. Slowly, I lifted open the small, white lid and found a bracelet sitting on a tuft of linen.
It wasn’t a Tiffany box, and the bracelet looked nothing like anything you’d find there. It was a sturdy, simple, sterling silver cuff, about an inch wide and solid through. It bore the obvious impressions of hand pounding across the top, but when I picked it up, I noticed that the inside had been polished smooth to bear an inscription:
“One man loved the pilgrim soul in you,” I read aloud softly.
I gulped. Somehow, I didn’t think the bar would be the best place to subject myself to Brandon’s latest letter.
“Nice,” Eric said as he nodded at the bracelet. “Yeats.”
I looked back down at the inscription and back up with confusion. “I don’t know it.”
Eric closed his eyes and recited the poem:
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
When Eric opened his eyes, the entire table had gone silent, and everyone was staring. Kyra looked like she was ready to devour him alive, and Jane’s mouth was open.
Eric looked around and shrugged. “English major. I wrote my honors thesis on Yeats.”
He took a long slug from his beer, and the conversations around the table erupted again. Kyra turned to Eric with obvious mooneyes, which he studiously ignored. Well, if he wasn’t getting any before, he certainly would be later.
“So, Crosby, who’s the dreamer?” he asked, nodding at the bracelet.
I looked down at the gleaming silver. Yeah, there was no way I was going to be able to read the latest installment of “Brandon Sterling Reveals His Soul” without tears after listening to that poem. Pilgrim soul indeed.
“It’s no one,” I said quickly, tipping back the rest of my beer and reaching for the pitcher.
Eric watched with amusement, knowing I wasn’t usually given to binge drinking cheap beer. “No?” he asked. “It’s not a certain Beacon Street dweller who—”
“It’sno one,” I repeated sharply, cutting Eric off.
I quickly poured another half pint down my throat. Jane gave me a sympathetic smile from the end of the table; she knew she’d likely be getting me a cab at the end of the night. I picked up the empty jewelry box and started to stow the bracelet along with the letter, but I stopped as the inner inscription caught my eye again. My head was already swimming with too much cheap alcohol, and for once, I didn’t want to push away my feelings. Giving myself permission not to think about it too much, I picked up the cuff and slipped it on before tucking the box into my bag.
I ignored Jane’s gaze at my wrist as I beckoned the waitress to the table.
