The Lorelei Floral Engagement Ring-Diamond Band has four prongs that hold the .50 karat center diamond in place.

I like to imagine that each prong indicates a bond to marriage that must withstand the test of time.

Respect, trust, understanding, love.

Respect is the top right prong, with its partner, understanding, as the top left prong.

Trust is close to the heart, making it the bottom right prong.

Rings go on the left finger, an indication of love, naturally making the bottom left prong love.

I’ve always imagined that the ride side of my body is referenced by female pronouns and the left side as male pronouns.

Isn’t it interesting that respect and trust are girls, while understanding and love are boys?

Isn’t it interesting that an engagement ring goes on the left hand, the boy side?

Isn’t it interesting that the Lorelei Floral Engagement Ring-Diamond Band has been on hold under my ex-boyfriend, Thomas, and I’s name for a little over two years, but we stopped dating April 7, 2016?

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I met Thomas in my hometown park in 2012. His goofy crooked-tooth smile is what pulled me in.

We started dating three days after we met.

I lost my first kiss and my virginity to this fun-loving sixteen-year-old, not even a month after we started dating.

I called mom crying twenty minutes after I let my purity slip away. Disappointment lurked in her voice as she told me I wasn’t a slut for being so easy. She knew just as much as I did that a boy taking interest in me was rare, I guess I got carried away. I guess mom accepted that.

Understanding. A boy pronoun Thomas never came to in these situations.

*

My mother has only worn four rings on her finger in her lifetime.

The first ring that was used to propose was a tiny heart shaped diamond with a gold band.

That engagement was broken off.

The second ring was an assumed proposal ring, a gold rose on a gold band with a small diamond.

Dad gave it to mom on the beach. No known history behind the ring. No proposal.

The third ring that was used to propose was a standard diamond with a gold band.

A month after the second ring, dad and mom laid on the couch. Dad said they should get married. He didn’t have a ring. I don’t know how he picked that one for her.

Ring number four was the gold wedding band.

Mom wore on her finger until she stopped wearing it a few months after dad’s death.

Mom sold the engagement ring and wedding band a few years ago.

Isn’t it interesting that she didn’t think that I may want them to start a tradition in our family?

Isn’t it interesting that even though she still has the assumed proposal ring kept away in her jewelry box, I have never once thought of it as an engagement ring that could be placed on my finger?

Isn’t it interesting that I want an engagement ring Thomas and I picked out when the four prongs of our relationship didn’t withstand the test of time?

*

The first ring Thomas gave me was a silver band with a bow on top.

It stayed on my left finger until I got the second ring.

The second ring Thomas gave me was a silver band with a sparkly flower on top.

It stayed on my finger until I got the third ring.

A hideously thick band of black and white diamonds with Love Always scripted around it.

Bracelets came between the rings. Bronze and silver with little anchors and ship wheels.

I always told Thomas how much I hated the fact that I had to tell him what to get me. I had to tell him what I liked.

Thomas hated the way I would shoot his original ideas down and call them stupid.

Respect. A girl pronoun I never considered in our relationship.

*

My great grandparents worked in Baltimore their entire lives.

Pappy, a dedicated churchman. Grandmother Schell, his doting wife.

Cupcake, their darling great granddaughter who dreamed of getting married in the church they helped run in the middle of Baltimore.

The church is one of the oldest in Baltimore, with the house they helped raise dad in sitting right behind it.

The church is blue with small frosted windows.

The pews could hold maybe thirty people.

Misshapen stones and cracked concrete line the way to the church doors and small reception area to the left.

The first minister is buried under the stones.

Dad’s first marriage is buried under the stones.

Grandmother Schell’s service was on those stones.

Pappy’s service was on those stones.

I’ve never gone back.

When I close my eyes, I see a church in a field surrounded by wildflowers. The church is blue with small frosted windows. No death services have been held at this church, no wedding except mine. No past to linger and seep into the passing people of the church.

No question of the four pillars God intended in the four walls.

Isn’t it interesting that people carry so many superstitions with the places they want to associate their happiness?

Isn’t it interesting that I still see a blue church when I close my eyes and think about the place I would want to get married in?

Isn’t it interesting that I have a hard time believing in God, yet I’m fascinated by these pillars of marriage in Christ and my inability to let a material object go?

*

Thomas and I were together almost four years.

I only trusted him for four months of that time.

He got caught up in the fascination of lying like his father was obsessed with.

Mom is lying to you.

Unrealistic happenings he would recite started to show themselves to be false.

He caught a stuffed animal from a claw machine with string and a sinker once.

Where he was going or coming from when he knew I was coming over.

She’s my friend from class.

How much I meant to him.

I would never do anything to hurt you like dad hurt mom.

The evidence I placed in front of his face.

That picture is not me. Someone is trying to trick you.

The belief that he would pay for a ring.

Get the next size diamond.

The belief that he would work to fix our relationship when he asked about the ring.

We should go ring shopping.

Trust is a girl pronoun, I guess that’s why I believed him for so long. I guess that’s what made him so good at holding on to me.

*

A few months after my grandfather, Papa, passed, my Grandmom got his and her wedding rings made into a pendant.

She didn’t even get to wear it one time before two men broke her kitchen window and stole it from her jewelry box among other things.

I’ve often thought about the sentiment behind a man proposing with the ring my Papa proposed with to my Grandmom.

A woman with two boys and a verbally abusive drunk ex-husband that never stuck around.

The thought of having that ring to signify what a real man is would feel so powerful on my small left hand ring finger.

My cousin, Scott, gave it to his now ex-wife. They probably pawned it long before the divorce for drug money.

My other set of grandparents, Granny and Pop-Pop, got divorced when mom was still a girl.

I’ve never asked where that engagement ring went or if there ever was one.

The thought of a tainted ring from a past relationship puts a sour metallic taste in my mouth.

Isn’t it interesting that rings are supposed to signify our devotion to someone?

Isn’t it interesting that a ring one the left hand, the boy side, would mean a devotion to man?

Isn’t it interesting that I’ve been devotion free for a year, but still wear a ring on my left hand?

*

I can’t pinpoint when I started feeling like I was in a relationship for the safety of the relationship.

The word love is tricky because it means something to every single person.

A few weeks ago, when I was drunk, I told my roommate that I miss Thomas and think I still love him.

The first time Thomas got drunk around me he told me he wasn’t sure why he treated me so badly.

The word love is spelled with four letters.

When you set out to look for an engagement ring, you take three months’ salary to be the most you spend on the ring.

$5,200 divided by 4 = 1,300.

The average sailor makes $29,900 a year.

$29,900 divided by 12 = $2,492, rounded up.

$2,492 times 3 = $7,475.

A ring worthy of the definition of engagement love.

A ring that caught my eye because of the safety of love the ring defines.

The world’s most perfectly cut diamond.

Perfect.

I told Thomas I wasn’t in love anymore around September 2015. A little over four months since we had put the ring on hold at the jewelry store.

I like to believe I was once in love with Thomas, but I can’t explain what it feels like to question that love.

I broke up with him from a place of love.

The fourth pillar of marriage, a boy pronoun, he didn’t understand.

*

I lay in bed at night and think about the way the engagement ring that will never be paid off sits in the jewelry store and sparkles, waiting for the rightful left hand finger it will be slide on.

I think about the uniqueness of a family ring and the heritage behind the prongs.

I think about the past stains of love and falling out of love imprinted on those rings.

I think about the selfish desire to have to call a ring my own for the sake of love.

I think about the fascination with my ring in the store and how I still can’t let go.

Isn’t it interesting that a ring symbolizes love for most people, when love cannot be put into words?

Isn’t it interesting that I still have the ring saved on my computer so I can look at it from time to time?

Isn’t it interesting that the jeweler still sends us mail, separately, detailing payment deals?