The day was moving so slowly. It kind of felt like time was mocking me, making this class drag on for much longer than it should have. I clicked and unclicked my pen, looking for something, anything, to do with my hands that could make this class end more quickly. I stared down at my hands and though I could scream from boredom at any moment, a small smile slipped onto my face. On my right pointer finger sat a small ring with two hearts intertwined. With my other hand, I twirled it around my finger like a fidget toy. But what gave me comfort wasn’t that now I finally had something to play with but instead, it was the memory that came to the front of my brain when I looked at the ring. 

Sitting in that class I remembered the morning my best friend gave it to me. I had woken up knowing what the day would look like and while any time with her was filled with lots of laughter, I was filled with a lingering feeling of sadness. I knew what today meant and I knew it was the first of many lasts. Mikayla picked me up and sitting in the back of her mom’s car we fell into the routine we had built in the last four years. I remember I had felt older, the two of us walking hand in hand around the mall that we only really went to on special occasions. She dragged me from shop to shop, the smell of salted pretzels from Auntie Anne’s filling my nostrils. We tried on different matching rings, with every new ring we held our hands next to each other so we could check to see if they looked good together. The first shop, Pandora, didn’t feel right. It was all too shiny and too big. The diamonds felt blinding to my eyes. We walked around more, my feet aching from standing up by her side for so long. We walked into a store with an overwhelming amount of orange. James Avery, the place where every middle school girl bought their rings. A store that truly embodied the feeling of Texas, all the signs in the store reminding us how everything was crafted right here in big ole Texas. Mikayla and I walked to a display with a couple of very thick rings, one which she really loved with some cheesy saying about staying together forever. I had laughed and cringed a little bit as well, it just didn’t feel like I wanted it to. Then I saw a smaller, more delicate pair of rings in the stand next to it. They were a matching pair, each with two hearts that were connected to each other in the middle. It was cheesy, and something meant for soulmates.  I grinned at the curly-haired girl next to me and then back at the rings. These were the ones, there was something in my gut that knew it felt really right. We stood in line for much longer than either of us wanted to so she could buy the rings for us. Mikayla’s impatience had her sitting on the floor of the store, leaning against a necklace stand while I playfully kicked her feet while standing in line. When we left the store, we discarded the pretty wrapping and boxing the poor girl in the store had done for us and slipped the rings onto our fingers. We said we both needed to have the ring on the same finger. We fist-bumped so our rings would touch against each other. That same sadness I had felt that morning came rushing back with a force that disoriented me momentarily. I felt a nostalgia for that exact moment even though I knew I was still living it. 

But every time I look at the ring in class I don’t just remember messing around in a big mall as our final private bonding time before I left. Instead, I remember everything that came before. Everything we did together to get to the moment of buying matching rings while her mom chaperoned us. The drama that filled our fifth-grade class, that made us elementary school enemies and eventually the greatest friends. I remember coming over to her home, using it as my safe house when my own house felt too overwhelming. I remember the disappointment of not having overlapping schedules our first year in middle school, stupidly thinking that this would be the end of our friendship. I remember Target runs to get the exact food coloring we needed to make a horribly giant rainbow cake. I remembered dancing until midnight to celebrate her faith and her womanhood. I remember sitting in her room, tears in my eyes working through everything that weighed on me, a weight that she promised to share with me. I remember calling her when I first found out I was moving away, whispering into the phone from my closet because my parents had told me not to tell anyone. It’s a silly ring. It doesn’t mean anything to anyone but us. But every time I look at it in class, or in the mornings, or during a particularly difficult night, I feel grounded. A reminder that she’s around though she’s far away, a reminder of everything we’ve been through together. Promise rings are for soulmates. And it works because she’s definitely one of mine. The ring is like a stupid lifeline I didn’t even know that I needed, a promise that if I always wore the ring I would always come back. A way for me to carry her with me 5000 miles away.