Jewellery Challenge

[calathea.livejournal.com]

RayK, gen, 200 words

Beta by _aerye_.

The first ring he owned was heavy, and silver. He bought it at a booth at some dumb craft fair his mum made him visit with her. The guy who sold it to him was huge, and had tattoos of snakes coiled around his wrists. After he'd fingered almost all the cheaper rings, the guy had glared at him and asked whether he was going to buy or just put his sticky hands all over everything. He walked away with nothing left of his allowance, and the ring slipping down his skinny finger to balance on his knuckle. That afternoon, Stella complained that it hurt her when he held her hand.

He wore it to school the next day. The punch he threw, in a short and ugly fight at recess, seemed to land extra hard on his opponent's nose. He sat outside the principal's office and rubbed the blood off his ring with the hem of his t-shirt.

Eventually, the silver began to wear off, and the metal underneath made his finger turn green. Stella still complained, and since she was letting him do more than hold her hand by then, he finally took it off. He put it in a drawer, and left it there.