Blood Soaked Ring

It would have been an ordinary day on the trails, but my hand was empty and cold. The cloudless skies should have welcomed the emblazoned sun’s radiance through the canopy, but a fog covered my eyes and distorted reality.

I lied to myself by saying that I would never forgive her for the scorn received on the sofa, for it could never be scrubbed of its filth. I thought the pain was irreversible, like the branch I just snapped off the tree.

We both had a favorite spot at Gunpowder Falls Park, mine was the top of the waterfall, and hers was the lost pond where a large rock protrudes from the water high into the mountainside. I know where I am, where I am going, but lost on the very spot where I stand. The tree’s swayed as I meandered past them. My heavy boots crunched the brown leaves in silence.

The day she said yes, was the day I took my first breath; a fire ignited my beating heart that was holding on by a thread. Now waiting to be snuffed out because the day I told her to get out was the first day I learned what suffocation felt like. The deep need to fill my lungs, but a pressure on my chest would not allow them to expand.

I blinked my eye, and there it was, our rock in the middle of the river. It formed a seat that was large enough for us both to sit. It conformed perfectly to our bodies. Our Love Rock she used to jest. I wanted to swim to it, shake the loneliness, and warm my cold and frost-bitten heart.

I watched the white water beating against the unmovable rocky throne that created a deep melody of sorrow. I opened my palm and fumbled the black oval she gave me. It was too early to let go and slipped the gem into my pocket. She gave it to me the day after I stepped in front of her abusive father and took her away from that place forever.

I came to the usual crossroad. Downhill would take me to the lost pond, and uphill would take me to the waterfall. I idled for an unknown period until I heard a distantly familiar noise. I drifted towards the sound, mind, and body, and before I knew it, I walked off the trail into the dense detritus.

Branches and twigs bent and snapped as I walked past them, ignoring the moaning of the wood. Even if a branch were sharp enough to cut through my jeans or hoodie, it would pale in comparison to the ladder on the inside of my forearm from before I met her. I hoped the pain would find purchase on my skin. It would be what I deserved for jumping to conclusions. I thought she was intimate with another man before I ripped her off the sofa, cursed her, and threw her out of the house.

There was the familiar sound again, not so distant anymore. A hoot. Her favorite sound eventually became mine. I pushed myself through the brush as it became almost impassable, but the sound grew.

A frenzy took hold of me as the hoot echoed, and I sprinted for the end. A considerable thorn pulled onto my sleeve, and when I yanked wildly, my hand was rewarded with a deep gash. The warm blood dripped down my arm. It’s the most I have felt in over a month—a welcomed pain.

I broke through the tree line into a clearing by a pond. A large owl of cloud white perched onto a tree and stared intently. I followed its eye until I saw her. I thought it was a mirage, but when air inflated my lungs, eyes filled with water, and lips of pure ecstasy, the sky brightened.

There she sat, wavey black hair like the oceans of grand under the twilight sky. A slight wind glamoured with song.

Even though the ice melted away from my heart, I froze. My boots sunk into the mud while blood dripped from my ring finger. Another hoot from the owl broke my trance, and I took my first step.

I walked to her side, and she turned. Her golden-brown eye’s danced as she looked up. I kneeled before my queen and kept my hands to myself.

My necked craned to the ground, and I slowly raised my eyes to find myself locked under her gaze, “I am a fool.”

A smile creased onto her lips as the dimples shown their royalty. How could I have forsaken my oath to protect her, all because I simply saw her hand on my best friend’s knee? How could I have mistrusted him? She was just showing him the ring I just gave her.

“I know you are,” she grabbed my blood-soaked hand, and I noticed the ring was still on her finger, “but what is important is that you found me.”