It Wasn't Supposed To End This Way (A Starkid Fan Fiction)

Chapter 32-Practice, Picnic, Perfect, Patience

Chapter 32

"Hey, you're wearing the ring."

I turn around from my notes to see a smiling Jeff. He wears a blue button down shirt today and it contrasts with his eyes beautifully. His smile however, even though we haven't been together in eight months, still always manages to give me a smile as well. 

Ever since we came back from tour, Jeff has been nothing but kind to me. I was cautious at first, avoiding him, not letting him come close and still avoiding physical contact. But all in all, he's turning himself around. I have a feeling hearing everything he did that he somehow can't remember made him want to get better. I keep thinking that Jeff relapsed, that he started drinking again to cope. But Darren swore to me the night he pulled Jeff off of Clark on tour that there wasn't a drop of alcohol on his friends breath. And I have no reason not to believe Darren. Not after everything all of us have been through. Maybe that side of Jeff is gone, and he realizes what he's been doing and has put a stop to it. I like to believe that at least, that that side of Jeff is gone now.

I pick up my hand with the ring from Jeff on it and admire it again. "You know, I still don't understand why you got me this. It was a secret Santa, not my birthday or anything."

Jeff lets out a laugh as I lower my hand. I slide my pencil on my ear and push a loose piece of hair behind my ear. "You don't recognize it, Alex?"

I look at the ring again, staring at it intensely. I feel like this is some type of trick question. Some actress I like has it? It was a one of a kind present? Some dead chick wore it and left it to me? Wait ew.

"Should I?" I ask him, looking back up at him as I move some of my hair out of my face.

"It's your engagement ring."

I furrow my brow at Jeff, completely shocked at what he's just said to me. "This isn't the ring you gave me, Jeff."

"Actually," Jeff says, pulling out a piece of paper from his pockets. "It is."

I pull the ring off my finger and hold it in my hands. "Jeff the ring you gave me didn't have my birth stone, or writing on it when you gave it me after your Dad's funeral. It had a small diamond in the middle and..." I trail off as realization hits me.

I put the pieces together. He could have easily exchanged the diamond for the aquamarine colored gem, and had someone engrave writing on it. And when I was in the hospital with my tumor...that's when he got it done, after I broke off the engagement. Joey and Dylan both said that Jeff was holding something in his hand. The conversation we'd had, Walker asking Jeff what he was holding.

"Jeff was sitting alone, staring out a window, holding something in his hand. When Walker had asked him, Jeff just shrugged and said 'Just something I keep as a reminder,' and had slipped it into his pocket."

'Do you know what he had?' I had asked.

'No,' Joey had admitted to me and Dylan that day. 'It was small, that's all I can tell you. I saw a hint of a light blue or green, but that doesn't give any indication what he was holding.'

Jeff had the ring. He was holding it because the light blue or green was this gem I hold in my hand right now. Jeff was holding onto it, had been holding onto it to give to me.

Jeff hands me the paper he pulled from his pocket and my theory is proven correct. In my hands I hold the receipt from the changes to the ring, the additional cost for the engravement and the the original price crossed off and a new one written in. I'm honestly astonished that Jeff could do something like this.