Say Something

Chapter Thirty-one ~ The ring

A week or so after the second scan, I decided to finally do something about the ring that had been in my drawer for longer than Theo had been alive. It was late afternoon, and Caitlin was in the middle of a nap, for being pregnant with twins was making her tired. Tommo was hanging out with Theo in his room, and now and then I could hear him laughing at something that she said.

I took the key to the locked drawer from where I had blu-tacked it under the table-like part of the desk beside my bed, in which a small drawer was built in. I put the key in the lock, and I turned it, it creaked slightly as I did so. I turned sharply to see if the noise had woken Caitlin, but saw that she was still sleeping peacefully. She really was beautiful.

I opened the drawer slowly, and dust went everywhere. Luckily, by this time, Caitlin had rolled over so that she was facing away from where the desk was and the dust was not able to reach her lungs and in turn affect the unborn twins. A small black velvet box was the only thing in the drawer, for it always had been, and I took it out before shutting the drawer again.

I held the little box in my hand and opened it, and saw the diamond and gold ring for the first time since I had locked it safely in the drawer in 2011, 17 years before. It had been such a long time that I had forgotten what it looked like: it was a simple gold band with a medium sized diamond in the centre. It was the first diamond thing that I had ever bought.

I held the ring between my left thumb and index finger, and admired it for a while before putting it back in the box and back into the drawer just in time for Caitlin to wake up.

"Niall, why is there dust everywhere?" she asked me as she sat up on the bed, one hand placed gently on her belly.

"I- I was looking at something that I hadn't seen for a long time."

"Right..." she said, sounding a bit puzzled.

"One day you'll find out what that something is, and hopefully that day won't be too far away." I said, giving her a small smile.

I took the ring out of the drawer once again the next morning before Caitlin woke up, and I stared at it for quite a while, holding it between my fingers and moving my fingers around the gold part and back. I sat there and thought, is five months into a relationship too early to propose? Probably, but I just want her to be mine.

I really wanted to propose to Caitlin, wanted to watch the way her face lit up when she saw me get down on one knee in front of her, wanted to see her smile the biggest smile after she said yes, I had a feeling that she would. I wanted to watch her walk down the aisle with tears in her eyes and her father's arm linked through her own. I wanted to see the love in her eyes while she spoke out her vows. But most of all, I wanted to feel the way she kissed me so beautifully once the minister had told us that we could.

I knew that I hadn't know the girl very long, and that she was carrying within her a little boy and a little girl who would grow up believing that they were my own and never knowing that they're not. That they would never know that their real father killed so many people, very nearly including their mother and her best friend. Those two small, unborn, fragile and precious children were to never know that reality.

I decided that I would, I would propose to Caitlin one day very soon, most likely before she was due to give birth to the twins in four months time. I put the ring back into the box and back into the drawer, and when I turned back around I found that she was still sleeping.

I got up out of bed and showered, putting on some clean clothes before making a big breakfast for the four (six?) of us to have once the three other people in the house had awoken.