Two Women and a Ring

On Thursday morning, Aurora found a small box on his coat. 

For starters, she wasn’t used to being the other woman. In fact, she often assumed that if her teenage self could see her now, she’d spit on her or slap her across the face. When she was seventeen her principles had been a tight and undiscussable manual, her own bible. She would never cause so much pain to another woman, even if she were a stranger.

But Charlotte wasn’t a stranger. She had always been kind to her.  

As she applied the French perfume he had gifted her a few months prior, and then the lipstick she had bought because he said the scarlet maroon would make her features pop out, she realized the woman in the mirror was the stranger. The more she loved him the more she hated herself. 

She was twenty-five and seemed to be growing up in the wrong direction. 

She met James when she was nineteen and he was twenty. So far, her love life has been nothing but pathetic. Just a few shitty men’s shitty attempts at getting her to bed with them and nothing much to show for it apart from embarrassing stories and funny anecdotes. Aurora had never been in love back then, not even close to it. She had completely skipped the teenage dream phase untouched and unbothered. But when she moved to university, leaving her childhood friends, childhood room, and innocence behind, she realized she was lonely. And that’s when the yearning, longing, and restless nights began.  

Falling in love had felt like an impossible task. She couldn’t even get herself to like a guy, they all had terrible conversation skills and most of them were medium ugly losers who stared at her breasts while she was trying to talk about literature or politics or anything interesting to her. 

And then, after two years of lonely nights and failed attempts at relationships, she met him.   

God, she was enchanted by this man. He was beautiful, he had the face of an angel or a modern James Dean (ironic, he even had the name). James Campbell was the typical romantic comedy lead boy that Aurora had fantasized about her entire life. He had golden hair, green eyes, and dimples. Dimples! He was also tall and had broad arms and a kind smile and all the attributes a woman looks for in a man.  

But that wasn’t why she fell for him. She fell for him because of the person he was. She had never, ever, met a man she could talk to the way she could talk to him. She told him everything, and so did he. They spent so many nights talking about life and they could joke about everything. 

Suddenly, Aurora wasn't lonely anymore. 

They spent every waking moment together, playing pretend. 

James became Aurora’s favorite person so immediately she couldn't understand how it had happened. She had always been a woman’s girl and never had a genuine friendship with a man before. But with him everything was easy.  

He was her best friend and that was the worst part. 

She knew this man was gold personified, but so did everyone else. Everyone who met him wanted him. James was magnetic. So she settled that she wouldn't be competing with a bunch of prettier, smarter women. She realized being in his life was enough. She settled for being in his orbit. She settled for the long talks and the advice and the casual family dinners, sleepovers, and all the other completely casual stuff they did. 

For a while, this was enough, but the heart didn't listen to reason and it seemed that he had turned into her addiction. He was a thirst that was never quenched.  

And then he met Charlotte. 

They met when he was twenty-four and bored of promiscuity and hooking up with strangers. Charlotte was perfect, just perfect, with perfect hair and perfect grades and a perfect nose and a perfect family, and a bunch of other great little perfect things that made her the perfect woman for the perfect man. 

She could never be half as beautiful, confident, or intelligent as Charlotte was. 

So, Aurora had to witness it all. She had to stand on the sidelines and watch him fall in love with Charlotte. He became the man she had wished he would become for her. She was just some old, stinky, lingering perfume in his postcard life. 

After over two years of their relationship, James knocked on Aurora’s door at the dead end of the night. When Aurora opened the door, she knew, just like you know the sun will come out in the morning, that everything was about to change. 

She led him into the living room of her tiny, minimum-wage apartment and he sat on the stool, drunk and disarmed. He was completely broken. His mother had died a few months ago and his world had completely shifted. 

She asked what was wrong and he told her everything. His life was falling apart, his mother was dead, his relationship was a lie, Charlotte made him feel worthless, and she was the only woman he could talk to, really talk to. She was the only person in the world who understood him, knew him, saw him for what he was, and made him feel truly, genuinely happy. 

And she stood on the opposite end of the kitchen, her hands shaking, her heart breaking. She turned her back to him, opened the refrigerator door, grabbed a bottle of wine, and opened it. She held the cold glass and poured the wine, still giving her back to him. What could she possibly say? How could she possibly turn around and smile, act, keep her distance, and lie, lie, at this hour of the night? She knew that at the sight of him, she’d break. 

So she drank the glass of wine, her back still to him. But then he kissed her, and she broke. He grabbed her rapidly by the waist and spun her around, pulling her so fast into him that she didn’t have time to think. She reacted purely by instinct, her body's desire gave away. 

Her hand slipped and the glass fell to the ground, the pieces cracked all over the kitchen floor and the red wine stained her white sleeping gown. But she didn’t care. She didn’t care about the mess and she forgot about the world and about everything that wasn’t the two of them at that moment. At that hour after midnight, reality seemed distorted, like a faraway concept, like it never had existed. 

So she didn’t think about Charlotte, her self-respect, or how she would have to wake up and exist the next morning. Because for that night, god, she was happy. The kisses were messy and intense, and she couldn’t stop smiling. He led her to the bedroom and the euphoria leaked off her like the slight dawn light that slipped under the curtains. It felt like she had never been touched before. She knew then that she could never again live without it. All her life she had been underwater and suddenly she was breathing. 

That was the beginning of the affair. 

And today, four months later, she found a ring. 

On Thursday night, another woman found a ring in her boyfriend's closet in another, much bigger apartment on the other side of the city. It was a gold ring with a shiny round-cut diamond. Charlotte thought it was shaped like a sunflower. She had always assumed, or hoped, that she would get engaged with a white gold oval-shaped ring, but this one was fine, wasn’t it? 

The ring brought her relief and it also brought her stress. 

Firstly, it relieved her because she suspected her boyfriend had been sleeping with Aurora Sinclair for the last few months. She had no evidence of the affair, but the reason why she suspected her boyfriend of infidelity was because of the way he seemed so happy, so refreshed, so incredibly content recently and it always happened after he went away or after they’d spent the night apart. He was more attentive, more active, and always gave her gifts. Charlotte believed the gifts were a symptom of guilt and the sunlight in his eyes was a symptom of Aurora. 

James and Charlotte had never been a passionate or romantic couple, but they functioned. When his mother died, almost six months ago, Charlotte did not know what to do, he was a mess of broken pieces and she hated disorder. So, as much as she wished with all her soul that she could fix him, in that delusional maternal desire that makes women believe they’re rehabilitation centers, she realized the best thing she knew to do was send tasteful flower arrangements, cook elegant meals and keep everything neat, shiny and warm for him. She hated herself for it, how could she be so cold?  

Aurora, on the contrary, was daylight. She saw the way they spoke with their eyes, a forbidden language of codes and meanings. At Diana’s funeral, she was the only one who could make him smile. Everything that Charlotte wasn’t, Aurora was. Charlotte knew that Aurora was funny and cheerful while she was stiff and stoic. Aurora was free while she was locked in a prison of her design. Aurora was creative, easygoing, and loving; Charlotte was robotic, neurotic, and distant. She felt like the antagonist in a romance novel.  

The worst thing was that she couldn’t hate her, no matter how hard she tried. She always kept her at arm's length, but in another life, she was sure they would’ve been friends. 

So, when Charlotte saw the ring, she felt a weight lifted off her shoulders because he wouldn’t propose to her if he was sleeping with another woman. 

But she wasn’t happy. She despised her inability to be satisfied with anything, she strived for perfection until it ate her alive. James was the man she had to be with, handsome, wealthy, intelligent, and kind. And he adored her. 

That was the problem, though, he adored her, worshiped her, and treated her like a queen. But he didn't even know her. James didn’t know her flaws, fears, passions, anything, really. And neither did she. She was just a fancy accessory he could parade around. How could he love her when he only saw her brilliant surface? She could not, or would not, spend the rest of her life performing. She wouldn't base the rest of her life on a beautiful, gleaming, golden lie. 

When the moment of the question she had been made for came around, she knew what her answer would be. 

At this realization, she cried like a baby, harder than she had cried in years. After that, she felt clean. 

Then, the phone rang. 

When Aurora found the ring in James’ jacket, she felt nauseous, but she couldn’t throw up because he was taking a shower. When he came out, she forced a smile and quickly locked herself in the bathroom, weeping silently. She was disgusted with herself, with her naivety and spinelessness. How did she ever believe him when he said he was going to find a way for everything to work out? Why was she so stupid? He was never going to break up with Charlotte because she was the girl you married, the girl you had children with and built a ravishing future next to. And Aurora was just the trash you kept hidden, the fool to be played with on the side. 

Suddenly, she was filled with rage. This anger tasted bitter and unfamiliar in her mouth. It burned inside of her like a forest fire, killing everything in its way. She had put him above everything. She had sacrificed herself, her very essence, just to be able to mend his broken heart. She had been there for him in body and soul every single day, making sure he felt loved. And it meant nothing. He turned her into nothing. 

Aurora knew, at that moment, that she deserved more. 

She deserved to be The One. She deserved a man who put her first, who loved her as intensely and consuming as she loved. She deserved a valiant man, not a coward. He was a jester who claimed to be a king. 

And so did Charlotte. 

For the first time in months, Aurora decided to stop being nothing. So she grabbed her telephone. 

“Charlotte, hi, umm, it’s Aurora Sinclair.” her voice was barely a whisper, but she continued. “I need to talk to you. Well, apologize to you.” 

Charlotte was quiet in the other line.

Aurora took a deep breath and confessed. “James and I have been having an affair.” 

And then, Charlotte let out a big chuckle, and to Aurora, it sounded like a gasp of fresh air. “I knew it.” 

“What?”

“I mean, I didn’t have any evidence, but in my bones I knew.” She was laughing, “I’m such a fool.”

And then Aurora started shaking, gasping for air, all the buried guilt being released like a grenade. “I'm so sorry, truly, completely. I’m so sorry,” she said, trying to hide her sobs. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, God knows I wouldn’t, and there's nothing I can say to defend myself because what I did is inexcusable. But I needed you to know, I mean, you deserved to know.” 

And, once again, Charlotte found herself wishing she could hate this woman and failing at the task. “I don’t forgive you. Yet. But I don’t hate you, either.” Her voice was cordial and elegant. Charlotte was the embodiment of grace. “Thank you.” 

“For what?”  

“For making sure I didn’t make the worst mistake of my life.” 

“The ring-” 

“You know about the ring?”

“I found it in his jacket, and I could not live with myself if you got engaged to him without knowing.” she paused. “I know this is completely shameless of me, but you deserve so much better than that. You’re a great woman.”

She could tell that it was an honest sentiment. “Well, I was not going to accept the proposal, anyway.” Charlotte laughed once more, despite herself. Her life had come crashing down, yet she had never felt more alive. 

“Good,” and Aurora wanted to say something else, but she didn’t know what, “I’m seriously sorry.” 

“I know you are.” 

Charlotte had the strangest desire to invite her for coffee or wine, but she didn’t. She was about to be too busy packing James’ things and placing them on the sideway.  

“Take care,” Aurora added, and Charlotte hung up. The next day, Charlotte would find herself in need of someone to confide in and, against her better judgment, would dial Aurora. Both of them knew they had so much to learn from one another. 

  He had not initially intended to propose. A day earlier, James had gone to his parents’ house. Well, his father’s house. Every Wednesday night he ate dinner there, only now it was the most dreaded encounter of the week. Everything reminded him of his mother; every painting she hung on the walls, every vase that used to have flowers but had perished after she stopped watering them, every antique decoration, and every old, dusty book on the shelves. Diana Campbell was everywhere and nowhere all at once. This home was a ruin, a carcass, a somber reminder of what once had been and would never be again. 

So every Wednesday night, James walked into that haunted house and felt like a little boy lost in a supermarket. This particular dinner, after the uncomfortable silent meal, his father gave him a present—a heirloom. 

It was his mother’s engagement ring. 

“She wanted you to have this, son. When you’re ready, give it to the right woman.”

The right woman. 

He could barely look his father in the eye when he accepted it. “Thank you,” he said, holding the tiny box like a fragile being. 

He got into his car and shame invaded him. When had he stopped being a man and turned into a weak, cowardly boy once again? He had lost all honor. If Diana was seeing him now, she was disappointed. At what age did you stop wishing you could run to your mother for advice? For comfort?  

The right woman. 

He knew he had to stop all the treachery and make up his mind. But he didn’t know how. James realized he greedily didn’t want to let go of the idea of a future with Charlotte. But, he didn't have the capacity to give up the reality of a present with Aurora.

The right woman. They were both the right woman. He was the wrong man.  

He’d stop being the wrong man, though. His mother, wherever she was, believed he was good. He had to be. So he would be. He’d give this ring to the woman who was the right woman for him. He would stop playing around and finally become the man she deserved. 

Yes, on Friday afternoon he'd apologize to Charlotte, tell her the truth, own up to his mistake, and he’d let her go. 

Yes, on Friday night he'd finally start being happy. He’d start building a life with Aurora. After all, only she could decode him. He was sure he had only tasted true joy when he lay next to her. On Friday night he’d give her the ring. On Friday night, the rest of his life would start.

Yes, this weekend he’d set things right. Not today, though. He put the ring in his coat pocket and drove to her tiny apartment.

 He didn’t know that Friday night would be too late. He’d stand outside her door for hours, in the pouring rain, with the ring in his hand. Only this time she would not open the door. 

Instead, she’d be having dinner with her unlikely new friend.