thought that's what counted.

She bit the inside of her lip. Blood. The tuneless whistling was driving her to distraction. No, not just distraction—bloody inaction. Confusion. Her eyes burned and her contacts were dying to get out, fogging her vision, clouding her sight, and making her usually visual life a ridiculous hassle.

It wasn’t worth trying anymore. It was one in the morning and she had a presentation due the next day. She had an essay torn to shreds by a well-meaning teacher. She had….she had no idea what to do with herself apart from complain.

She had a cup of coffee, or, she did. Now only the dregs were left. The French press coffee was good. The leftover liquid coffee nuggets left in the mug afterward? Not so good.

A mascara fleck jumped into her eye from her dating anniversary makeup. She blinked her right eye slowly, deliberately. Didn’t work. She wanted to look nice tonight. Just to give him a reminder that she could get dressed up, decked out, get out, go out. Some days were better than others, but it had been two years, after all. That was pretty long by anyone’s standards, married or unmarried. Or divorced, I guess.

He bought her a ring. Not an engagement ring. It was a cameo ring. It was a one-size-fits-all, a mass-produced ring circa 1978. But it was definitely the thought that counted. She looked at it more closely a couple of hours later. It read “AVON” juxtaposed next to the tiniest copyright symbol she had ever seen. So it wasn’t one of a kind, she thought. But it is now, I guess. She still swore to wear it. She didn’t swear aloud, of course. This would require a witness. And an accountability to this swearing. This she did not need. She would wear it every time she wore gold, which was at least once a month.

He bought it because it matched her cameo earrings, affectionately named Julia and Athena, for the pale, white, Greek women placed inside the boundary of the deep orange ovals. They swung a lot when she walked, which she liked. Some of her earrings whistled when the wind blew through them. The metal was shaped just right. On a still day, she sprinted when no one was looking, so she could hear the earrings sing to her. They were the only things that sang to her. Singing to herself didn’t count. But those were the kinds of earrings she liked. Dangly, musical earrings that glimmered when sunbeams got caught in them. The kind that sang when the wind hugged their curves.

She would wear prisms in her ears if they weren’t so dang heavy.