She tried taking it off.

It came off a lot easier than she had expected. After 12 years, she thought it might have carved itself into her finger. But it was easy. Painless. She wondered whether it would be, if she took it off and left it for good. Would it start to hurt, then?

She looked at her finger, all ten fingers, her hands. They could remain like this now. Ringless. It felt light, but she wasn’t sure yet, if it felt right.

Underneath the ring, her finger was slender. Still beautiful. It carried the marks of 12 years of confinement, but its beauty had remained intact. Piano player fingers, as her mother had once called them. If only she’d got piano lessons then. Things might be different now.

But now was all that there was, and this was the truth that she was to live.

So she put the ring back on, hoping there was still happiness to be found in its bond.

Photo by Shelby Deeter on Unsplash