Page 98 of Offside

I stood at the front desk and stared at it for a moment.

“Good delivery?” the receptionist asked, not looking up from her computer.

“I don’t know yet,” I said.

I took it upstairs.

The card first. Four words in his handwriting. Don’t work too hard. And below that, in Swedish, two words. Alltid din.

I set the card down. Opened the box.

Inside, nested in tissue paper, was a thin gold bracelet. Delicate, simple, the type of jewelry I could wear every day and forget I had on until someone asked about it. I turned it over and found the engraving on the inside of the band. Alltid din. The same two words pressed into the gold in small clean letters.

I sat down in my office chair.

Alltid din.

I pulled up my phone and typed it into the translation app carefully, letter by letter.

Always yours.

I put my phone down on the desk and turned the bracelet in my palm for a long time. It was delicate and serious at once. Not jewelry designed to be noticed, just a thin gold band with two words on the inside where only I would see them. Something I could wear every day until I forgot it was there.

He’d thought about the details. He’d thought about what I would want, what would suit me, what I’d still be wearing in five years. He’d thought about me.

Josh had never done anything thoughtful that was just for me. Everything was performative. The differences were striking and I wondered if maybe I had to have that shitty relationship to be able to recognize and accept the thoughtfulness of someone like Ryan.

I turned the bracelet for another long moment. Then I put it on, turned my wrist in the light once, and went back to work. Or tried to. I mostly sat there with my hand on the desk where I could see it and thought about a man in Calgary who had apparently decided to destroy me from two thousand miles away.

He texted me at seven.

Ryan: Did you get the package?

Maren: You should have warned me

Ryan: Where’s the fun in that?

Maren: I’m at my desk and the front desk definitely saw my face

Ryan: What about your beautiful face, solsken

Maren: I had on the face a person makes when they open a gift they weren’t expecting

Ryan: Good face or bad face

I turned the bracelet on my wrist. The gold caught the light from my desk lamp, warm and quiet and already feeling like it had always been there.

Maren: Good face. Really good face.

Ryan: Good

Maren: Alltid Din

Ryan: You looked it up

Maren: Obviously I looked it up. What does jag saknar dig redan mean?

Ryan: Look it up