101 Writing Prompts

#18. Glitz and Glamor

Prompt: A girl's top five suitable matches have to buy her a ring they think represents her the most. On her eighteenth birthday she is presented with the box and told to choose a ring. She must marry the man who bought that ring.

Charlie didn't care about rings, not really, or at least that's what she told herself.

But she found herself gravitating towards her mom as her eighteenth birthday approached, staring at the single ring on her finger, a thin band with a clear heart-shaped diamond set in the gold, twinkling like a winking star. Mom wasn't stupid, she knew what Charlie was thinking about, and one night before bed she sat down on the edge of Charlie's bed and smoothed back the blankets.

"Are you worried about the rings?" She asked, and Charlie forced her eyes away from her mother's single band.

"Um... No." She didn't know why she was lying, maybe because it was a stupid thing to worry about. Still, what if some complete douchebag bought the ring she chose, and she had to marry him? She shuddered, feeling goosebumps run up and down her arms.

"I know it's scary." Mom said, and Charlie tried to ignore her condescending tone.

"Yeah, but what if I have to marry a total loser? Or someone I hate? A ring, what kind of dumb choice is that?"

Mom cocked her head to the side, her chestnut curls spilling over her shoulder. "Some people choose to marry someone else, besides the whole ring business. Would you prefer that?"

No way, Charlie thought. To be the only person in college without a ring would be an utter embarrassment, she'd be a social outcast. Besides, no one married without the 'whole ring business.' It was a way of life, just the way things were. She couldn't escape that.

Why, though?

"Is there anyone you have in mind? Some couples tell each other the rings they'll choose. Of course, it's illegal, but you're so pretty, surely you have a few boys chasing after you."

Charlie rolled her eyes. Like every mom ever hadn't told their daughters how nice they looked. No points for originality there. She had seen couples describing their rings to each other, though, and some bought purposefully gaudy ones to stick out in the selection. You'd have to wear that ring for the rest of your life, and high school flings surely wouldn't last much longer than a few years, so Charlie thought the whole idea was kind of stupid.

"No, Mom. I don't have anyone in mind."

Her mother sighed and smoothed the blankets again. "When I chose your father's ring, we didn't have any of the new-fangled platinum bands or anything like you do now. Just a simple ring with a heart. The other rings were clustered with huge stones shaped like flowers or my initials, loud and flashy, but when I saw that one ring I knew the one I wanted."

Of course Mom has the simple choice. With my luck I'll have five rings that look exactly the same.

The stories at school were running rampant, of course, since a lot of the students had early winter birthdays.

"Did you hear Tallulah got a homeless man for her match? Poor girl just about fainted."

"I saw this shop where you can get your ring engraved so you know your match! There's a protein in the gold that shields the engraving from suspicion."

"Gold doesn't have proteins, idiot!"

"And then when she saw the ring she knew she would forevermore be bonded to the young prince."

"What if this guy has been raised in complete isolation, how do they know who his match will be?"

"The match-making people will figure it out. Don't ask me."