Roboprom Part 7: The Ring; The End

This is the last part. By this point in the story, I'm sitting with the girl on a couch. I was planning to attend college north of where I'd grown up, which was especially far from the girl. We would part ways this night, and neither of us wanted to.

We'd just kissed, and were in the final minutes of being together. I gave her a bunch of letters I'd written over the days of the trip, and we cuddled in the hotel lobby until the moment began to tear up a little in the seams. She walked me to a door, and said she had to go. Our hands were tangled, and I felt an inorganic tickle fall into my hand. I thought it was my guitar pick. She looked me right to the core and said
"I promise I'll see you again."

We held eye contact until the door closed, and I looked in my hand and saw a ring.
I wore the ring like some backwards Frodo Baggins through the Summer. I had it hung on a chain that eventually broke and was replaced. She and I kept writing more and more meaningful letters until I made the decision to attend school where she lived. She was excited at first, then we grew increasingly distant until the day I arrived in her town where I'd never been.

Once I was admitted into my college dorm, I wound up on a stage where I told this whole story to everyone in the audience. The host, an expert on the subject of dating, said that the girl probably had a boyfriend. I didn't believe the host. I went to my dorm and set up a date with the girl. She left me a message later that night saying she had a boyfriend and couldn't meet me.

I wrote her a letter, my feeble parting words along with the ring, and went on.

I turned her into literature. This act was inspired by a line from [500] Days of Summer, if you've ever seen it. There was a lot of emotion around the RoboProm girl, and I'm glad every day that I sat by her at the robotics stadium all those days ago. Walt Whitman has some really good words on my last sentiment of the RoboProm story, so I'll leave you in his tender care. Good night and hopeful days to all who have read this.

"Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn'd love,
But now I think there is no unreturn'd love, the pay is certain one way or another,
(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not returnt'd,
Yet out of that I have written these songs.)"
-Walt Whitman