The Bracelet

"You dropped something," he had said, reaching his hand into her pocket. She felt that same weakness spread through her body stemming from where his hand had brushed her hip through her coat pocket. What had she dropped? She softly picked her way through the kitchen to the chair she had thrown her coat over when she had gotten home, and slowly reached into the pocket, not wanting the rustling of the material to wake Jerry, asleep on the couch.
It was a bracelet.
And it wasn't hers.
It probably belonged to one of the other girls, but none of them had said anything about missing a bracelet.
She shook it, rubbing dirt off the charms as gently as she could. It was a thin chain, for a charm bracelet, and the charms seemed tiny themselves, delicate. There were five of them: a baby shoe with "1997" inscribed on the sole, a heart with a clear stone, a butterfly with both clear and blue stones in it's tiny wings, a couple of music notes with clear gemstones in the note parts, and something that looked like a book. "To JC from CW" was inscribed on the tiny cover, like the title of the tiny little novel. That was the biggest charm everything else was very tiny.
It didn't seem like something that would belong to Tasha or Ginger.
For a second she thought it might be a gift to her from Jesse, but them she remembered the initials on the book. She was not JC and he was definitely not CW. Whoever those people were.
This belonged to someone else.
She took it to the bathroom and dipped it in a cup of water. SHe was afraid she might rust it, but she was trying to get more of the dirt off. Whoever had lost it had lost it a while ago she guessed. They might not be looking for it. At least not anymore. It was surprising, actually, that something so tarnished and caked with dirt would be so... complete. The inscriptions were legible. The stones were still there - none had fallen out. They were tiny, tiny little stones - more fragments, than actual stones. But still. You could tell what they were
She looped it around her wrist and fastened it. The clasp worked with no problem. She was actually able to fasten it the first try, which was more than she could say for anything else with those little clasps.
The bracelet was warm from the water, and made her wrist seem graceful. She glanced into the bathroom mirror, half expecting to see a willowy, perfect-hair person staring back. But it was still her, hair frizzed out, eyes startled and a little bit poofy from crying and lack of sleep.
"I am not going to be with Jesse," she whispered to herself. She knew it was true, and she was, surpisingly, OK with it. The bracelet was light and tickly on the back of her hand and she brushed her hair back from her face and smiled.