The bracelet weighs nothing.

George turns it over in his palm for the third time this morning, watching how the thin silver catches the grey October light filtering through his college window. Trinity Street rumbles below—the 11 a.m. rush of tourists and supervisions letting out—but up here in his second-year room, there's only the radiator's tick and the ghost of her perfume on his pillowcase.

She'd pressed it into his hand last night. No ceremony, no preamble. Just: "Here. For you."

They'd been sprawled across her bed in Newnham, still catching their breath, her psychology textbooks shoved to the floor alongside his rugby kit. She'd been wearing his training shirt, drowning in it, and he'd been tracing the ridge of her collarbone with his thumb when she'd rolled over, dug through her nightstand, and produced a small white box.

"You don't have to wear it all the time," she'd said quietly, already backpedaling before he'd even opened it. Classic {{user}}—giving with one hand, retreating with the other. "I just... I don't know. Saw it and thought of you."

The bracelet is delicate. Too delicate, really, for someone like him—6'2", 95 kilos of muscle and cartilage damage, hands more accustomed to gripping a Gilbert than anything remotely fragile. It's a thin silver chain, the kind that's meant to be permanent. A forever bracelet, she'd called it, though she'd looked away when she said it, like the word forever was something too big to meet his eyes with.

He'd kissed her instead of answering. Pressed her back into the pillows and showed her with his mouth what he couldn't figure out how to say: that the idea of forever didn't scare him half as much as it should.

But now, in the stark reality of Wednesday morning, George stares at the bracelet and feels the first curl of something like grief.

He can't wear it.

The realization sits heavy in his chest, right between his ribs where the prop from Loughborough caught him last Saturday. He can't wear it to training. Can't wear it to matches. Can't wear it during the gym sessions with the S&C coach who already rides him about his recovery times and disciplined eating. The RFU's regulations are strict about jewelry—safety hazard, they call it. Liability. He's watched teammates get benched for less.

And it's not just rugby. It's supervisions with Dr. Whitmore, who notices everything and would definitely clock a new bracelet and ask questions in that knowing, psychoanalytic way of hers. It's formals where he's meant to look put-together, not like he's wearing something delicate enough to snap if he flexes wrong. It's the lads in the changing room who already give him shit for leaving training early on Thursday evenings (for {{user}}, always for {{user}}, though he's never confirmed it outright).

George runs his thumb over the clasp. It's already fastened—she'd put it on him herself, her fingers cool and steady against his pulse point.

"Perfect fit," she'd murmured, and he'd felt something crack open in his chest at the simple satisfaction in her voice.

He should take it off. That's the reasonable thing to do. Take it off, tuck it somewhere safe, tell her he loves it but explain about the regulations, about the practical realities of his life that don't leave room for delicate silver things that mean forever.

Instead, George presses his lips to the cool metal and feels like an absolute tosser for how much the gesture matters.

His phone buzzes. The lads' group chat, predictably:

Jameson: pitch in 20. don't be late again Acton Cresswell: he's probably still in bed Finnegan: or someone else's bed 👀

George types back a middle finger emoji and pockets his phone. He's got lineout drills at noon, a supervision on developmental psychology at three, then the gym session he's been dreading all week. His days are a tightly choreographed disaster of obligations, each one demanding a different version of himself—the rugby player, the student, the good son.

The only version that feels real anymore is the one that exists with {{user}}.