I had all and then most of you
Some and now none of you
Take me back to the night we met
I don't know what I'm supposed to do
Haunted by the ghost of you
Oh, take me back to the night we met
- Night We Met, Lord Huron
She remembers their first meeting as if she was a spectator, not an actress in this scene. This vision alternates between keeping her up at night and creeping into her dreams, blurring the line between reality and wishful thinking.
Sometimes she's not even sure if it truly happened or if it was just a byproduct of her idle imagination after reading too many romance novels from her mother's bookshelf.
But no; not it was real, he was real and she holds on to this thought with all the strength left in her. It's not possible something as vivid could be a mirage.
She paints it all in her head; the moonlit streets, cobblestones wet and shiny, the soft light of the lamppost. A few people rushing through the pavement, hidden underneath umbrellas and coats held over their heads in fruitless attempt to shield from the oppressive sheet of rain. A blonde girl passing them by, the clicking of her heels drowned by the sound of running water. A once meticulously curled hair is hanging in the sad, damp strands around her round face and her hat is a little crooked.
She is thinking about everything and not anything particular and, as she stops to cross the street, the camera switches to slow motion to capture how she carelessly takes a sloppy step and slips on the puddle of murky rainwater. Stop, close-up. One of her legs shooting up, the second bending in the knee and giving in underneath her weight. Hands waving, umbrella escaping from the grip of her fingers to go flying in the air. Surprise painted all over her face, round eyes, round "o" of her mouth.
And then, when we expect to see her wet and miserable, a savior appears. Seemingly out of nowhere, a pair of arms wraps around girls waist, steadying her. The umbrella lands on the pavement.
And now you see it; a movie poster. A shot out of a black-and-white classical romance. A cover of a trashy, paperback novel for old, bored women.
A pair is standing underneath a gas lamppost; he wears a military uniform, she has a modest black dress which somehow hiked up during the whole affair and now shows off the graceful lines of her calves. He stands firmly, holding her close while she is still wobbly on her feet, both of her hands flat on his chest to regain some balance.
Their eyes locked, their lips parted.
Tell me, please.- thinks Riza to herself, rubbing her temples. How else could this story end with a beginning like that?
"I am so, so sorry miss, please forgive me." The man apologizes to her. He seems slightly dazed. They are still standing in the same position and her umbrella is still laying on the pavement next to her feet so the rain pours down mercilessly, so she has to blink rapidly to see his face through the curtain of her wet lashes. What she manages to notice is a mop of black hair, a fringe plastered to his forehead. Is how strong his arms feel, keeping her up like that and how toned his chest is, if she can feel the muscles shifting under his white shirt and blue uniform jacket.
Oh, jacket. A soldier.
"Please, don't apologize. Thank you for your half, uhm, private?" she wonders why won't he let go of her. She wonders why won't she just step out of his embrace. But somehow, it feels as if they were to magnets affecting each other, keeping them close and not letting them let go.
"A cadet, actually." He smiles, a little sheepishly from what she can see. " Roy Mustang, at your service, miss- ?"
"Riza Hawkeye." Her voice seems so distant in her own ears. Like a ringing on the church bells on another street.
His smile grows wider. He gently lets go of her and for a moment a sharp, strange pang of disappointment reverberates through her body, before he reaches down to take her gloved-hand in his and press a chaste kiss to her knuckles; the one that she feels through the leather and through skin, the warmth of this kiss spreading on her flesh.
"Miss Riza Hawkeye." He repeats slowly, as if he was tasting those words in his mouth. " What a beautiful name."
From anyone else, this would sound insincere and faux-suave. Cocky. Fake.
He just sounds honest.
Riza watches her face in the mirror, trying to find some resemblance to the woman she once knew in her reflection. Who is she, this person all in black, a veil pinned to her hat, eyes hooded? Why is she so pale, so tight-lipped?
Her hands are trembling. Her wedding ring makes a weird sound when it's tapping on the wood of the vanity. Puk-puk-pukpukpukpukpuk.
She tries to imagine gas lamppost and rain. She tries to imagine blue hydrangeas and the material of her wedding dress tight on her baby bump. She tries to imagine Roy sipping a coffee on the opposite side of the table, his hair slowly drying and getting frizzy, his husky voice and deep-bellied laughter. She tries to imagine Roy getting pearl pins from her hair and kissing the nape of her neck tenderly, tries to feel his hand slipping in between her tights again, tries to visualize being stripped again, caressed again, loved again.
It's raining today, and it feels as fitting as terrible.
A girl and a boy standing underneath a lamppost, caught in a moment of unexpected vulnerability, a spark between them that defeated the cold.
I love you, she thinks, I still love you, our story ended and nobody cares for it and I still love you.
Yet another soldier killed in the unnecessary, pointless, stupid, STUPID war, yet another military widow, yet another heartbroken. The smell of rain and hydrangea, just a few sweet nights, too little love, too much blood splattered on her wedding photography that he was keeping in his breast pocket when he lived and that they send her after he died.
"Shot straight on the back of his head," they told her.
"He didn't suffer," they told her as if it mattered and she kept on wondering " Why nobody was watching his back? Why there was no sniper in the nest to prevent situations like this?"
All this blood splattered on her wedding photo, all this blood splattered on the bathroom tiles when she found out, the last part of him flowing out of her to join him wherever he went. Roy died in Ishval without ever seeing his baby and his baby died inside her. Maybe her broken heart killed it.
She wants to weep, when she thinks about it.
Her wedding ring taps on the wood as her hands tremble, pukpukpukpukpukpuk. The sound echoes in the empty apartment, despite the downpour outside. The black dress is a bit too small for her, stretching on her hips and breasts.
She imagines the night they met, this dream-esque, storybook beginning, not to people but two strangers, two silhouettes captured on black and white tape. She just wants to go back to that, that's the only thing she wants.