Theme Fifty-Two: Side by Side
In addition to being his confidant, Riza Hawkeye was also his shadow. She was the strong, protective charm that hovered over him like the sweetest prayer; walking just a step behind him to make sure his back was safe. To fulfill a promise, he always thought. They had made a pact, that day, and it had been honored.
(The sun shone, filtered through the streaks on the window behind him as the light spilled on the floor and on her figure in front of the desk, somehow taller and older than when he had last seen her. She brought her hand to her forehead naturally, as if she had been doing it all her life. And he knew, right then, what he had to do, and in the back of his mind he had always known.)
When he was home alone, or when he found his office strangely empty (for it hadn't always been like this, had it?), he felt as if he was bare. Uncovered to the world, and he was afraid.
(He remembered how warm he had felt when they were children, when he walked by her side on the way to the corner store, or when they went down to the hill while she read books and he skipped stones and the feeling he got while he loomed over her was fairly empowering.)
But the positions had changed since then. Now she was the one looming, and he knew what it felt like to be the protected one.
(But there was a big difference, a huge difference, he had been at her side when they were small; now she's always an arm's reach away right behind him and that length is far too much for his comfort.)
There was nothing he could do at this point. They had become stuck in their pattern, him leading the way, her following just that far behind him, echoing his movements like a mother who was so sure her child would get in trouble that she had taken to following him wherever he went. And it pained him to have her at that distance, because the farther away she was the more exposed he became.
(Perhaps one day, after their promise has been fulfilled and her role changes once again they can break the chain of inequality and she can walk proudly by his side, instead of behind him.)
