This Time of Year
Characters are not mine, but the story is, or at least my take on it.
Spoilers: up to Commencement.
He hates this time of year.
Hates the reminders that blossoming trees and documentaries bring.
The way they bring it all to the forefront.
The way it brings him to it.
And maybe that is the problem.
For most of the year he was a faceless footnote to history.
The blurred image in the background or man who had been cropped from the picture.
But never this time of year.
This time he became the man who was shot at but who wasn't hit.
The man who almost got her killed.
Yet, some said he had been the safer choice.
He had understood the dangers that surrounded her and helped to make sure that she took the necessary precautions.
But he hadn't.
He, who the men who shot at them would say was better for her just because of the color of his skin, didn't care.
His habits were more important than her life and those of the people who were assigned to protect her.
One gave her life that night.
Just as she had. . .
And now he was forced to remember.
To see her life torn apart in the way that she had wanted to avoid.
The picture shown always the same.
Her in a cap and gown clapping at her father's words.
The last of her living 'photo ops.'
She had wanted privacy and had chosen him.
She'd dreamed of finding peace with him in France.
He'd wanted a high.
The deal had gone bad.
She'd been taken.
She'd been found: dead.
He lived never showing guilt as he went back to his country, leaving all of those who had loved her shattered.
Wondering about how things could've been different.
Wondering if she had found the peace she had so desperately wanted.
And that was what he hated the most.
The reminder that she couldn't even now.
There were the documentaries.
The moments of remembrance.
The pundits using her as a martyr.
The dissection of her life and romances.
Never peace.
Not for her.
Not for him.
He hates this time of year.
He hates the reminders that blossoming trees and memories he'd rather forget bring. . .