Behind The Curtain

"Picture a Goddess with a crown of gold lying in bed. She is going for her afternoon nap, but the sunlight keeps bothering her, and so she draws the curtains. You, Edy, are the curtains."

One foot forward, then a small shuffle backwards. A small sigh, followed by a yawn and a roll back of the shoulders. She will shake her head to knock the overthinking thoughts out, and then she will turn to reach for her coffee, which I've already pushed into place.

She will take a sip of the perfectly temperatured beverage, before placing it down and opening her door. A bright smile will pan across her face - not a fake one, because her day has gone perfectly. A scuff in the floor would have caught on her stiletto, if I hadn't already filled the gap last night. I also ordered her paperwork, and aligned all her pens, and replaced her newly dried sticky-notes.

The typical life of an assistant.

You wish. I batted the voice away, tipping my head down and following the boss with foosteps that could be compared to her shadow.

I could return to the present, now, because everything was in order.

She would ace her presentation, and her boyfriend - in four days, to become her fiance - would swing by at twelve o'clock for lunch. Then, she would file her paperwork all in time for the deadlines, she would go home and she would have time to relax and watch her favourite show and wear a face mask.

Perfection. Like the day before, and the day before that, and every day since I had been graced with her prescence.

"Edy, wait outside."

But I had already stopped the movement of my feet, stood like a soldier for the Queen with my palms pressed to my thighs.

The next day, she was off work. Her and her friends would go for margaritas at the type of bar where the glasses were rimmed with gold. I would sit in a corner seat, I would answer the questions asked and smile when prodded. She would glow like a beaming light, her hair bouncy and blow dried, her pinky raised as she sipped and laughed but not too loud - not unabashedly.

I would eventually fade back into my shadow as she shined - and I would glance at her over the rim of my own margarita with a small smile, no larger than hers.

The following morning, I would place a paracetamol and freshly squeezed orange juice on her bedside table before she woke. She would surprise me by coming downstairs and finding me in the kitchen, "Thankyou, Edy." She would say.

Don't you get tired of this? I swat it away.

In the office that afternoon, she would return to work with a stack of new challenges to battle. She would lay them out and tackle them all with my voice in her ear, a helping hand when needed and - occasionally - a silent comfort.

She would then find herself dozing off, a pillow slipping under her head as she pressed it against the harsh wood of her desk. Her hair would be stroked and her back would be painless from posture, and she would find herself in a sleep filled with wonderful dreams of all she could become if she just kept pushing.

It was in these types of moments, when she would be asleep, that my mind would drift. A quiet lull, like I too was sleeping, except my eyes were wide open. I would ponder where she would be in five years, but I already knew. I would wonder if she ever dreamt of me, but I knew she did not. Could not.

Do you ever wish she remembered?

Sometimes. I answered.

He would bend down on one knee in front of a blossom tree, and the petals would cassade downwards and one would land in her hair. He would pick it out, a grin on his face. She would laugh, one hand covering her mouth, tears in her eyes but only the happy kind - and she would shout yes as the rainfall of nature fell around them.

And I would stand to the right of the blossom tree within his line of sight, but never seen.

"Edy!" She would say, "Edy, I'm engaged! Did you know?"

And then he would sigh, he would watch her with pitiful eyes. But then he would remember how much he loved her and would whisk her away from her shadow, until her formerly scrambled brain would forget Edy, and she would smile right back at him.

What if, for once, she stayed?

But then, how would I make her happy?

Maybe it wouldn't have to be your responsibility. She could make herself happy.

After their honeymoon, she would be sat in the garden of their manor with a bottle of prosecco. She would be next to me on the swingset they'd had built for the baby on the way, and she would look at me the way she sometimes did. Her eyes squinted, her brow furrowed. And I would copy her expression.

"You know everything, right, Edy?"

I was surprised. She had never asked me that before.

"I do." I responded.

"Will my life always be this..." She trailed off. Whisking her bottle in the air like she needed to find the word. "Perfect?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you deserve it."

She thinned her lips. She was drunker than I realised, "But what about you?"

She's remembering, Edy.

"I will be as I always am. Two steps behind you, three steps in front of you."

I did not know she was about to pass out until she did. She smacked her head on the floor, she burst her lip and had a nasty bruise.

The morning after, I forgot to place her paracetamol down. She went to work with a hangover, clutching onto her head and forgetting her paperwork. She had a meeting. She stopped outside, turned to me and asked me to come inside with her. I did not know what to do.

I sat in the seat next to her. She did terribly. No matter what I whispered, no matter how many times I was a silent comfort - she messed it all up.

Something is wrong.

I warned you.

This wasn't supposed to happen. She was supposed to have a perfect life!

She already had a life, Edy. It was adequate.

But my life was amazing.

Do you regret doing what you did?

I pushed the voice away.

It would be a week after that when my very own deadline would cut across. I would be walking behind her with the tips of my toes touching the heels of her feet. She would be walking the same road I had seen in my memories a hundred times. She would forget to look both ways, and a car would come speeding down the asphalt.

I remember the smell of the burning fuel, how it felt as my feet pounded against the ground, and as my hands propelled forwards and shoved her out the way. Letting the car take me instead.

It had been a life for a life. A decision I would make based entirely off of impulse. Off of the small, fleeting thought in my mind that said - you lived a good life. What if she has not lived at all?

And then I would arrive where this all started, when she was born, and I would try to make every part of her life perfect.

I would try to create a timeline in which I never died to save her. Where she never needed saving in the first place.

And whenever I would hear my own voice in my head, questioning if I was doing what was truly right, I would repeat to myself what I said my very first attempt.

I am not the sun, I am not the Goddess sitting on the couch, I am the curtains.

The thing that blocks but never recieves, but will always wish they did.

What are you going to do now?

I will try again.

It would be years later. She would be cradling her second-born in her arms, a little girl with a button nose and a penchant for sleeping through the whole night. Her husband would have their first-born - a boy - on his shoulders, and they would be sitting in a park. She would smile so wide that it hurt, but the good kind of hurt.

And then she would glance at me from where I sat on the swingset, and then to her husband.

"How did I get so lucky?" She would say, and then they would both laugh.

And then I snapped my fingers, and tried again.