On Jakku, I was always more intrigued by the visitors—tourists, crashed pilots, damaged ships—than by the residents who surrounded me. I was particularly fascinated by the families: how the parents kept a watchful eye on their children, how they touched their child's arm protectively or patted a head in admiration. I wanted love so badly. I craved any sort of affection—a friendly touch, a kind word—but family is what I longed for most of all. "My family will come back," I repeated to myself daily, and to BB-8 when I first met him. Not just my mother; I wanted my whole family back.
When Finn arrived, drinking stale water out of a happabore trough like an idiot…well, my life changed. TIE Fighters showed up and Finn grabbed my hand, firmly but gently. Protectively. Not used to such a display, I told him to stop. But he took my hand. When we got blown to the ground by an explosion, he got up, ran to me, and straight away asked, "Are you all right?" I just stared blankly at him for a moment. He was more concerned with my well-being than with his own. It was a first for me. Nobody had ever asked me how I was. Nobody had ever cared if I was 'all right.' Finn did so, though—right in the middle of a First Order invasion. He took my hand twice.
Finn was kidnapped as a child, as I was, so we are both searching for belonging. That's probably why we bonded so tightly, so quickly. We escaped our childhood prisons at the same time—him from First Order service, me from Jakku—and joined the Resistance together. We found a new purpose in life. But we also have each other to lean on and to learn from. We both missed so much in our youths and always seem to be one step behind every joke, every nuanced reference to past events, every ordinary human interaction. We're really just beginners at any sort of relationship. Only together do we feel truly comfortable.
My feelings for Finn run deep. He's my new brother. I don't really remember having an actual brother, though Master Luke explained that I was indeed born with one. In adulthood, Ben is not proving to be a very good sibling. The first time I met him, he knocked me unconscious and kidnapped me. The second time, he tortured me, and the third, he attacked me with a lightsaber. Whilst we fought on Starkiller, he recognized me. I'm sure of that. He could have killed me; he didn't. He even said, in a moment of wonder, "It is you." And I saw with absolute clarity that he knew more about me than I knew of myself. So maybe I love Finn because I want to replace that fraternal bond I should have had with Ben. Unlike my traitorous, murderous brother, Finn is worthy of my love and trust. I can feel his affection for me, unwaveringly. He takes care of me, protects me, admires me, and I do the same for him.
And then there's Poe Dameron. I definitely do not see that man as a surrogate brother. When I first laid eyes on him, in D'Qar's hanger, I felt a spark in my heart, as if I had accidentally touched a live current. Startled by my own reaction, I didn't talk much to him then. A few stumbling words, then I darted away. After training with Master Luke and returning to the Resistance base, though, I screwed up enough courage to approach Poe. I couldn't avoid him forever; he's Finn's best friend. His presence in the Force is luminous, as verdant as the fragrant trees of Ahch-To and just as intoxicating. And somehow…somehow, he likes me. Everything about him is gentle, I suppose because he's aware how nervous I initially was with him. He speaks softly to me, mouth always curved up in a smile, and he touches me often but lightly. His brown eyes bore into me in a way that makes my insides flip over.
Poe was quick to find the two subjects I didn't mind discussing with him, or rather, the two subjects that didn't make me too nervous to find my words properly: flying ships and our friend Finn. For the first month, ships and Finn were almost all we talked about together. Whilst I had been practicing on my flight simulator on desert evenings, Poe was out flying real ships in real battles. He's a good storyteller, and can entertain Finn and me endlessly with anecdotes. But Finn doesn't care about ship specs and doesn't get joy out of piloting. That's something just Poe and I share, so that's what our first private conversations centered around.
It's funny how quickly I adapted to my new life and how quickly my focus changed. After just a few weeks 'home' with the Resistance, I had completely left my survival mode behind, and had, for the first time, shifted towards the pursuit of what I wanted rather than needed. What I wanted—to my surprise and even bewilderment—was Poe. My days may have been crammed with Jedi practice with Master Luke, flying lessons, lectures on history and politics, and building friendships, but my nights were quiet, empty, always sort of a void after such busy days. I had love from my mother and Finn, Luke and Chewie, and a bit of admiration from the Resistance pilots, but I still craved something deeper. It took me some time to figure out what, exactly. Not only time, but opportunity: a crash landing with Poe on an empty planet. We ended up taking refuge from a rainstorm in a tent, and the sight of him shirtless in a sleeping bag…it awoke something in me that had previously been dormant, and I just threw myself at him. I think it surprised me even more than it did Poe. Still, he knew what I was trying to do (which was good, since I actually had no idea what I was doing), and handled me with such gentle tenderness that I felt, and still feel, completely consecrated to him.
"Don't lose your heart too quickly, Brey," my mother warned me a week later.
Easier said than done. When I asked her if she'd had lots of boyfriends before my father, and if she'd fallen in love slowly and reasonably, she lifted her eyebrows and smiled lopsidedly, as she always does when thinking about her husband. "No, to both questions," she admitted. "I can't remember a time when I wasn't in love with Han. And there was very little in our relationship that was 'reasonable.' "
"Well, then," I said smugly, "case closed." I don't yet know if Poe Dameron is the love of my life, the partner I'll always have. But I must admit, I like the idea of my parents being meant for each other, destined to always be in love even when separated by distance or war or death. And I'd like that for myself as well.
My father is omnipresent, even though he's not physically here with us. My mother is still in love with him; I hear her sobbing in her room, mistakenly using the present tense when she talks about him, moaning his name in her sleep. I assume my brother also thinks of our father often, with pain and enormous regret, as he's the one who ran him through with a saber. I do hope Ben is tormented by nightmares of that act even more than my mother is. And I hope the knowledge of what he did just eats away at his soul, so that he eventually renounces the path of the Sith and returns to us. My uncle thinks that might happen; Ben was trying to complete his journey to the Dark Side through patricide, but perhaps the plan will backfire, and Ben's love for his father will instead shock him into coming back into the Light. Then my father's death would have had purpose.
Uncle Luke assures me that my father would have done anything for his children, including dying willingly. Han went to Starkiller Base with three goals, Master Luke says: to destroy the weapon that could murder millions, including his beloved wife; to rescue me from the First Order's imprisonment; and to bring Ben back into the fold. "He never failed at a mission," Luke said confidently, and therefore my father must have achieved all three goals. That's the only way that his death makes any sense to my uncle. He's wracked with guilt and grief about it, so he needs to put a positive spin on it, I suppose.
My father and uncle were best friends, with my mother the common link they shared. I like the symmetry of that. Finn, Poe and I are a similar trio with a similar bond. I always feel my strongest when I'm with the two of them, but I am terrified of what would happen to us if one of us were to die. Look at my mother and Master Luke, still mourning Han. They're like a Star Destroyer which has lost one of its three engines. Rudderless, careening in all directions. Demolished.
Love involves vulnerability, my mother reminds me whenever I bicker with Poe. That's a topic we argue about a lot: vulnerability. He wants me to open up to him more than I do, more than I'm capable of. It's just so hard for me to lower my shields. (Mother claims that both she and my father used to have the same problem. I doubt it.) Poe and I love each other, I'm certain of that. I also know that he would love me more deeply if I could just share more of my feelings and fears with him. But I hold back. What if he were to die? What would I do?
I put protective armor around my heart when I was five, and I'm loathe to remove it all. Now you understand why, don't you, Poe? I've been writing this all down for you, to explain my train of thought. I loved my family as a little girl, and I lost them. Then I trusted my captor-fathers, and they betrayed me. I didn't have a childhood like yours, with loads of affection and encouragement. I feel that now, but…I knew my father for just two days, and that was long enough for his death to rock me to my core. If I were to lose anyone else, I'm afraid of what it might do. What I might do. My grandfather lost his wife and his best friend, and look what happened to him. Ben lost his little sister and, because of that, our family's cohesion, and look what happened to him. My uncle and mother have come very close to falling to the Dark Side as well. All because they loved. The Jedi Order completely forbade love, and the Skywalker family is one big multi-generational example of the masters' reason for that ban. So I need to guard my heart, at least a little. Please be patient with me.
Love, Rey
