"No, Mom." Ben plugs his earphones into his ears, and she rolls her eyes and yanks them out. "Hey!"
She glares at him, hands clenched around the steering wheel. "Ben, for pity's sake, can't you listen to me for the five minutes it takes me to drive you to school?"
"Threepio can drive me. You don't have to bother."
"Ben! It's not a bother at all." Mom breathes in, blows her breath out, all very controlled, all very unlike Ben. "I'm scared for you."
"Don't be." Please help me, please help me.
"And I think a therapist would help you—your father and I plan on seeing one—"
"I don't want to talk to some random stranger about my feelings," Ben sneers. I want to talk to you.
But he can't. He'll never be able to explain to her what he did.
"But if you would just give it a try, just one session—"
"No."
"Then you won't be studying with Snoke anymore!" she barks. "Go to one session, and I'll let you continue."
This is a way out, Ben realizes.
Does he want to take it?
He plugs his earphones back in. "I'm not going." And because he can't let her win: "And I'm still going to go to Snoke's."
"Maybe I won't let you have your car back when it's fixed."
Ben turns up his music. It's an empty threat. He hopes. His heart pounds regardless. If he stops going to sessions with Snoke, he might fail. He'll be a failure. I'm nothing without him. And if he doesn't go, Snoke could reveal what Ben did. Given the theater building, Ben wouldn't put it past Snoke to figure out some way to make it seem like Ben had lit all the fires, alibi or not.
Snoke can drive him to lessons after school, and Ben can walk on weekends.
"When is Dad getting out of jail?" Ben asks to distract her. The pounding guitars and drums and screaming rage through his ears.
Mom's face pales as her fingers grip the steering wheel. "Hopefully later this week. The charges might stick, though."
Ben pinches his arm.
"What happened to your car?" jeers Hux as Ben walks by, head hung low.
"Knock it off," Rey says, slamming her locker shut.
"Shut up, little Jakku slut," Hux returns.
Rey rolls her eyes, even as she pretends she doesn't see Unkar where Hux stands. "A misogynist as well as a homophobe. Aren't you lucky, Phasma."
Phasma's face turns red. "He's not—"
Rey saunters by without listening. She does notice Ben smirk, though.
In English, as Mr. Nunb expounds on Raskolnikov and his inner despair about whether or not to confess, Rey gives Ben a not-so-subtle glare. He looks away from her, chewing his lip.
She also notices Snap Wexley and Poe putting their heads together and murmuring. Finn scowls, looking almost jealous.
During PE, which is spent running the hallways since the gymnasium's been burned and the athletic field is soaking in melting snow, Rey trips and falls onto the tiles, gasping as her knee smacks into a locker.
"Oops," Phasma says innocently.
"You okay?" Ben offers her a hand.
She grips it and lefts him pull her upright. "You didn't get out of PE on account of your stitches?"
"I like the exercise." He wears the same shirt he wears for every PE class: black and tight, it covers him from his neck down to his wrists. In spite of herself, Rey finds her eyes moving to his abs all of which are visible even through the shirt. He's shredded.
He's a monster.
Can monsters be scared? Or kind?
The bell rings and Rey pushes past him, heading to the bathrooms to change and make her way to lunch.
"She said yes!" whoops Snap as Rey sits down.
"Um, what?" Rey asks.
"Jess!" Snap grabs her hand and raises it high. Rey half expects to see a ring sparkling on Jess's finger and is relieved when she doesn't. "She's going to prom with me!"
Jess rolls her eyes. "He's pretty excited."
Poe crosses his arms and grins. "Told you she'd say yes."
"Oh." Finn sighs.
"I guess I shouldn't be shocked," taunts Hux as he carries a tray. "Although I must say that I truly thought Jessika here was a d—"
"That's it, Hux!" intervenes Mr. Ackbar as he closes in on their table. "To the office. With me. Now. What did I tell you about the next time I heard you using language like that?"
Hux's face is priceless. His lips quiver and rise in a snarl. His eyes bulge, and yet even he seems aware that he can't say anything.
"Good riddance," Poe says as Mr. Ackbar leads him away.
Hux reappears in class after lunch, arms folded across him and a scowl deep in his cheeks. He glowers at Poe especially. Phasma doesn't look any kinder.
Shit.
The hair on the back of Rey's neck stands up as she remembers Poe and Finn's story from the night they'd all met, with the knife. She knows it's probably irrational, but she ducks into the bathroom between chemistry—which is now solely boring lectures—and study hall.
When she hears the bell ring, Rey slips out and darts into the classroom.
"Late," moans Mr. Statura.
Like he cares. Rey shakes her head and drops down in the chair next to Ben's. It's a change from yesterday, when she sat on the opposite end of the classroom.
He doesn't look at her.
"So," Rey says. "What's Phasma and Hux's big murder plan for me and the rest of us? You will warn me, right?"
Ben turns to her. "I'm not talking with Hux or Phasma. Not lately."
Rey leans against her hand. "Why were you ever friends with them?"
"Because… they like the same music as me. They find preppy kids annoying, too, because those kids are just trying to get everyone's favor regardless of what it costs them in terms of their potential. They—" Ben stops and shrugs.
Rey wrinkles her nose. "Aren't you trying to get everyone's favor with your potential?"
He looks down at his black notebook. "With. It's more… honorable."
What is he, fucking Mr. Darcy? "How's your shoulder feeling, really?" Rey queries.
Ben snorts. "I can't decide whether you hate me or whether you care about me. Maybe you don't even know."
She doesn't. Rey twirls a tendril of hair around her finger. "I don't know," she admits. "Both, I guess."
"So regarding me, your mind is split. I'll just call you Raskolnikov, then."
"Does that make you Razhumikhin? Because frankly I think a name meaning 'reason' better suits me," Rey shoots back.
He narrows his eyes.
"So how is your shoulder?"
He smiles, and it's the happiest Rey's ever seen him look. "It's honestly fine."
"And your arm?"
The happiness flees. He swallows. "Rey—"
"Look, I'll just come clean with you," Rey interrupted. "I went to see your mother last night. I asked her to get you into therapy, because you need it. Finn's been going, and it's helping him, or so he says."
Ben clenches his fists. "What else did you tell her?"
"Nothing."
"Why not?" He traces the edges of his notebook, rubbing his fingertips against the sharp corners.
Rey shrugs. "I think you need help, Ben. And I guess—I mean, I guess I still—I'm still pissed at you. But I care about you. I don't want to see you so—I mean, you don't deserve to bleed."
He swallows, and when he speaks, his voice is husky. "Yes, I do."
"No," Rey says, gripping his left arm, her voice pleading. "You don't."
He blinks and studies his notebook. "You—you just need a chemistry tutor."
"Hey, I bested you on that exam!"
"You still need one, don't you?"
"Yeah," she admits. "You actually helped a lot. You, and Luke both."
Ben grins. "Come here." He pulls her notebook closer, and Rey listens to him.
When the bell rings, she smiles. "I'll text you."
"Really?" His eyes light up.
"Pictures of Artoo." She winks.
"You're just as bad as Poe."
Rey shrugs. "If you'd rather I didn't—"
He laughs. "No—please."
Ben watches her go.
You don't deserve to bleed.
She said that to him even knowing what he's done to his father.
Pain is a part of growing, Snoke always says.
Maybe just not so much of it, Ben thinks as he stuffs his notebook away and heads towards his locker, and then for the office, where he'll do his homework until Snoke drives him to their lessons.
Ben pushes the office door open and halts when he hears an irate voice.
"I told you not to cause so many problems!"
A slim man, balding, sits next to Hux on the bench. He looks exactly as Ben pictures Hux will look in thirty years—face sunken, skin blotchy, eyes reddened from a perpetual scowl.
"All you do is create drama," Brendol Hux snarls at his son. "When I was your age, I was respectful. I was polite. I listened to my elders!"
"Dad—"
"You're a disappointment. Nothing more."
Ben flinches. You're a disappointment, nothing more—those are the phrases Ben's spent his entire life fleeing from. Those are the words he knows are true in regards to his own father's opinion of him, if only the truth were known.
"You!" Hux leaps to his feet, noticing Ben. "You prick!"
"I have a meeting with Snoke!"
"So do I!"
"Yes," sneers Brendol Hux. "Because you were foolish and are facing detention. He's simply got a tutoring session."
Hux slinks back into his seat, face flaming. Ben takes a seat opposite the father and son, wishing he could make himself smaller. But that's never going to happen.
And he thinks he understands that Rey's joke earlier might not have been a joke. Hux glares at him, eyes glinting and jaw set so tight his chin trembles.
Luke picks Finn up from his therapy appointment with Finn still wrestling with himself. He doesn't understand why he felt such jealousy when he saw Poe and Snap so close together this morning, or why he felt so relieved when he found out Poe had just been encouraging Snap to ask Jessika to prom.
"Maybe it's just because I'm excited at the thought that somebody likes me," Finn has said to the therapist. To his knowledge, no one has before.
Or, there's the other possibility that he has feelings for Poe. Finn's always had minor crushes on girls, even on Rey, before. Never on a guy.
Maybe it's just me being selfish, wanting somebody's attention all to myself.
Why would that be selfish? his therapist countered.
Because... I'm not likeable?
Why not?
"Anything on Han?" Finn asks hopefully, to distract himself.
Luke groans. "Not yet. The prosecutor is determined to have someone to blame and is fighting the good fight to keep Han behind bars. He goes before a judge Friday afternoon, though."
Finn exhales. He feels Luke glance at him, but knows better than to bring up their theory again. Even if Finn's fairly certain it's not just a theory, and he suspects Luke might be more inclined to believe it than he let on.
Luke pulls into the driveway and Finn bounds into the house, Artoo following him into his room, where he ditches his backpack and shrugs out of Poe's jacket. Finn smiles to himself.
"Finn, can you give us a hand?" Rey calls from the kitchen.
Finn enters and Luke points to a cucumber, a container of cherry tomatoes, and a head of lettuce. "Can you make a salad?"
"We'll find out," Finn jokes. Rey snorts.
"So," Luke says. "Are either of you going to prom?"
"It's still weeks away," Rey says. "We'll see."
"You could go together," Luke suggests.
Rey and Finn glance at one other, both shuddering. "No," they both answer.
"I probably won't go," Rey admits. "That's not really my thing. Dancing, dressing up."
Luke shrugs as he lights the gas stove. "It's up to you."
"I might go," Finn announces, peeling the skin from cucumber. His heart beats faster as he pushes the words out of his mouth: "I might ask Poe."
"You should!" Rey exclaims, and Finn breathes deeply.
"He's a nice kid," Luke agrees.
"I like him," Finn says. "Like, maybe more than as a friend." He holds his breath.
"Cool," Luke says, and Finn meets his eyes. Luke grins at him, fully accepting.
"I bet he'd love to go with you," Rey adds slyly as she chops an onion.
Finn tosses a green string of cucumber skin at her, and she shrieks and throws back a bit of onion. A cherry tomato smacks the back of Finn's neck, and Luke whistles and looks about as if to say I don't know where that came from.
"Oh," Rey teases. "You too, huh?" She throws another piece of onion.
"Wait, we still have to eat tonight!" Luke cries, even as he tosses two more tomatoes.
Thanks to everyone for reading! Tomorrow will be a "breakthrough" chapter... for Ben, Rey, Finn, and Poe.