Author's Notes…
I know I normally update quicker, you guys, but it's been hellish on my end here lately. But here we go!
Falling for the Enemy
Chapter Twenty-Five
Her Happiness
Tick, tock.
"Because I don't like it."
Mr. Johnson frowned at Rey, setting his notes aside and clasping his hands over his crossed knee. "Don't like what, precisely?"
Tick, tock.
Rey sighed. "I feel—I feel like he's pushing me, and it's… it's… Something isn't right lately."
"What isn't right?"
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
"Rey?"
"My anxiety is different now. It's—"
"Heightened?"
"I get—pushed out of my body," Rey said. "It's so uncomfortable. I feel like I'm trapped in my skin… I can hear myself talking, crying, laughing. But it's not me. I'm just observing. Like I've gone into another dimension or something." She looked at her therapist with desperation.
Mr. Johnson hummed. "Has anything changed lately?"
"Everything has changed," Rey replied. "Father can't stand that I've chosen to do something other than what he wants from me. And—there's Poe. Poe isn't—he doesn't understand that I don't—" She sighed again, with more frustration behind it, and shut her eyes. She leaned back onto the comfortable couch she was resting on.
"Is it his fame?" Mr. Johnson's voice was its usual—soft, probing.
"No!" Rey said. "I wish that were the problem, it would make things so much easier. But why am I feeling like this? Why do I have that… out-of-body sensation?"
He inhaled, considering his words.
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
"Are you still having your mini panic attacks?" he asked.
"It's like—this has replaced those," Rey replied.
"Have you smoked cannabis—done any sorts of drugs? You know your answer is safe here."
"No," Rey replied.
Mr. Johnson took her at her word. "As we know, you have many emotional issues, abandonment primarily among them. With your anxiety increasing, it seems to me that your mind is trying to protect you."
"Protect me?"
"Yes."
Tick, tock.
"…What does that mean?"
"It means that your body and your mind become so stressed with anxiety, that in the moment where you would have had a panic attack, your mind pushes you out of your body because it's too much for you to handle."
Rey took stock of that, her mind drifting on the implications.
Tick, tock.
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"What you're describing is known as depersonalization. It's a disorder for some, but I think in this case that it's a symptom. I'll be frank, Rey—I'm not sure what I can do for you, other than offer more therapy, since you refuse to take any medications aside from the low dosage of Zoloft you're on, and I had to pull teeth to get you to agree to that."
She blew out a breath and closed her eyes, tilting her head back on the sofa. "I don't know what to do. I don't want to feel this way."
"At this juncture, all I can recommend is that you admit to the problems you do have, and we can go from there."
Her eyes flashed open, anger shooting through her. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Mr. Johnson shook his head, rubbing at his eyebrow, his gaze lowered. "I've been working with you for a couple of years now, Miss Kenobi. You know as well as I do that if you continue in this vein, you will be unhappy. Acceptance is the first step."
"I thought therapy was enough," she said hotly.
"Not when you're exhibiting signs of depersonalization. Will you at least allow me to prescribe you a benzodiazepine?"
"No." She folded her arms, and there might have been a huff somewhere in there.
Tick, tock.
"A low dosage of clonazepam," Mr. Johnson said at length, "may go a long way. I don't like prescribing benzodiazepines to young people—it's too easily abused and addictive. But I'm not sure what else I can do for you besides cognitive therapy, and I am fairly certain you don't have the disorder. At least this would help with your anxiety—it might lessen what you've begun to experience."
Rey stood up. "I'm going. The hour is almost up, anyway."
"Miss Kenobi," Mr. Johnson said, and it was the first time she'd ever heard him speak so seriously to her. There was a graveness to his eyes she'd only seen in her father's. He gestured to the couch. "Please sit. You know as well as I do that therapy and a small dosage of an anti-depressant is not enough to help you."
"You can believe what you want," she said. "I refuse to become some sort of zombie—I refuse to go through the hell that medication creates."
"Then you will continue to go through the hell that your mind is putting you through. You have real issues, Rey. You have had a terrible past—you have experienced trauma. Those events haunt you to this day, and they shape your mind. Will you please let me help you? Otherwise, I'm afraid you'll never be truly happy."
"I don't think—"
"How can you, when you told me yourself how alone you are, how you don't believe you'll ever be normal? Normal in the sense that you can have relationships with people, of course."
Rey set her jaw, but she didn't move.
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
"You have a lot of pride," he said. "And I respect that. But your father stopped forcing you to come here a year ago. Yet here you are. You're afraid. You don't have to be."
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
"But there has to be a change, Rey," he continued. "Or else you'll remain stagnant. Is that what you truly wish?"
Rey's lashes fluttered open.
Holy shite, her bladder was screaming at her.
But a handsome, damaged man was snuggled up to her, and so she trailed kisses up his neck, his jaw, to his mouth. "I'll be right back," she murmured.
She went to the bathroom, grabbing her purse on the way. Once her business was dealt with, she washed her hands and peered into the mirror. She cupped water and splashed it over her face, her eyes gunky with sleep, heavy to open.
There was a knot of worry in her chest. What if she went back out there, and he'd woken up entirely and wanted her to go? She told herself she was being a git and opened her mobile to check for messages. Sure enough, she had several.
Sitrine: Bow-chicka-wow-wow.
Sitrine: I've always loved that American expression.
Sitrine: But seriously, mate, my dove, did you shag?
Poe: What I don't understand is how I stood by you when you went through those medications, through the therapy. I have stood by you through EVERYTHING. How can you just suddenly say it's over? How am I not good enough? I need closure, Rey.
There were more texts from Finn and her father, but she didn't read them. She stared down at the message from Poe, waiting for the guilt to stir, but it didn't. That was the thing. She had never… been emotionally attached to anyone. Not until Ben Solo. How was she supposed to explain that to him? He wasn't damaged goods. He would never understand.
He'd tried. Oh, how he'd tried.
But… in the end… it just hadn't been good enough…
Me: You gave it your all. I wanted to love you. I did. But I can't. I really, really, REALLY hope we can still be friends.
His response came back quickly, as though he'd been waiting by his phone.
Poe: No. Do not pull that bullshit with me. Can we still be friends? Really?
Rey pushed her brows together.
Me: You know me. You know I wouldn't say that if it wasn't true.
Poe: You have wasted over a year of my life.
All right, now she was furious. Her fingers flew over the keys.
Me: Real talk, Poe.
That was what he'd always called it. Whenever they needed to get down to the honest root of things, they would say something along the lines of, "Real talk: do you think Finn and Rose are a good match?"
Poe: Don't.
Me: No. You got a say, and now I get a say. I told you REPEATEDLY that I was not in love with you, that I did not want to go beyond dating. You insisted on it. Do not put all of that on me! Cool off. Don't text me until you can speak reasonably.
Which would probably be never. She understood that. That didn't mean it didn't—
She threw her phone back in her purse and pressed her fists to her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut. Christ, it was like she'd joined some American drama. Nothing felt real anymore. Everything was so—
Sickness clenched her stomach, and then she was trapped in her flesh.
This is it, she thought once she had returned, intensely uncomfortable. This is just one more reason to let him go. I never feel like this outside of Poe.
She picked her purse back up and dug around in it for her bottle of Klonopin. She popped a pill—they were a low dosage, only .5—and drank beneath the stream of the faucet water to swallow it down. She could never take pills dry.
Was she going to have to block Poe's number? She really didn't want to, but maybe he was leaving her with no choice. She had to look out for herself, first and foremost. Then she could tackle someone else's happiness. Years of therapy had taught her that.
Rey pounced on Ben, pressing him back into the pillows. He was already awake, drowsy, in that state of not ready to get out of bed yet.
"I am hungry, and I believe we discussed lunch?" she said.
Ben grumbled and dragged her down, rolling so she wasn't pinning him quite so effectively. "Lunch? Breakfast is the first meal of the day, regardless of the timing." He cracked an eye open, like the idea of leaving the room was a terrible one. "I suppose if we must, there is a café not far from here."
"You have an accent!" Rey said. She'd never heard it before. It wasn't one she recognized, either, and it was too faint to pick up on. She'd always just assumed that Alderaans had American accents, although now that she thought of it, that seemed quite silly. "Why do you suppress it?"
He hid his accent, and he didn't use his Christian name. Why? Was he that desperate to set himself apart from his family? She remembered Andor's remark about Ben's father, and how Ben had looked almost angry afterward.
Ben grunted. He wasn't going to give her an answer.
Rey started to press soft, sweet kisses to the line of his shoulder and over to his throat. They stopped at his ear briefly where she giggled, and then she found his lips. "Fine. We must." For the second time, she felt… immensely happy.
Happy and terrified. Terrified of the happiness. Terrified it was fleeting.
But she had to keep living in the moment, regardless of the danger to her heart.
"I need to go change," she said, not moving.
"Your clothes are likely by the hot tub still…" Ben's mouth pulled to the side. "You might wear one of my shirts. I doubt anyone would notice the difference."
She blushed at the idea. Then she kissed his grumpy mouth and sat up. She found her garments and tugged them all on, sans her shirt. That piece she investigated in his closet, finding a simple black one, likely to go under something. She threw it on, noting the fabric was incredibly soft and clingy, but so big it fell to her thighs. Oh, well. When one wore skinny jeans, it was hard to find something that wouldn't go with them.
Rey bent back over the bed and kissed him one last time. "Meet you in half an hour?" Time enough for them to shower and slap fresh clothes on.
He frowned a bit. "You know where the café is, I assume?" His hand locked around the back of her neck to draw her into another kiss. "Half an hour…" He hesitated. "Thank you. For staying."
"You're welcome…" Rey whispered, her heart fluttering. It was really so important to him? "Thanks for letting me stay." She put a knee on the bed, leaning down to follow that soft mouth of his. "And I meant I'll meet you here." Another kiss, her thoughts whirring. "Or you can meet me at my room?"
That sounded like an excellent idea.
"I'll leave my key. Just let yourself in," she said.
She waved and headed out of his room, her heart now thundering.
He hadn't wanted her to go!
The thought warmed her distant, frozen heart.