"Finn called me to reproach me," added Ben later, while weighing some potatoes. Rey watched him stick the freshly printed label on the bag. Back when they were kids, Finn and she used to keep each other's secrets. Of course, her lashing at him and reproaching him was not a secret to be kept or a secret at all. It was just pathetic that he was the one upset and demanding explanations. Why did he have to disappoint her even more…
"Stupid and useless of him to do so," she tried not to snarl. "It was my right to reproach him . He was a jackass."
Rey took the potatoes and threw them in the shopping basket next to some cilantro, zucchini and parsley. She was checking out the fruit crates when she peeked at Ben, only to find him also peeking at her.
"What?" they spoke in unison, then giggled at their synchronized reactions.
"You first," he said getting closer with a bunch of bananas.
"Nothing," shook Rey her head. "I was just… remarking how good you look with your hair like that and with the stubble."
She watched him smile like a satisfied cat and felt a weight off her chest. Was it possible such thing? To be that ok so soon? She grabbed him by the pinky finger before leaving to get some oranges and forced him to face her. He looked at her in such a manner that she felt undressed and ready to reenact her flashback. But Ben had no idea what was going through her dirty mind, so he just tilted his head silently asking her what she wanted. So Rey got on her toes and kissed him long and sweet.
"What was that for?" he said brushing a fallen eyelash off her cold cheek.
"Now your turn," she replied relaxed, ignoring his question.
Ben licked his lips chuckling and let his hand slip under her chin before lifting it for another kiss.
"I meant why were you staring at me, silly," she blushed barely breathing.
Ben straightened his back and looked at her confused, then at some pomelo.
"Oh," he added. "I wanted to know if you had decided what to bake for Kaydel's birthday."
Kaydel again. Why could that girl not vanish off the face of the earth and not ruin their moments anymore? She wanted to have the image of her husband making love to her inside her head, not the one of Kaydel at Ben's arm, being too touchy and too close.
"Yeah, I've never said I would do anything for her…" she furrowed, then noticed Ben's disappointed face and continued. "Umm… for her birthday. I don't even know what she wants or likes. Also, why does everyone keep telling you everything I do or say?"
Ben rolled his eyes amused at her frustration. He threw a pack of coconut flakes in the basket, then took a cucumber, making Rey gulp at its size. Little did he know that she was not actually thinking about cucumbers.
"Look, the last time I did not know about you or your whereabouts, I lost you for three years."
Rey lowered her gaze, her eyelashes touching her freckled cheeks. He cleared his throat and his lips thinned in a firm line.
"What I wanted to say is that I think it would be a good idea to do something you like and not be all alone in your room while I am working."
"I can cook for us and clean."
"Yeah, but our appetite is not that challenging."
Well… depending on which appetite we are referring to.
She ignored her pervert thoughts and focused on what was important for the moment.
"Ben, would you like me to start working again and to help you with the bills?"
"Work?"
"I don't have any studies and I was homeschooled, but I wouldn't mind working even in this grocery store if it means making thing easier and less stressful for you."
His eyes softened.
"I'm fine. You shouldn't worry about me."
Rey furrowed at his rejection and stubbornness. He was not fine. But Kaydel had promised to pay her and help her get back her cafe, so maybe she could swallow her pride for one day.
"Fine," she sighed. "What does Kaydel like?"
"I don't know," shrugged Ben getting some dried chilli peppers. "Coffee?"
Rey looked at him in shock, then laughed.
"Oook? How about her favourite fruit?"
Ben stopped for a moment and then exhaled exasperated.
"I don't know, Rey. I don't know such things."
So he didn't know everything about her? Maybe it wasn't such a big deal, and maybe it was just a childish observation, but not knowing such details was very telling. He was not interested in certain aspects of her personality either because he was simply not that close to her, or because he had been more interested in other aspects of hers.
Rey threw in the closest trashcan the squished kiwi she had been holding and crushing and grabbed another one.
"What's my favourite fruit?" she asked using the most neutral tone.
"Mango."
Their eyes met and that smug look on Ben's face was more than enough to understand that he indeed was the one to know her the best. The only one. And she was the only one for him as well.
"Look at her."
"So it's true."
"Do you really believe what Jane said? That she ran away with some other guy and pretended that she was dead this whole time?"
"I honestly thought he had killed her. I used to cross the street each time I saw him."
"Can't believe they're back together. Such shame."
Rey parted her trembling lips and looked at Ben. His face was impassive, but somehow she knew that he was barely holding his anger in. Was he embarrassed to be seen with her and be labelled the town's fool?
"She does look like a little whore."
Rey looked down at her skinny legs and the coat reaching her knees.
"Maybe he was beating her. Look at his face and broken arm. I bet he is one of those illegal fighters. We should tell old man Peters to forbid them from entering such decent places."
Rey felt naked and flogged by each accusation. She hadn't felt so humiliated and bullied since childhood, when the older kids in Maz's care took her for a pet, but not one to love, protect and care for, but one to torture. Especially that tall skinny kid with cooper hair. She sniffed. Her tears were burning her eyes, but she refused to cry in front of them. Her husband was now looking at her and he seemed pained as well. He approached her and kissed her on the forehead, soothing her pain.
"Let's go, my love ," he emphasized the last words loudly enough to be heard by the two women still whispering just a few steps away from them.
Later that day, as the sun was setting and with Ben's work for that day done, and their bellies full of delicious food, the two were sitting on the bed from the master bedroom. The mattress from the guest bedroom was still wet, and it seemed like the right opportunity to return to their actual bed. Rey had hoped for a romantic return, but her husband did have a broken arm, was tired and, even if he did not admit it, was still pensive about what he had heard. With Finn, no one recognized her for the moment, especially as the town was pretty much empty those days. But being seen with Ben, people immediately realized that the Solo spouses were back together after the scandal caused by her disappearance. No one, absolutely no one apart from Luke helped look for her. No wonder Ben ended up depressed and a wreck. Those people were selfish and horrible, more interested in gossiping and hurting people than actually help them one way or another.
Mrs Solo looked at her husband. He had been reading an ebook on his tablet, whereas she had been scribbling in her diary - not necessarily notes regarding her memory and feelings, but some ideas for Kaydel's buffet. The room was quite hot, so Ben was wearing only his pyjama pants, which made the shape of his member quite visible, and Rey's cheeks quite red. She was too wearing her black pyjama, but it did not seem to have any effect on Ben.
"Ben," she said clearing her throat. "Do you want to take a look at my notes?"
Ben shifted his body and put his tablet on the nightstand. Rey turned the pages and handed him the notebook, then waited patiently for him to read the notes.
'me teaching Ben how to brew the perfect/my favourite tea - chamomile with peach and honey'
'concrete floor'
'Ben in an armchair - unzipped pants - me kneeling'
'sexy lingerie from Dahlia'
'mirror sexy time on the teal velvet bench'
'Ben and I meeting again at the hotel - give me your heart'
'Ben and I - hotel - rain - sharing bedroom'
'cigarette break - missing for three years plan'
'Maz's death'
'Ben and I - my bedroom after Maz's death'
'Ben's offer to come and live with him'
'meeting Ben's mom and moving in'
'Finn's graduation'
'dinner and date - Ben and I - Finn and ? - Poe and ?'
'boat trip'
'door - wounded hands'
'scratching Ben's chest while riding him?'
'together in bed - making love - Mrs Leia's death'
'the cat dying?'
'me and Finn arguing'
'Rose(?) and I marriage discussion'
'engagement'
"That's all?" he asked rereading some passages.
"I might have forgotten some, but perhaps they were not that interesting anyway."
Ben stared at her with a conflicted look on his face. He tapped the page with his fingers as if expecting the acknowledgement of time to help to process the information quicker. She wished she could help him, but her situation was worse than his.
"Are all your memories about me?"
"Most of them."
"And we're fucking in… most of them?"
She pursed her lips at his vulgar language. It was not as if she was the one in charge of them. They were the ones playing tricks on her. She sighed and moved her body, now sitting on laying on her stomach, and unawarely making her pyjama top reveal her breasts. Ben peeked at them, then blinked trying to seem focused on whatever her notes were supposed to mean.
"What are these?" he asked pointing clumsily to some of her notes. Rey raised herself on her elbows to see what he was looking at.
"Oh, I don't really know," she confessed. "These were very short and…" she tried to find the right word, but there was only one way to describe how they felt. "Painful."
Ben looked at her and lifted his arm to make space for her. Rey cuddled at his chest and as Ben was brushing his fingers against her arm, she helped him held the notebook on his cast.
"I had the flashback with me slamming and banging against the door and having my hands hurt after we argued in the kitchen."
Ben stopped his gentle movement for a second, before asking:
"Do you think it has anything to do with your disappearance?"
Rey caressed his chest.
"I don't know. Maybe. Or… I don't know. Just as I don't know what was that memory of me on the concrete floor."
"You did have bruises," reminded her Ben.
"So maybe I'm not the cheating whore people think I am."
Her tone was full of sarcasm, but the undertones were not funny at all. Ben could tell that she was hurt. He kissed her forehead and she whimpered.
"I love…" she began saying when she remembered that her previous confession did not go that well. "I love it when you pamper me. You should do it more often."
Ben chuckled and took her diary, throwing it on the carpet. His gesture took her by surprise, so Rey's eyes widened and breathed nervously. He eventually turned the lights off and she expected patiently and quietly his healthy hand to touch her and attempt to undress her. After a few moments of silence, she realised that he was trying to fall asleep.
"Ben?" she dared call him with the shyest tone.
"Hmm?"
"Should we… become… like should we start getting more intimate?"
She could not see his face, as the room was not facing the large and lightened main street, but she could sense that he was looking where he knew she was.
"Like…" she continued. "I suppose you still have needs and I am here now."
"There's no need," he rejected her merciless. However, that did not stop her from insisting.
"It could help me remember and we could go back to our old routine."
"Rey," he sighed. "Don't get me wrong, by you're period-horny and once again trying to prove a point."
Ok, maybe him knowing her like the back of his palm was not the most comfortable aspect of their relationship.
"Perhaps you're right about the first part, though I am not asking you to make love to me right now, but I don't get the last part." She pushed his arm off her body and stood up. "Tell me! What am I doing wrong this time as well?"
Ben sighed and grabbed her wrist, trying to stop her from digging deeper with her nails in the flesh of his chest, then took her hand and kissed it.
"I know you're hurt, but you don't have to prove to me anything. Those old crones are sad and pathetic."
"But you know for sure that you never abused me and that you're not some evil henchman from a Disney movie, yet you still have doubts regarding my disappearance. I don't know what else I can do to prove myself."
The tremble in her voice was revealing her need to cry and her constant frustration. One step forward and three backwards.
"Nothing," he said on a soft tone. "I don't need any proof. I said I want to start all over again and we're doing this."
"Then why don't you want me?"
"It's not about you, Rey. It's about me."
He paused. Rey wished his face were more visible and he would stop hiding in the dark. She groped his fingers to make him talk.
"The last time we made love, almost 24 hours later, you were gone. I could not make love to you fearing that you might be gone tomorrow, or with the constant idea inside my head that we've missed so much and pretend that you weren't gone for three years."
Rey felt a crack inside her chest.
"You can't say you want to start anew and at the same time say you can't get over the past."
She bent over to turn the bedside lamp on and then got out of the bed. Ben watched her confused as she put on her slippers and robe.
"Rey, please-"
She heard him call her as she slammed the door and returned to the guest bedroom. Her half was still wet, but the other one could be used, yet she did not feel like going to be yet or even sitting on it. She knew she would feel his presence constantly… perhaps like he did all those years. She let out a long sigh and put the duvet around her body, then pulled a chair in front of the window. There wasn't much to see outside, but neither was inside.
Snow.
Snow falling.
Snow snow everywhere.
"Can you believe it? Our own home!"
Rey laid on the floor and looked at the ceiling, where a ceiling light was meant to hang somewhere in the future. Her own home. She had felt at home in Maz's house as well, but she had always known that it was not truly her home, all thanks to the other kids fostered by auntie Maz. They were supposed to be a family, but more mouths to feed meant an environment closer to the one from the orphanage. Yet, all that was in the past and, as Ben told her, she needed to let go. To let the past die.
Ben laid next to her and took her hand, where her engagement ring stood proudly.
"Our own home," he repeated. "Can't wait to start decorating it together. Argue about the colour of our towels and the texture of our curtains."
"I promise I will let you choose whatever you want, as long as you let me choose whatever I like. I've seen some amazing Brazilian peroba wood and solid American black walnut furniture."
"I have no idea what's that," he laughed.
"It's… it is expensive."
"We can improvise," he suggested. "We can get something new and mix it with the old things we already have. I can buy materials and modernize them."
Ben fed her a strawberry and Rey ate it, sucking the juice off his fingers.
"But won't that be too much work? It won't leave you any time to take care of me."
Ben smiled at her teasing and kissed her playfully.
"I love you so much."
"I love you the most, my beautiful Ben," she said as fireworks were beginning to light the empty living room and as his hands were lifting her wool dress.
"I love you…" she uttered watching her reflection in the window.
She stood up proudly and with the duvet still gathered around her frail body, she opened her bedroom door and headed towards Ben's. Theirs. She knocked three times, then waited, preparing a speech inside her head. The speech had been ready and repeated thrice before she realized that there had been no answer. She knocked again, insisting, but still no answer. Was Ben that upset?
She was about to enter the room when she heard voices from downstairs. Indeed, there was light too. She pulled her duvet and dragged it with her at the top of the stairs, where she stopped and clenched her teeth.
That bloody voice and annoying laugh!
But she had promised herself to be a better person. She could easily turn around and go into their master bedroom and wait there for him. But she couldn't. Not when his laughter and joy in the presence of that other woman was breaking her heart.
She ran back into her guest bedroom, as the guest she was in Ben's life, hid under the duvet and wept. All she could do for now was weep.