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Never Alone

Chapter 2: Show Me What You Got

"I'm sorry in advance; the place might be a little bit messy," Rey explained, as she half turned on the staircase to meet Ben's inquisitive gaze. "We weren't expecting visitors."

Which was basically code for 'you should have texted first.'

"It's fine," Ben said simply, continuing to follow her up the stairs. He couldn't explain why Rey suddenly smiled at him, and more importantly, what that did to his heart. "I'm sorry for the intrusion," he coughed, thinking it would be the most appropriate response.

Rey, however, seemed taken back by this apology. "Oh, um…thank you, I guess."

The next thirty seconds turned out to be more awkward than their first meeting. Ben could think about potential topics for small-talk, yet nothing came to mind, which only showed how socially awkward he was.

Even as a child he wasn't prone to talking with kids his own age; he had a difficult time connecting with other kids, and as a result, he was rarely invited to play games with them. Even though he wasn't bullied for it, no one really made an effort to include him. On the outside, Ben thought he was fine with it; but deep down, he felt excluded.

And by the time he got to high school, he definitely got on the wrong foot with most of his teachers and classmates: detention became a normal part of his routine, and so did the lack of empathy from his family. Not that he ever expected them to understand how much of an outcast he was at school.

Still, if Ben had to change one thing about his life (although he wanted to change a lot of things), it was his time in high school.

"Here we are," Rey suddenly came to a halt, as they reached the fifth floor. Ben was able to stop himself from crashing right into her, though he found himself only inches behind her. Ben always had an issue with personal space, so before Rey could even notice the position they were in (and before Ben could remotely begin to ponder on the body lotion Rey used), he took a few steps backward.

"Welcome to our humble abode."

Ben didn't dignify it with a response. Instead he followed her into the apartment, and instantly his senses were permeated with the scent of Febreze and cinnamon in the air. Overlooking that, he was more keen on looking around the apartment – which looked bigger than he initially anticipated.

The kitchen was the first area he set his eyes on, and from what he could tell, every appliance – or at least the stove and fridge anyway – were brand-new. There was some decent counter space for food preparation, at least when there weren't clutters of paper and pens occupying it.

"As you can see, this is the kitchen; what Rose and I usually do is take turns cooking. Sometimes we do takeout once a week," Rey explained, crossing her arms underneath her chest as Ben placed his bag on the ground. "Oh, and we do have a cleaning schedule, believe it or not."

"That's fine." Ben Solo may be many things, but a lazy slob was not one of them.

"I will say though that it takes a while for the oven to pre-heat," Rey explained sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head. "What else?" She asked, though this time it was more rhetorical.

"There isn't much else to say about that. But over here we have the living room." Rey pointed towards the opposite side of the room, where there were a few couches and a decent sized television. As far as Ben could tell, the place wasn't really that messy to begin with; the dark wooden floor was practically spotless, the living room coffee table had nothing occupying it, and there weren't any dirty clothes lying around (Ben half-jokingly thought that there would be, considering that Rey said the place might be messy).

All in all, the apartment was all open space; apart from some east Asian paintings hung up on the caramel-coloured walls. He didn't even take a look at the bedroom yet before he concluded that the apartment was made into a home. A cozy one at that.

Ben hadn't known what a home felt like for over ten years, which explained why he felt somewhat uncomfortable.

"What do you think so far? Pretty decent, right?"

"It's decent," Ben shrugged, and once again he was rewarded with a brilliant smile that reached hazel-brown eyes.

"But really, what do you think? Do you have any questions?"

"No."

"Well, I have to say that I haven't really met anyone this quiet before," Rey mused.

Ben raised one eyebrow. "Is that a bad thing?" Not that he was feeling self-conscious about it or anything.

"No, no, I think it's great, personally." Rey shook her head, and more strands of hair fell out from her make-shift buns. "Rose and I are both pretty quiet, but our last roommate? Not so much. It'll be nice to not have to wake up at 3 AM."

"I see." Ben didn't really feel like it was his business to ask about that. "But there is something you should know though; sometimes…sometimes I get nightmares." It was a huge risk to tell Rey about them, but he knew he had to give her a heads up. He didn't want to make things more uncomfortable for her and her roommate. Hell, Ben didn't want to get himself kicked out in the first week.

"Ok, good to know."

Rey didn't look like she was going to ask any questions, which somewhat unnerved Ben for a moment or two. But he was glad that she didn't push him.

It seemed though that she could read his mind. "Don't worry. I'm not gonna make you tell me about them. We all have things that we don't wanna talk about," Rey explained gently, with a polite smile entrenched on her face. "I mean, we're all pretty close here; so if you do feel like talking, we're always here."

Ben forced himself to shift his gaze elsewhere; he wasn't used to someone reaching out to him, offering support. Much less from a beautiful girl like Rey. His mother was the only person who would offer that to him, but it had been over ten years since he talked to her; the two of them didn't have the closest relationship – especially after his trial.

So of course he was going to feel uncomfortable about talking to others; he and Rey were strangers – and Ben never opened up to strangers. Trust was hard to come by these days.

That, and he was thinking that no one would ever want to hear about his gruesome nightmares; would Rey really be open to hearing about him killing someone? That would be enough to turn Rey on him before she could give him a chance to live here. But there was a small part of him that wanted to take Rey up on her offer.

"So…what do you do?"

Rey looked confused at his question, like Ben just asked her if she was interested in seeing his rock collection. Not that he had one, obviously.

"I meant what do you do for a living?"

"Oh. Rose and I are in university. First years."

Ben nodded, hoping that he didn't appear to look disinterested; he remembered being called out for his 'resting bitch face' by one classmate in high school.

"What are you taking?"

"Rose is going for an engineering degree, and I'm studying physics."

Ben couldn't help but feel a little bit impressed. "Are you planning to get a PhD?"

"Eventually. I guess it'll depend on how I do for the next four years."

"I don't think you'll be abysmal at it."

When Rey widened her eyes in surprise, Ben figured that she might have taken offense to that. Shit. He could feel the tips of his ears burn red from embarrassment. Well, at least he knew now that he had to work on his comedy skills too.

But Ben's self-talk was interrupted when Rey let out a giggle. For the most part Ben was surprised that she laughed at his joke: no one ever found his sense of humour great to begin with.

"I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you, I swear."

Ben couldn't say anything in response to that; he figured a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders would suffice. "What about you? What do you do?"

Ben briefly wondered if he should come clean about his past, but instead, all he said was, "I'm still trying to get work."

Rey studied him carefully. "Yeah, the labour market's not doing so hot lately. But I think there's a warehouse nearby that's looking for some people, actually."

"Really?" What kind of prank was the universe playing on him? His dad would most likely take this in stride; he'd probably tell Ben that he shouldn't dwell on it too much.

"That is, if you don't mind the late hours."

"I don't. Thanks for telling me."

If Rey thought that he sounded desperate in any way, she didn't say anything. "No problem." And once again, she was giving him an award-winning smile.

Ben knew that a change of subject was needed; he shifted his gaze towards the smoke alarm, which prompted him to ask, "Is there a carbon monoxide detector?"

"Yeah, there is, but we need to get it changed. We've been kind of putting it off…Our landlord is supposed to come by and take care of it this week." Rey widened her eyes, as if she just realized something. "I'm sure he'll bring over the lease for you to sign. That is if you're still interested in the place."

"That would be great."

"Perfect. Well, let's continue the tour, shall we?"

The next room Rey showed him was the bathroom, and it exuded as much minimalism as the living room did; the first thing that Ben noticed was the simple bathtub and shower with an onyx-coloured shower curtain. He should consider himself lucky that if he were any taller, he wouldn't be able to fit in the shower. But really, he couldn't complain. To top it off, the walls were painted a beautiful shade of gold (at least, as far as Ben could tell).

"I know, it's a little small, but I don't think the architects had tall people in mind when they designed it," Rey said, as she leaned against the doorway.

"I can manage."

"Did you want to see the bedroom?"

"Sure."

The final stop of their tour (if Ben could call it that) ended with the third bedroom, which was at the far end of the hallway. Ben concluded that the other two rooms belonged to Rey and her friend. Considering that he did have nightmares occasionally, this arrangement would work out pretty well.

The bedroom itself was bigger than what Ben anticipated; his eyes took in the surroundings around him, which included a ceiling fan, two stacked mattresses in the opposite corner of the room, and a decent-sized closet. The walls were coloured a simple shade of blue, and if Ben looked closer, he could see markings left behind from hung-up posters.

Ben did catch a hint of cleaning supplies lingering in the air, which indicated that Rey and her roommate must have scrubbed the room pretty recently.

"What do you think? Big enough?"

"It's alright."

Ben could see the small smirk forming on Rey's lips, which pushed him to ask, "What is it?"

"Oh, it's nothing." For a brief moment, it looked like Rey was uncomfortable, but Ben didn't have time to dwell on it. "But really, what do you think? Will this work for you?"

For a moment, Ben deeply considered Rey's question. There was a part of him that was highly skeptical about the whole situation; considering his violent past, would it really be a good idea for him to expose it to Rey? The rational part of Ben was insistent that he leave her out of it – he hadn't known her for an hour (and really he didn't need to) before knowing how innocent she was. The rational part of Ben wanted him to take his duffel bag, thank Rey for showing him around, and leave the apartment – and that would be that.

But the thing was, Ben was never a rational person. If anything, he was an impulsive person.

"Yeah. It will."