Darkness is safe. Leia's apartment is beautiful and bright, but I feel exposed there, and one never knows what will happen, who will find you, in the light. And then, the light dictates, you will have to deal with it in a kind, honest, civilized manor.
The dark is primeval. Nothing is required and nothing can find you if you don't want it to. Here, in my dark and much tinier apartment, no one can touch me, no one can surprise me, and nothing can scare me. Nothing but myself, anyway. I can close the window shades–I'm too poor to have dimmers on my transparasteal windows–and light a stick and be alone, as I'm accustomed.
Bright and beautiful may be nice, but in the dark, I'm me.
I almost don't know if that's good or bad, that reclusive and angry makes me who I am–but I know it makes me comfortable, as it's all I've know for years.
I don't eat dinner tonight. I usually don't. I sit on my bed smoking as the sun sets, unseen through my window shades, and I think about things. Surprising to me, I don't dwell on the distant past, but only on this afternoon. I think about mine and Ben's time together, about how I think that maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to have an actual relationship with him. I doubt I will with Anikin, at least not at this point in my life, but the memory of him haunts me–his sad, innocent blue eyes. Though I'd only seen him for a moment, I dwell on him most of all. Leia was right. He wasn't scary. No, he was plenty scary, but his perfectness outweighed it.
I also wonder about Han and Leia. I've almost hated Han since Leia slept with him that first time, and more since he married her. I suppose I feel that he betrayed me, my friendship, by even being interested in my wife, and I think I'm justified in that. But when they married almost two years since I'd seen either of them, I had fantasies about avenging myself on him. I never actually would have acted, of course, but I wanted to. I have no idea what happened between them after I left, and I know there's a chance I should be grateful to Han for taking care of her during a very difficult time. But I'm not. I hate him.
But I love him, too, of course, and that's the real problem. He's still my big brother, the man that saved my life a handful of times, taught me to swim, taught me to fight hand-to-hand, helped me get up the nerve to flirt with Leia back when she'd been pregnant with Ben.
He has a lot of nerve.
I can't help but wonder about what Leia told me on the day I found that Anikin was mine, after all: "It was just a lapse in both or judgements, Luke–not love." And now? She doesn't act like she loves him, and he doesn't act like he loves her, either. But maybe Ben was right. Maybe they were just fighting.
Somehow, the thought of their marriage failing satisfies me. Han deserves to go through losing her the way I did.
And I realize, as I often do, how very, very jealous I am of him.
I light another spice stick, angry at myself for admitting it. It's almost a deal I made with myself, that there are some things I don't feel, some things I don't think about, some things I don't admit to myself. I must, absolutely must, not feel some things for Leia.
Feeling depressed again, I go to sleep early.