Author's Note: This is a bit intense. It's also a bit short, but I think it's a goodie!
Dealer
Chapter 3: Breaking
I was 22 years old.
In the days since that fateful night when I joined Luke Skywalker for a ride on his speeder, a lot had changed. Buisness flourished. A young boy named Ha'yglie was now working with us in the shop, and he was a talented mechanic. I was a young adult with a promising career ahead of me. But something held me back, and that something was my family. I was only 15 with Siira left. I was only 17 when I watched my father be taken prisoner. Like I said back when I was 19, I was old. I felt that I had seen more than any person ever deserved to. I was tired, and I was tied to that little shop.
You know, it wasn't that I didn't like Luke. He was smart, nice, attractive – everything and more than I could every want. It wasn't that I had my eye on somebody else, that I turned and started dating – I hadn't spent a night out since that time I had drinks with the only Jedi on Coruscant. He still patronized our store, stopping in for a drink and religiously having the oil changed every 8 weeks. He always insisted on waiting though, because, as he put it – 'What if you have another oil incident?'. I enjoyed talking to him, and we were friends. Good friends. But, like I said, it could never work.
The day I turned 23 my mother died.
I was numb. I was in shock. Little Ha'yglie didn't know what to do, so I sent him home and told him I would contact him when he should come in again. Then I cried. I cried for my mother, the strongest woman I had ever known, who fought so bravely after my father left. Ultimately, she had died of a broken heart. I cried for Siira, my lovely older sister, who was in the end foolishly weak enough to be manipulated and abused. I cried for my father, my brave, smart, charismatic, talented father, who taught me every trick of the trade and always did his best to provide for his family. And I cried for myself, for every bit of suffering I had endured over the years. I cried for all the pains and tortures that had been forced upon me. I cried because life was unfair, and I had struggled and struggled to be shot down in the end.
I leaned against my own speeder, tears streaking down my cheeks, wetting the hair that was stuck to my face with the sweat of hard work. They rolled off my cheeks, spotting my already dirt clothing and soaking into salty dots. I sniffed loudly, not really caring anymore. The store was closed until I could figure out what to do. Oh, Gods, why? Why me? I just wanted to scream it. What had I done wrong? Was I really the worst person in the universe? Did I do something to deserve this sort of suffering? I rocked my knees to my chest, and wept more fiercly than before. As long as tears were coming, I was crying.
"I'm so sorry." A familiar male voice came. I looked up through bleary, swollen eyes, my face moist with my tears. Luke. I quickly counted in my mind. He wasn't due to have his oil changed for another two weeks. I swallowed hard, trying to stop the uncontrollable sobs that seized my chest and lungs again and again. But I couldn't, and salty streaks continued to roll off my face. "Oh Force, I'm so sorry." He said, sitting down next to me on the speeder bike. I just cried and cried, and he just sat there, one arm draped around my shoulders.
He didn't tell me it would be all right. It wouldn't. This was the end of my life as I knew if, and he understood that.
Luke stood with me for my mother's cremation. It was a solemn ceremony, but it was filled with family friends, patrons, business partners. I didn't cry, simply because there weren't any tears left. I wished I could put her ashes with my father's. Two people who had been filled with love and life for their family and each other. Two people who never deserved to be dealt such an ill hand at life.
My nights were filled with terrors. Dreams of my parents, and Siira, haunted every sleeping moment. Alcohol, sleep aids, there was nothing that could ease the mourning I was being put through. I was damned glad I had Luke to just sit there with me. The empty apartment was daunting, and I didn't really know what I was going to do. But not having to be there alone dulled the pain.
He was happy to talk on and on as we sat there. He told me about his sister, Senator Leia Organa, and her frequently insufferable boyfriend Han Solo. He talked about the Jedi, and how the initiates were doing so well with their training. He talked about the friendships he'd formed with all sorts of people simply by working with the government. He helped me with meditation and breathing exercises, two things that were able to bring me a bit of rest. He was in no rush to leave though, and if I drifted off he would sit close by so that when I awoke drenched in a cold sweat, and I always did, he would have a cloth waiting to wipe my forehead.
I was sick in the truest sense of the word. And in the very most definiation of the term, Luke Skywalker was my closest friend. He was nothing more, but I put my life in his hands.
Maybe the reason it would never work was because it already had.
