"Do not allow me to forget you"

― Gabriel García Márquez

Rey emerged from sleep wearing nothing but Ben's long sleeve, entangled in his arms. The air was humid and wet, forcing her hair into soft curls, cascading down her back, over the knobs of her spine, and across his bare chest like fingers, coiling around every bit of exposed skin until they had become insnared in one another. He looked different to her like this, laid bare before her, comfortable in his own skin. He had always been overzealous, holding himself higher than what she considered appropriate, but his bravado had never felt sincere to her, the mask of a man who had grown to fear his own capacity to feel. She should have been angry with him, ashamed of what they had done in the aftermath of his actions and in the wake of her fury, forgoing common decency in favour of mutual desire, yet she couldn't find it in herself to care. She had finally experienced his potential for goodness. The weight of his hands on her body had exposed the mechanics of his soul, freeing every small and fragile piece from the depths of his heart, relinquishing his hold under the assumption that she'd somehow save him from himself. Ben was a beautiful mess, a mess held together by skin, sinew, and bone, lying naked in the grass beside her. Rey reached out in the gathering darkness, brushing the tips of her fingers across his mouth.

His breath was hot against her skin, moving in tandem with her pulse, yet his eyes were dark, open, and pensive, burning between their bodies like a question. She had known from the very beginning that he'd find a way to destroy her, sinking his fingers into her thoughts until she could think of little else. Her hands slipped into his hair and he smiled against her skin, pressing a kiss into the hollow of her throat, between her breasts, and above her navel, drawing her knee up and over his shoulder. She tried to memorize the look in his eyes as his mouth brushed against her center, how his irises flashed like bits of amber in the space between her thighs, stoking the fire that burned beneath his lips. She wanted to remember this version of him in her quiet moments, after she had abandoned him to live out the remainder of his life alone, the way that it was supposed to be between them. His name left her mouth in an anguished cry, coiling around her throat like a noose, embodying everything she refused to say out loud. Her anger had evolved into something else. She wished she could tell him how much she'd miss his lips and the sentences he had constructed with them, how his eyes hadn't always incited so much anger within her, or how she had grown to love everything she had once hated about him. He had ruined her life and would continue to do so, but she would allow him this one transgression in light of her own selfishness, hoping he'd find it in himself to endure as she once had, finally embracing his role in society.

He looked up at her, brushing the tips of his fingers across her clitoris, coercing another cry from her mouth. The smile on his face filled her with a warmth so intense she could hardly refrain from blurting out his name. She arched into him, pulling hard on his hair, too invested in her own pleasure to notice the way he had kissed her inner thigh, trailing his hand up and over the curve of her hip, holding her steady beneath him. She wanted to touch him, hoping he'd come close enough to press his mouth against her own, slipping himself inside of her, allowing the weight of his body to surround her in its entirety. There were so many things she wanted to remember about him, so many small and specific details she knew she'd end up missing in the aftermath of his clever fingers. The width of his hands, the sound of his breath, and the shape of his mouth would fade from her memory, disjointed pieces that would seep from her mind like the dregs of a weak tea, too discoloured to display how vibrant he had been in person. If they had been different people, meeting one another under circumstances far more appropriate that their current rendezvous beneath the apple tree, she would have succumbed to her feelings without being afraid of their repercussions. He belonged to her in name only, nothing more than a transient moment in time, an evening of pleasure, sweat, and shared skin that would haunt her for the rest of her life. The gentle sway of his fingers had become an unwelcome reminder of his naivety, pushing her over the edge until she was falling from it, clenching around him.

Ben leaned forward, burying himself inside of her. The sound of her climax was as loud as the thunder clap rolling down the road to meet them.

Rey slipped her dress overhead as quickly as she could manage in her current state of mind, forgoing its laces in an attempt to waste as little time as possible. Ben's ministrations had left her sore and bruised, aching on the inside as insistently as a drum, something she had taken a great deal of pleasure in. She wanted to stay with him, allowing herself to sink into his arms, into his warmth, and into his body until the sun had shown its face, but he had forced her hand. She couldn't find it in herself to ignore what he had done, pretending that simply being in his presence would stifle their descent into notoriety, content to live in the afterglow of their ignorance for the rest of their lives. She had never been that naive. Her life had been governed by many men, but none had pursued her heart as keenly as Ben had. If it were possible to regain what he had taken from her, she would have fought a little harder to get it back, stealing something from him in return. He had given his heart to her willingly, placing it somewhere behind her ribcage, behind the remnants of her own aching heart and into the depths of her soul, hoping that it would vanish from sight. She wasn't sure if there was anything left inside of him worth stealing anymore. She glanced over in his direction, trying to understand his thoughts, thoughts she had seen when he had been fully sheathed inside of her, burning brighter than anything she had ever seen in her life. He had made himself out to be such a crude and insensitive man, yet he was far from being that person, embodying the characteristics of someone so damaged, so completely altered from their course in life, that his penchant for self-preservation had supplanted everything else.

Rey reached for him as the sun began to spill over the horizon line, placing the palm of her hand beside his head, threading her fingers through the fabric of his long sleeve. She bent down, kissing the corner of his mouth in a silent and final goodbye, trying her best to remember exactly how his lips felt against her own, how his nose brushed against the curve of her cheek when they touched like this, and how his eyelashes fluttered in sleep, shielding the anger she knew he'd be feeling if he woke up to see her on the cusp of fleeing from him. She pulled away before her determination faltered in the face of his serenity, holding back an onslaught of tears, reaching for his pants. He had always been a man of many means. He disliked going anywhere without some sort of plan, prepared to prove his worth at a moment's notice, filling his pockets with enough cash to support his endeavours if the need to do so ever arose. She wouldn't have known this if he hadn't boasted of it once, leaning against the fence post on a day devoid of rain, before she had grown to love him, before he had kissed her, and before they had made love, arm to arm and hip to hip like teenagers, foolish and filled with pride. Rey withdrew each note carefully, stowing them down the front of her dress and into the soles of her shoes as artlessly as a street performer, chewing on her lip to prevent herself from crying out loud. He had given her freedom, but at the expense of his own.

"I'm sorry, Ben," she whispered, kneeling down to pluck another forget-me-not from its place in the earth. She rolled it between her fingers, tucking the flower into Ben's hair, securing it in place as carefully as she could manage without waking him up. "Life isn't a fairy tale."

Rey's fingers trailed past his temple, sweeping over the line of his jaw and across the stubble spattered along its edge. She'd miss his face more than anything else. His eyes would continue to haunt her for as long as she lived, tainting everything they had done together like blood, staining her memories until nothing remained but the colour red, an accusation she'd never properly address. He'd want it that way, but the frustration she'd normally feel upon experiencing such a thing was gone, replaced with a sense of loss so profound, she nearly doubled over in pain. She withdrew her hand from his face in retaliation, branding his features into the forefront of her mind. He'd live in her memories, becoming the ghost everyone but her had known him to be, an echo embodying the vestiges of a different time, a different place, and a different man. She tried to remind herself of this as she walked away from him, moving beyond the fork in the road and everything it had come to represent, grasping the laces of her bodice in a feeble attempt to forget how he had undone them the night before. Her mouth fell open, but nothing came out.

Her voice had become as empty as her heart.

A/N: This is it, folks! I knew that this story would be short, but I didn't think that it would end on such a sad note. I've never written anything so scandalous in my entire life! When I think of Kylo Ren and Rey, I'm reminded of thunderstorms, hot nights in the middle of August, and a lot of rain. Storms have the potential to be very beautiful, but their capacity to evolve into something far more threatening is very, very real. I hope that I've managed to depict that to some degree. I'd like to thank everyone for tagging along on this journey with me! It's been a lot of fun.

Playlist: My chapters are named after the songs I tend to listen to when I'm writing. If you're interested, please give them a listen. The first song is "Alone," by James Spiteri, the second is "Rain, in your Black Eyes," by Ezio Bosso, and the third is "Augenblick," by Dirk Maassen. They're all very beautiful, uplifting, and kind of melancholy in nature, but I absolutely adore them.

*I like to edit as I go, and if I'm not entirely satisfied with something I've written, I usually go back and alter it. I thought I'd give everyone a head's up!