Rey was stowing her backpack in her cubby in their room when Jessika appeared in the doorway with dark circles under her eyes. It was 1PM on Sunday afternoon, and the campers did not begin arriving until 3PM. A list with their names, ages, and hometowns had been waiting on the common table when she had come in around noon.
She and Kylo had parted ways in the woods at the fork in the trail, lingering for a long time before finally beginning the begrudging trek back to camp separately.
"Hey stranger," Rey greeted her.
"Hey, you!" Jessika brightened up considerably at the sight of her. She flung herself onto Rey's bunk and propped her head up on her hand. She grinned wickedly.
Rey could not not help but chuckle at her friend's body language. "How was town?" she asked innocently.
Jessika rolled her eyes. "Same old. I think I let Hux go down on me? But then we both passed out before anything really happened."
Rey wrinkled her nose. "Gross!"
"It was," Jess admitted with a carefree shrug. "No regrets, though. At least if it was gross, I don't really remember it."
Rey shrugged and turned back to mating and folding her socks. She could practically feel Jessika's curiosity vibrating in the silence.
"Well…?" Jessika finally said to her back. "And how was your weekend?"
Rey could feel her cheeks flush, deciding how to respond. She placed a pink sock with its mate and smoothed them together before she said, "It was… good."
She glanced over her shoulder at Jessika, who was staring at her open-mouthed in anticipation.
"Good?" Jessika repeated curiously. "But… did you?"
Rey's flush deepened. "We did," she said simply.
"Oh, thank God, you had me going there for a second!" Jessika exclaimed, dissolving into a breathy laugh. "Well?"
"Well, what?" Rey turned back, hiding her grin behind her hand. "Yes, we did."
"Well, you don't have to be so cagey!" Jessika huffed, lying back on her pillow. Rey crossed the room and lay beside her friend. "How was it?"
"Shhhh," Rey rolled her eyes and picked at the blanket. "You were right. The first time is always a bit weird."
"Like, good-weird? Kinky-weird? He looks like the type would be, if you know what I mean."
"No, not like that- what does that even mean?" Rey shook her head. She hesitated, trying to decide how to characterize what had happened without having to give too much detail. "There was some miscommunication at first, but after that, it was…" she trailed off, her eyes falling closed involuntarily at the memory. "Hot. Like, really hot."
She opened her eyes languidly and found Jessika peering at her suspiciously.
"Holy shit, you like him!" Jessika propped herself up on one elbow. "I don't believe this."
Rey couldn't quite believe it, either. After she had told him, they had lain silently together for awhile before he had recovered gracefully and they had spent the rest of the weekend making a kind of sloppy, curious, sweet love to each other that she could not have anticipated. Jess had been right: his being older made him unflappable in a way she found strangely alluring. And he seemed to genuinely enjoy figuring her out.
With other partners, she'd found herself content to scratch the itch a time or perhaps two, before she gently let them down and moved on. Nor was it often she felt that way about someone.
The opposite seemed be to true with Kylo: it felt like no matter how good it felt, or how long they lingered, she wanted him again. Her lust felt like a swirling, black pool in the ocean; as soon as she thought she might be ready to hoist herself up on a jagged rock, she felt the undertow tugging at her foot and dragging her back under the surface.
She studied Jess's face and finally replied, "Yeah. I do. It actually scares me a little."
To her surprise, Jessika smiled broadly then. "I am so excited for you!"
"You… are?" Rey wrinkled her nose, a little embarrassed.
"Yes!" Jessika exclaimed, clutching her hands to her heart and lying back. "This is really romantic!"
Rey giggled a little. "I guess so, huh?"
Jessika sighed happily. "It is! Did you leave me any condoms in case my summer boyfriend is right around the corner?"
An embarrassed grin twisted her lips involuntarily. "Um, yes. He brought his own."
Jessika's eyes popped open and she squealed a little. "Okay, so he's a Boy Scout. Always prepared. That's nice."
"It is, because the ones I brought…. didn't fit," Rey giggled. She watched as Jess's cheeks scrunched further into a delighted grin.
"Um, wow," Jessika laughed. "Can you still walk?"
"Yes, oh my goodness!" Rey exclaimed, turning on her stomach and hiding her face under the pillow. Her roommate was always very free with, and curious about, the particulars of their various hookups, but it was not in her nature to be so indiscreet. "He was a gentleman." Her voice was muffled under the pillow.
The bunk shifted as Jess turned on her side towards Rey and lifted the edge of the pillow to peer at her. Her friend's eyes were crinkled in amusement at her, and Rey tugged the pillow away to continue hiding her face.
"Lucky!" Jessika sing-songed. "Rey has a boyfriend, Rey has a boyfriend!"
Rey continued hiding her face so that Jess couldn't see her stupidly delighted grin.
They saw each other across the room during the opening session that evening, and Rey caught Jess staring at him with a barely-concealed smirk.
"Cut it out," Rey elbowed Jess in the ribs as Director Snoke rasped his way through the rulebook. "You're being really obvious."
Jessika was clearly having trouble keeping a straight face and her breathing indicated she was about to burst out laughing. The old man paused briefly and looked their direction as Jessika stood abruptly and ducked out the back door, coughing to disguise her laughter. Rey stared at the floorboards between her crossed legs until Snoke resumed outlining the importance of following rules and regulations.
Rey glanced sideways at Kylo where he was seated at the far end of the row with his new batch of campers. He gave the impression of listening, but Rey could tell he was gazing somewhere up behind the Director's head, at the top of the chimney made of round, smooth river rocks. The main lodge had antler light-fixtures and black-and-white pictures of past generations of campers in birch-wood frames lining the hallways. She had lingered in here once, staring at the group photos from the late 1960's and early 1970's, trying to decide which young woman might have been his mother. All the girls had long, blunt-cut hair that reached well past their shoulders and more than a few wore cat-eye glasses that obscured their expressions.
It had taken awhile to spot them, but eventually she recognized the same two kids in a series of photographs: a petite, pretty brunette girl and a short, sandy-haired boy next to her. She instantly recognized Kylo's eyes in the girl's expression: she gazed intently at the photographer, but there was a hint of mischief in the way the corners of her eyes crinkled. She was… beautiful. Her dark hair was plaited in a thick, single braid that lay over her shoulder. Rey had had to turn away from it when she felt tears pricking her own eyes at how much it reminded her of her own mother.
The first night at camp was always squirrely, with the girls claiming their bunks and quick alliances forming. A distinct pecking order emerged after a few days together, and Rey was amused to see how frequently the bolder, brassier kids did not necessarily end up at the top of the heap. One of the first things she taught them about the ponies was how to pay attention to their body language, and how to see where their pony stood in the herd's order.
The next thing she taught them was to pay attention to their own emotions and movements, and how it influenced their mounts. This was how she sized them up to pair them with the pony they were assigned to for the remainder of the session. Some of them had experience with riding, so it was a natural fit to give them a bigger pony, or a more dominant herd member. A few gangly girls who'd had early growth spurts were too big for the true ponies, and she usually put them with one of the mustangs in the herd. They were flinty, sturdy creatures barely bigger than ponies. Despite having been born wild, they now stood willingly for hours as the girls braided their wild manes and shaggy tails into fanciful creations.
"But, how do you know if they'll be good together," Kylo had asked earnestly. He hadn't asked many direct questions of her, instead letting her share what she wanted.
She didn't, of course. She'd made a couple mistakes and had to switch kids midway through sessions. But mostly, she could trust her instincts when making a match.
"You get good at sizing people up quickly," Rey answered. "And a lot of how horses react to you is how you approach them. Be confident, and so will they. If you're tentative, they'll take advantage of you. It's not a science, you just have to see how the kids act and how different ponies act with them."
"Did you size me up?" he said playfully.
"Of course," she admitted, brushing her hand suggestively up his thigh through the sheet. "I like your size."
To her surprise, he had blushed a deep red at her flirting, but he hadn't objected as she'd continued her ministrations.
Ten days of separation had felt like an unbearable eternity on Sunday evening, but camp had a way of taking her mind off of him for most of the intervening days. There was still plenty of time left to daydream when she was alone: in the grey morning hours before the kids began to stir, in the shower, in the interminably long time it took them to brush and saddle their ponies, in her bunk after lights-out until she drifted off to sleep.
The Tuesday before he was due back was a special agony. The weather had turned unseasonably cold and rainy, confining the campers to indoor activities on what should've been their last day with their ponies. Rey usually liked to do a long trail ride that day, but instead they were inside the great lodge, watching movies and the downpour.
"Ulgh," Jessika said for the umpteenth time. "Can you imagine camping in this?"
Rey was silent. She was more than aware how it felt to camp in the rain, and felt like people who sought it out voluntarily were probably clinically insane.
"Sorry," Jessika said immediately. "I just meant, I hope he's okay with the boys. That's all."
Rey shrugged as nonchalantly as she could manage. "It's fine. I'm sure they're alright."
She had told Jessika about her past as soon as her roommate had suggested working at the camp. They had been tipsy after returning from a party one Saturday in October, and Rey had gently told Jess why it was she hated camping, and how she was reluctant to spend an entire summer in what was basically the out-of-doors.
Jessika had nodded quietly through her explanation- quite a bit more detailed than what she'd told Kylo- and then hugged Rey to her without hesitation.
"I'm sorry that happened to you, bae," she'd said softly. "You seem way too awesome for all that."
Her face had lit up when Rey began telling her about the equine therapy, though.
"Rey!" Jess exclaimed. "No, look - it's meant to be, the last riding teacher got fired for negligence! You're a shoo-in. You have to apply- look, I'll help you write your application, they'll love this! You have great story."
She had strenuously objected; she was not in the habit of telling people about her history regularly, and especially not to get things.
That was when they'd lit on the Pony Club lie together.
"No, this is even better!" Jessika was really into it now. "The camp loves this kind of thing- cross-cultural experiences and learning and stuff? They deliberately seek out diversity in the staff, so just.. Just leave out the part about why you were in therapy, and concentrate out of what kids that age will get out of working with horses, the way you did when you were a kid. You're giving back- there's no way you're not getting this job."
Now here they were together, staring out at the deluge, their matching hoodies with "Camp Obikenobi" printed across the chest fully zipped up.
The following day had broken clear and chilly, but the sun promised to dry up the ground enough that they might go riding once more in the afternoon.
"No promises," Rey tried to calm the girls, over-eager with pent-up energy from the day before. "We'll have to see how wet it is first."
She couldn't have held them back if she'd tried once they reached the stable after lunch. She was loathe to keep them penned in the arena when this would be their last opportunity to ride. Field Day deliberately left out any equine activities for liability and logistical reasons, and frankly, Rey was perfectly fine to coast for that Thursday.
Besides, it meant she had more time to secretly observe him as he wrangled his unruly campers, fresh off ten days of freedom in the woods, into some semblance of unity with Hux's to compete against them.
The trail ride took a good deal longer than expected. The girls trotted and even cantered on ahead of her on the mucky, narrow path despite her warnings to go slow, and the ponies seemed just as defiant. She kept urging her own mount, a steady Haflinger named BeBe, forwards to catch up with them.
They lingered in an open field, playing a modified version of duck-duck-goose with their ponies in a lopsided circle. Rey looped her reins through her elbow and leaned back, resting her palm on Bebe's rump. He settled contentedly beneath her, his orange-brown coat shiny in the sun.
"That's right," Rey scratched his spine. "Almost time for your days off again." He swished blonde tail at a fly on his leg but didn't move.
She leaned forwards then, burying her hands under his massive, shaggy mane. He was sweating lightly up underneath it at the crest of his neckline, and she flipped it over only to watch it fall slowly back to its natural part. BeBe bent forwards and scratched his leg with his nose, then grabbed a sneaky mouthful of grass.
"Alright, you," Rey gently pulled his head up. She'd need to clean his bridle before she put it away.
They arrived to the mess hall after most of the other cabins were already eating. The girls slid into their chairs next to Jess's lot, who rolled their eyes and held their noses at how their friends smelled after an afternoon at the barn. They hadn't had time to go back to the cabin as usual and change before dinner.
"Hey!" Rey said to Jess brightly, "I brought you some Jello. How was crafts?"
Jessika didn't look up from cutting her country-fried steak or respond. It was a tough piece of meat, but Rey wondered how long it could take to remove one bite from the amorphous blob.
"They were fine, how was riding?" Jess finally looked up, and Rey could immediately see something was off.
"Fine," Rey replied, and she glanced over at the First Order's table.
A neatly groomed, dark-haired guy was sitting with Hux.
Rey did a double-take, thinking for a split second that perhaps Kylo had shaved. And gotten a haircut. And shrunk perhaps six inches.
He was not with them.
She looked back at Jessika, who was sawing off another piece of meat. Rey slowly cut a piece of her own, even though she was not at all hungry.
"Well," she began, "I'm sure he's just getting changed or showering-"
"That guy was with them when they got back to camp," Jess tilted her head towards the boys' table. "Kylo wasn't with them."
"Oh," was all she said. She had a thick, sinking feeling in her middle now.
"I'm sure you're right," Jessika said, her tone sounding forced. "Maybe he had to take one of the kids to the infirmary or something."
"Sure," Rey replied curtly.
Field Day felt agonizingly long, twice as long as usual. He was nowhere to be found. Jessika caught her looking for the umpteenth time and gently squeezed her hand.
"I'm sure there's an explanation," she whispered. "Try to forget about it for now."
Rey nodded, but looked down at the grass.
"I'll ask around to see if anyone knows where Kylo is," Jessika promised. "But you know he keeps to himself."
After the campers left on Friday, Rey went to the stable alone. Jessika was taking a nap, but Rey couldn't stand to stay in the stuffy, warm cabin staring at the bottom of Jess's bunk for another second. She had barely slept in two nights already, and was starting to feel delirious from lack of sleep.
She cleaned each of the ponies' bridles and saddles until her fingers were a slimy, shriveled mess from the saddle soap, then hung them back in the tack room.
At dusk, she went out to the herd in the field and found BeBe, standing nose-to-tail with Oreo, swishing their tails over each other to ward off mosquitos. She waited until they stepped apart before she approached BeBe and slipped him the treat in her pocket.
She leaned heavily against his shoulder, pressing her cheek to the groove where his neck met the muscle, burying her fingers in his tangled mane. It steadied her, but she could not shake the bead of worry that had overtaken her midsection. It wasn't exactly her stomach, nor exactly her heart.
"Hey, boy," she whispered to him. He started back to look at her, his liquid black eyes peering curiously out from beneath his long forelock. She reached up carefully, smoothed it out of his eyes and into a loose braid that laid down the middle of his broad, gentle face. "We need to fix your antennae. There. Now you can see again."
BeBe shook himself all over, and her work was promptly undone. He nudged her with his nose, obviously looking for another treat.
"Is that all I'm good for?" she said softly. "A pat on the head and something to eat?"
She hugged him once more, feeling the heat of his body through her clothes. It was rapidly becoming dark, and some of the other ponies were beginning to lie down for the night.
Before long, she wiped at a tear that was leaking down her cheek. Then another. Then one blended wetly into BeBe's coat under her other cheek. She choked back a sob as she turned from BeBe and started blindly across the field to the gate. Why she even cared if anyone heard her, she didn't know. There was no one around.
She heard a rustle behind her, and turned to find BeBe following her quite closely. He stopped when she turned to face him, then followed after her again when she tried to slip away. She turned back suddenly now and he started, raising his head high to watch her. He was clearly sizing her up.
"Go away!" she hissed at him. "Your herd is that way!" She could feel herself almost shaking with anger, but not at BeBe. She took several deep breaths to calm herself, and his head notched slowly back down to a more neutral position. "Go on, be with your friends."
BeBe dropped his head further and made a soft fluttering sound with his nostrils.
"You're alright," she assured him, wiping her cheek with the heel of her hand. "I still like you."
Yoga was not Rey's favorite form of exercise, but she went often enough with Jessika during the year to keep her company to pick her way through the flows. She had reluctantly gone into town at Jessika's insistence on Saturday morning to the drop-in session. Mostly she found it boring, and she found some of the poses awkward or even downright embarrassing. She usually sat those out, and the teachers were generally too nice to push her.
The air in the upper-level dance studio was slightly cooler than outside from a small window-unit air conditioner that dripped steadily into a bucket. It smelled slightly like mildew, and the sun crept in around the edges of the shades pulled down over the tall, arched windows.
They had reached the end of the session and were lying in corpse pose- another one she would not submit to- and listening to the teacher read inspirational quotes as she walked around correcting their postures.
Rey rolled over protectively onto her stomach and laid her cheek on her arms. She felt like punching the instructor for the breathy, flaky tone she adopted as she read.
"Remember," the teacher intoned, "Breathe through it, and release anything that does not serve you."
Rey rolled her eyes, but concentrated on feeling her ribcage expand against the mat as she quietly endured. She glanced over at Jessika, who looked like she might have fallen asleep, her legs and arms spread gracefully.
"That's right," the teacher was coming closer. "Feel your breath going in… and out…. in…. and out. Pay special attention to the spots where you hold tension, and release it as you exhale."
She could hear the teacher moving closer and turning the page in her book. "Oh, this is a good one. This is from Ghandi: 'I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need.' Isn't that lovely? I think we can all do a bit better of hearing each other."
Rey was holding her breath now knowing she was soon to receive correction, but she managed to spread her legs wide enough that her thighs no longer touched. It was usually enough to fake that she was relaxing.
"Good," said the instructor's voice to another student immediately to her right. "Everyone keep breathing. It's so important to keep breathing. We hold a lot of tension in our bodies by bottling things up, and we women tend to hold it in our hips. Our hips hold a lot of emotion, as women."
She sucked another deep breath at this remark and held it until her lungs burned. She was trying to think of anything else than how it had felt to have him lying on her like this.
"The quote goes on, 'I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.'"
The teacher bent down beside her and placed her hand on Rey's lower back, rubbing gently from side-to-side. "You're alright, try to relax your hips," the woman's voice was very soft. "Acknowledge your feelings, and let them go."
The second the woman's hand left her, a floodgate opened inside her and she pushed up and bolted to the bathroom, locking it behind her. She crouched on the toilet, hugging her knees to her chest and shuddering as sobs wracked her body. Rey tried to hold her breath to keep from making a sound, only to take intermittent heaving gasps when her body's instinct to breathe took over.
She could hear the other students chattering and leaving the studio, and after a short while, there was a soft knock at the door.
"Rey?" Jessika's voice was gentle. "Would you please let me in there?"
Rey flicked the lock in the handle and hid her face on her knees. Jessika slid in with her and leaned heavily against the door.
"Bae, I know you hate yoga, but this is a little much even for you," Jessika tried to joke with her. "Not everyone is naturally bendy."
Rey shook her head piteously and gasped for air. She heard Jess come closer, and then felt her friend's hand smoothing her hair.
"Shhhhh, Rey," Jessika murmured. "It's going to be okay. You're okay. I'm sure there's an explanation, people don't usually just… disappear."
"No," Rey wailed, finally lifting her head. "I was so stupid, Jess, I told him about… about me ," she said obliquely. "And now he's gone. Of course."
Jessika did well to hide her surprise and school her face into a patient mask as she dabbed at Rey's cheeks with a wad of one-ply toilet paper.
"Well," she hedged, "That's kinda heavy stuff for a first time, don't you think? But it's not like he bolted the second he heard that. It sounds like he's into you, too, babe."
No one had known where Kylo was. Jessika's clandestine investigation had turned up little information, and the young man who'd been with Hux had disappeared as soon as the campers had left.
Rey nodded, but her heart was a stabbing ball of hurt in her chest. She could hear the logic of what Jess was saying, but there was a nagging doubt inside her that said he'd simply listened to her so he could have his way with her. She would never have voiced the comparison, even to Jess, but it almost felt more honest to have been given money for the act than to have revealed her nascent feelings in return for this treatment.
"Everyone else is gone," Jess continued. "Can I buy you an iced coffee? I think you need to take a deep breath and go out in the light for a bit."
Rey gradually unfolded her legs and stood, glancing at herself in the dingy mirror. "Oh, God!" she exclaimed when she saw how puffy and blotchy her face was. "I look like a monster."
"No!" Jessika protested, "You look like… Judy Garland after a bender!"
"I-what?" Rey sniffed, splashing her face with water. "What does that mean?"
"I don't even know," Jessika shrugged. "But Poe says that about people all the time, and Finn laughs like it's the funniest thing he's ever heard."
On Sunday morning, Rey idled around camp under the pretense of walking. There was still no sign of Kylo.
She slunk by the First Order cabin several times on her loop. The bass line of what sounded like foul rap music was blasting from inside the building, and she could hear Hux warbling atonally over the vocals.
After her third trip past the building, she trudged up the steps hesitantly and peered inside the screen door, shielding her eyes from the sun. The music seemed to be more expletives than anything else, and she bit her lip to keep from laughing when her eyes adjusted and she could make out the scene inside.
Hux stood with his back to her at an ironing board, clad only in pinstriped boxers, working over his stack of brightly-colored, embroidered Bahamas. He wore deck shoes with no socks, and he prissily ashed a cigarette into an empty coffee can on the counter beside him. His crimson mane stuck up at an awkward angle on one side, not yet smoothed into the careful, almost military, coif he donned in front of the parents and campers.
He took a deep drag on the cigarette and left it dangling between his lips as he changed the setting on the iron in preparation for a pair of purple shorts with lobsters. His head lolled from side-to-side as he wound up for the chorus, imitating the female singer's nasal delivery in a thin falsetto.
I can't e'en lie
Fuck betta when I'm drinkin'
Ride dick like a pro
Throw da pussy like I'm famous
Pussy feels so good
Feels like the rubber off ain't it
Y'ain't gotta tell me- I know this pussy be yankin'
She had to cover her mouth with her hand as he bounced in an approximation of twerking in time to the song. Rey observed him without speaking for more than a minute before she cleared her throat to announce herself.
He didn't hear her at all over his singing and she finally clapped her hands slowly and called, "Bravo! Encore please!"
Hux whipped around and his hand shot to the stereo unit to lower the volume. He peered out at her, then sauntered slowly to the door and looked down his nose at her.
"Well, well," his tone was haughty. "A Scavenger at the First Order's door? Who'd have thought I'd see the day?"
Rey drew herself to her full height and crossed her arms in front of her. It was not the time to rise to Hux's childish bait. "Hi, Hux. I was wondering if you'd seen Kylo around anywhere?"
Hux regarded her coolly, then a nasty smile broke out on his lips. "Well, well, well," he drawled. "You know, I haven't seen him since the beginning of last session."
Rey's heart sank, and she let her gaze flick away for a second. "It's just… we talked about maybe having some of his kids ride with my group, if they're interested."
"I've never known Kylo to be so interested in riding until this summer," Hux sniffed. "He hates horses, but he's been at the stable an awful lot, it seems."
"Okay, well," Rey trailed off. If Hux knew anything, he clearly wasn't going to share it. "Thanks for that, I'll see you at the lodge for orientation, I guess."
She turned on her heel and was several strides out from the cabin when he called after her, "You know, I think I might have his number."
She whirled back. "You do? Why? Our phones don't even work out here."
Hux emerged from the cabin, and his skin was blindingly pale in the full sunlight. He pulled his phone from his pocket and thumbed idly through his contacts. "Our parents are friends, they insisted," he rolled his eyes. "It's not like we have anything in common or booty-call each other. The only time I see that weirdo is here at camp."
His hands were surprisingly warm as he grasped hers to write the digits on the back with what looked to be a blue erasable pen. The ink was warm and fluid in the heat, soaking in and bleeding slightly on her skin.
"Thank you," she said earnestly, making sure to look him in the eye so he'd know she meant it. "And… Hux- is that a family name, or…?"
"No, I was named for Aldous Huxley? Surely you've heard of him?"
"Oh,"
she recognized the name. " Brave New World , right?"
Hux winked. "That's the one. Tell that loser he owes me one if you get ahold of him."
"Really, thank you!" Rey nodded once more in gratitude before turning and walk-running to the lounge.
Inside, she cradled her phone with shaking hands as she input the lockcode and started a new message. She stared at the blank screen, her thumbs hovering over the keyboard.
What should she write? She didn't want to sound like a crazed one-night stand, even though she was starting to feel like one.
She drafted several versions before she lit on one that sounded, she thought, both nonchalant and appropriately friendly.
Hey K, it's Rey. Hux gave me ur #. Didn't c u around this wknd. Hope ur ok?
She hit send before she could overthink it again.
She immediately heard someone's message tone ping from inside the bank of lockers and her heart skipped a little. It could be coincidence , she thought feverishly, but her gut was sinking as she typed further.
Hop again b4 Sept. Send.
The message tone sounded again within seconds.
She rose and crept near the bank of lockers, typing one final message that she knew was pushing it.
Had a rly good time with u .
Ping.