Rey looked up at the face of the man whose solid chest she had just bumped into. His blue eyes narrowed, and he brushed his blonde hair out of his eyes.
"Watch where you are going lady", the man grunted out.
Rey took a few steps back from him, completely mortified that she was so distracted by thinking she saw Ben in the bar that she hadn't been paying attention to where she was going.
"Umm..so sorry", she uttered. She took off down the hallway and back to the open space of the bar to find Finn again.
Finn noticed the flustered look on her face. "Are you ok Rey? I think its about time that we called it a night. I promised Rose that I'd stop by her apartment after I dropped you back off at your place" he stated.
Rey nodded at him and hooked her hand into the crook of his elbow. She was a bit wobbly in her heels. She only felt a little buzzed after downing two shots, but she definitely wasn't as steady on her feet that she was when they had first walked in.
As they made their way out of the door, she felt like someone was following her. She whipped her body around, nearly dragging Finn down to the ground as she turned quickly.
There was no one behind her that she recognized.
"Easy there tiger", Finn laughed. I am driving you don't want to knock your driver down to the ground before you are safely at home".
Rey laughed nervously and bit her bottom lip.
"I'm sorry Finn, I thought I saw someone I knew at the bar, but it must have just been my imagination. I haven't seen him in forever, but my mind plays tricks on me and sometimes I see him everywhere I go. When I am the gym, when I go grocery shopping or even after my shift ends at work. I feel like his eyes are on me. He's not really there though", Rey explained. "He is long gone from my life".
Finn helped Rey into the front passenger seat of his Camry.
Finn shook his head. "Rey, you really should get some sleep. No more staying up all night studying again.", Finn scolded her
"Yes, sir", Rey exclaimed, laying her head against the seat.
Rey waved to Finn as she got out of his car and walked towards the front entrance of her apartment building.
Rey was taking night classes to become a RN. Right now, she worked as a technician, repairing medical equipment. She really wanted to feel like she was helping people more though. Finn was a nurse. He had helped her get through an awful time in her life. He was her savior, and she was hoping one day she could be a savior as well.
Five weeks after Ben disappeared, she had grown concerned that her period was late. She had always been regular with her cycles, and it was unusual to be even a few days late. She had been on birth control, but it was possible she missed a day. Ben had worn condoms at first but had begged her to let him come inside of her and she had started on the birth control pills and gave into him.
A week later, still not getting her period, her concern had grown to the level of panic. She went out and bought a pregnancy test at the local pharmacy.
The results didn't shock her, Positive. She was pregnant. She was a month shy of graduating from high school. She was 18 and terrified that her foster father, Unkar would kick her out of his apartment before she graduated high school when he found out that she had gotten herself pregnant, before she could secure a full-time job.
She was scared, she felt terrified to be alone. She was too young to be a mother. She wasn't responsible enough; she couldn't provide a secure life for a child by herself.
Ben had been the only person that she had slept with. He had to be the father, there weren't any other options. She wanted to let him know about the pregnancy.
Rey had gone into full stalking mode on Ben's social media presence. She looked up his name in the white pages checked Facebook, twitter. Nothing, all of the accounts had been deleted. She eventually came to the conclusion that he didn't want to be found.
She had gone as far as to contact his mother, Leia Organa, a high-powered lawyer out in LA. She found her home phone number and called her one week after finding out she was pregnant. She hadn't mentioned the pregnancy. She told her name. She explained that she was his girlfriend, and she was concerned about him. She told her that she needed to contact him about something important.
Rey heard the woman laughing at her, a loud shrill laugh that made Rey shiver. "You must be mistaken young lady. I would know if my son had a girlfriend, and he does not. He's never mentioned someone named Rey before to me or around me. You sound young dear, too young for my Benjamin. He wouldn't want me to give out his contact information to just anyone. I am sure you would know better not to harass him like this. If he wanted you to get in touch with him, he would have contacted you and provided you with his cell number", she scolded Rey.
"I do have his cell number and he hasn't responded to me. I am his girlfriend, we've been seeing each other for months but I'm concerned about him, I haven't heard from him in a few weeks", Rey said, desperately.
"Please don't call here again. You are obviously living in some fantasy land if you think my son was your boyfriend. I knew all about his last girlfriend, Bazine. They broke up a little more than 9 months ago. It was a shame when they broke up, she was a sweet girl from an upstanding family.", Leia coldly replied. The line went dead after that. Leia had hung up on her.
Rey thought about what Leia had said about breaking up with his last girlfriend 9 months before. That was right around the time that she had met him at school when he first started his teaching assistant assignment. She didn't know that he had a girlfriend; he hadn't ever mentioned anyone else. He always seemed too focused on Rey.
He hadn't outwardly flirted with her at school, but he would give her compliments about how well she was improving on her tests in Trig. He would smile at her and sometimes he would leave small but sweet presents on her desk such as a freshly cut, her favorite flower or a Hershey's bar, her favorite candy. Items that didn't seem to be noticed by her teacher, Ms. Barrow. If Ms. Barrow had suspected any type of romantic relationship was going on between a student and a teaching assistant, Ben would have lost his job.
Even after he started tutoring her at her place and he made a move on her, taking their relationship to the next level, the gifts continued but they got bigger and more personnel. He would buy her groceries or a new dress.
He would ask her about herself, and he would tell her about his life. She knew he thought his mother was overbearing and his stepfather, Hans Solo didn't really bother with Ben. He told her he was glad to get out of their house and attend college a few hours away. He lived with a roommate, Hux, who often wasn't around, choosing to go home every weekend. Rey would stay with Ben over the weekend and then leave to go home on Sunday evenings.
When calling Leia led Rey to a dead end, she continued on her search find Ben. She even went as far as to go to the state courthouse to search land records to see if he had bought a property in California. There was nothing. Rey suspected that he had left California.
Rey graduated from high school, never disclosing to anyone her relationship with Ben or the fact that she was in the early stages of pregnancy with his child.
A month after graduating, Rey received a call from her friend Rose Tico, who remembered that Rey was an expert at fixing every mechanical item that she could get her hands on that the hospital she was working at as a LPN was desperately seeking a medical equipment technician to work on the machines.
When Rose had told her that the job was in Manhattan, Rey didn't hesitate to say yes. California didn't have anyone that would miss her. She had been kicked out of Unkar's home as soon as she graduated and had been couch surfing at former classmate's houses ever since.
The job paid well and would provide on the job training. Plus, she was promised a large sign on bonus, which would pay for her initial deposit on an apartment
Rey moved out to New York City within 2 weeks of getting the job at the hospital and found a hole in the wall studio apartment in Brooklyn. It was near the train tracks and Rey didn't get much sleep at night. She had to deal with cockroaches and rodent issues but it was a place that she could call home and not have to worry about living under the roof of someone who was constantly threatening to kick her out.
The job also provided medical insurance. Rey made an appointment with the OBGYN and went in for her appointment. The doctor had insisted on doing an ultrasound. Rey hadn't been on prenatal vitamins up to that point but she had done her best to avoid lifting heavy objects, strenuous exercise and ate as healthy as she could, choosing lean proteins, vegetables and fruits over sweets and fast food.
Her doctor gave her devastating news; the fetus had a slow heartbeat. She predicted the survival rate was very low but still gave Rey hope that there was a chance that the baby could make it to full term.
Rey didn't want to give up on her child. Even if Ben didn't want to be part of her life, part of their lives, she still wanted to have hope that she would have Ben's child and she would raise them on her own.
At 15 weeks, Rey was in the shower when she was overwhelmed by painful cramps. She looked down to see a steady trickle of blood running down her legs.
Rey frantically drove herself to the emergency room. She raised a ruckus and was taken back into an exam room to be seen by an OBGYN nurse immediately. There were several tests run, a blood test and a ultrasound was completed.
While she was waiting to be seen by the nurse, lying on a blood-soaked pad that reminded her of a puppy's pee pad, the dread sank in. She knew it was too late.
The look on the male nurse's face as he reviewed her chart for the test results told Rey all that she needed to know. The look was one of sympathy and compassion.
The male nurse, Finn, held her hand as Rey cried. He rubbed her shoulders and back as she vomited. He gave her his business card with his cell phone number and told her to call him any time that she needed to talk. She took him up on that offer after she arrived back home.
Besides Rose Finn became one of her best friends. They would go out to lunch at the hospital during their lunch breaks. They would talk on the phone for hours. She felt safe with Finn. She felt as if they had this unbreakable connection.
She introduced Rose to Finn about 6 months after she met him. They all started to hang out together. It wasn't until 2 years later that Rose and Finn realized that they had feelings for each other and started to date. They had started to get serious with each other about 3 years ago and talk about marriage. Finn told Rey that he had a proposal completely planned. Rey was excited for him. She had thought that Paul was going to also ask her to marry him, and she had even mentioned to Finn that there might be two weddings to plan during the summer.
She had been wrong about Paul's intentions, but Finn was still planning to pop the question to Rose next week and Rey was excited for them.
When Rey got to her apartment, she didn't bother turning on the lights but as soon as she stepped inside an overwhelming sense of dread hit her. She couldn't identify quite why but she knew something was wrong.
Rey's head was spinning from the alcohol. She threw off her shoes by the front entranceway, tossed her purse on the breakfast nook and headed into her room to change. Her room was bathed in moonlight coming from the open window by her bed. As soon as she started to take off the straps of her dress, she noticed a dark figure on the chair by her bed. She couldn't discern who it was, but there was a shadowed outline of a tall man.
Rey screamed, jumping backwards and gasping for air. Questions swirled in her mind. How did a man get into her apartment without breaking the locks? Who was this man? What did he want from her? Was he here to hurt her, to kill her?
"Hello Rey, it's been a long time" the man said in a deep, low toned voice. Rey gulped. She knew who it was instantly even before she flipped the light switch on.
Although she had never been able to find Ben Solo in the ten years she had searched for him, he had been able to find her.