"Did your dad say yes?" Finn asks at dinner a few weeks later.

Poe nods. "He did." He grins, but he knows his eyes give him away. Finn takes his hand, rubbing Poe's knuckles with his thumb.

"Now you just have to ask your parents," Rey says to Ben.

"Tonight," he promises.

Rey decided to spend her spring break volunteering again, and Finn convinced Lando to let him join as well. Poe called his dad to ask for permission, and his dad seemed totally blissful about it. Which was not the response Poe was looking for. Beg me to come home, Dad, he wanted to plead. Please.

"Have fun," Dad said. "I'll miss you."

But there was nothing in his tone to suggest he actually would. Poe wonders if his father is even capable of feeling anymore, or had if that ability, if his love for Poe, was buried with his wife, with Poe's mother.

"So, over-under of Hux asking Phasma to prom?" Finn says, changing the subkect as he watches his neighbor stumble into the cafeteria, hung-over and scowling. Poe casts his boyfriend a grateful look.

"Minimal. Hux wouldn't acknowledge a crush if it slapped him in the face," Ben comments.

"Phasma might just do that," Rey jokes, but she frowns as she watches the large girl peer after Hux.

"I can solve this one real quick," Poe says quickly. He stands up and marches over to Hux, not even caring. Since Mitaka came back from his suspension, Hux has been avoiding his former friend, and honestly Poe thinks the kid's better for it.

"So," Poe says, planting his hands down on the table. "When are you going to ask Phasma to prom?"

"What are you talking about?" Hux demands, his jaw bobbling. "I can't believe you—"

"As if I'd even want to go with him," Phasma's voice cuts in. She scowls at Hux, at Poe, before stalking off.

Well, that failed, Poe thinks to himself.

"Told you it was hopeless," Ben says smugly.

"I will throw this water in your face," Poe threatens. "And ruin all your mascara."

"It's eyeliner."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Rey isn't letting you wear that to prom, is she?"

"He can wear whatever he likes," Rey says softly. "As it is, I'm certainly not going to be all fancy. We'll just be… the trashy prom king and queen."

Ben smiles at her.

Poe exchanges a glance with Finn. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" he mutters.

Finn nods.

That night, Poe sends out a group text to Finn, Jess, Snap, Beebee-Ate, and Ben. I know Rey's birthday is the day before prom, and that she doesn't want a party. Actually, her precise words, Poe remembers, were "I will kill you if you throw me a party." So I was thinking we can spruce up her prom experience instead. Like we can buy her gifts like getting her nails & hair done, and a dress.

Done, Jess texts. I'll show her some dresses online & say they're for me. I'll find out what she likes.

I'm in, Finn texts.

Yes! Beebee-Ate replies, his words accompanied by a dozen grinning emojis.

Ben texts Poe privately: thanks.

No problem, buddy, Poe texts him back.

"Absolutely not," Mom says. "I want to see you, Ben!"

"But all my friends are going!"

"I don't give a damn."

Of course you don't. You never do.

And so Ben winds up kissing Rey goodbye before spring break. "Have fun."

"I'll text you," she promises. "And Ben—good luck."

He kisses her again before Rey climbs into a car with Poe and Finn. They drive away, leaving Ben watching them with a burning in his chest. If he had been able to go with them... Finn offered to let him borrow condoms, and Ben had laughed, because they had been dating only five or so weeks, and besides, why would Rey let him touch her? She knows about the STD, even if it was cured.

And yet each time she kisses him, he thinks she would let him, she would want him to. And he wants to. What Snoke took from him doesn't matter and can't compare to the way he thinks about Rey, how he feels about her, how he tries to imagine what it would be like to voluntarily strip in front of someone else, let her see how vulnerable he is because she would cherish him, not exploit him.

Someday, Ben hopes. In the meantime, he tries to shake off Snoke's words, the sensations that stalk Ben when all he wants to do is focus on Rey and the memory of how she smiles at him.

Dad arrives two hours later, and after dinner with Uncle Luke, Ben climbs into the car to ride back to his house. He closes his eyes and presses his face against the window, waiting for sleep to take him. Somehow, now that someone out there besides Snoke knows what he did to his father, he finds it harder than ever to face him.

I don't want to be this person anymore. But I don't know how to stop. How to change. Ben picks at the skin on his arm.

"Ben!" Mom rushes out of the house behind a bounding Chewie, pulling him in for a hug.

They sit down to a meal that Mom clearly took out from some Italian place, but Ben doesn't mind.

"So kid," Dad asks. "Since you slept the entire way here. How's your last semester going?"

Ben stabs a piece of eggplant parmesan. "Fine. French is going better. Rey's tutoring me."

"Rey?" Mom questions. "Kenobi?"

"Yeah." Ben meets his mother's eyes and smiles. "She's my girlfriend, actually. We're dating. And we're going to prom together."

"Good for you," Han says. "Chewie liked that girl, so she's got to be all right."

Mom smiles.

Try, he urges himself.

But all he can think about when he looks at his father is sending that email to that reporter. All he can think of is what his parents will think if they knew what Snoke did to him, what Ben let him do.

He can still feel Snoke's phantom fingers around his waist, feel his breath against Ben's ears. His stomach turns.

"How about college?" Dad ventures.

"You do need to send a deposit soon," Mom adds.

"I don't know." Ben sets his fork down with a clatter. "I don't really know what I want to study." And he doesn't want to be indebted to Snoke.

Mom cocks her head. "I thought you wanted to study biological engineering. Like my father."

"Maybe not."

"I thought it was political science," Dad says.

"Maybe not that either." Ben can't deny the appeal of Rey's suggestion: taking a gap year. But as he looks into his parents' eyes, just for the briefest of seconds in each, he can't tell them. "I'll decide soon."

The week drags on, Ben mostly cranking out schoolwork and texting Rey, but she's too busy to respond regularly and he's happy for her, but bleeding inside.

"Come on, Ben," Dad groans later on Thursday, after Ben's rejected the idea of going to a movie. "You don't want to do anything. I mean I'm glad you're taking your last semester seriously, but—"

"Yes, and I need to do well," Ben says. "And… make decisions."

"Do you want to talk about it? Colleges? We can maybe draw up a list of pros and cons for each place, together—"

"No," Ben snaps. Because he doesn't want to see the names of the schools Snoke got him into.

"Okay, kid. I'm just trying to help," Dad says, hands raised. "You should know your mother and I are very proud of you. Even with your—struggles—earlier this year, you've pulled together and done well. After Mr. Snoke—well, after that whole thing happened—we were concerned, but—"

"I don't want to talk about that!"

Chewie barks at Ben's rising tone.

"Don't yell, Ben. I'm just trying to help."

"Well, you aren't helping."

"Ben," Mom admonishes, marching into the room. "That's no way to talk to your father—"

"Oh, shut up," Ben says, because he feels as if all his nerves have ignited, and he feels Snoke inside him even though he's not there, he feels the pain, he feels the shame creeping down his spine, and he can't breathe.

"Ben?"

"Leave me alone!" he snarls, pinching, grabbing anything to center him and trying to keep his mask on, keep his face as blank as can be so that they won't notice, they won't realize—

"Enough of this!" Mom barks. "We're your parents, and you will respect—"

Ben throws back his head, his laugh tearing out a broken sound, cracked and shattering against himself, against his parents, against the walls. "Maybe you should earn my respect!"

Dad's face goes white with fury. "Excuse me?"

"You—" Ben points at his mother. "You never told me that you used to work with Snoke."

"How is that relevant?" she demands. "Did he—"

"And you," Ben says to his father. "You're nothing more than an old, washed-up drug smuggler. You ruin everything around you. You ruined her career. You ruined your own life. You ruined—" He can't keep talking. Rage simmers, demanding to escape, but at the same time it's strangling him.

"Are you done?" Mom asks, her voice quiet and so, so furious.

"No," Ben says, because he's desperate and he wants them to fight back, dammit, he wants them to hate him, he wants them to resent him so then his fury is justified, so he can sleep at night without scratching at his palms and thinking about what a terrible person he is.

Because you are a terrible person.

And sooner or later everyone's going to realize it. Even Rey.

"What else, Ben?" Mom demands, hands on her hips.

"You hate me," he insists.

"Why would you say that?" Dad shouts.

"Because," Ben says, digging for the slimiest reason he can and throwing it out to watch it splatter black ink and hurt across his parents' faces. "Because I emailed that reporter this summer. To tell him about you being a smuggler. I did that."

Mom gasps, her hand flitting to cover her mouth. "Ben."

He glares at his father, defiant mask still on, cold and hateful, when inside he's a little boy crying in his room because he's afraid of going off to boarding school, he's a fourteen-year-old shaking and confused in his dorm room because of where Snoke touched him, he's a drunk teenager emailing a reporter because Snoke encouraged him and because he thinks it will impress Snoke, because he thinks it might be the right thing to do, because the latter is a reason conjured to disguise the former.

"You," Dad breathes, looking at him with his mouth open, desperation screaming from his eyes, and tears burn in Ben's own eyes, but he can't let them fall. "Why?"

He shakes his head, because he can't answer.

"Of all the—Ben, we've sacrificed so much for—"

Not what I wanted, Ben thinks. Never what I needed. He didn't need a fancy education or clothes or any of that.

He needed them.

And now it's too late.

"Why did you do it?" Dad demands, gasping as if Ben's physically stabbed him. His eyes light up. "Was it Snoke, did he make you—?"

The mention of that name again sends Ben's heart snapping against his ribs. If you thought he was skeezy in any way, why didn't you protect me? "It wasn't Snoke! It was me! Because I don't—because I don't—because you don't care about—"

"We don't care about you?" Dad roars. "That is the biggest crock of bullshit that I've ever—"

"Fuck you!" Ben screams. Press harder, dammit, press harder or let it go! Show me you care or that you don't!

"Ben—" Dad tries.

"I wish you were dead," Ben says, and the moment the words leave his lips he feels like he's fallen into a deep, cold pit, spiraling with no bottom in sight.

Chewie growls and lunges at him, biting Ben in the arm. Ben yelps and jumps back, flattening himself against the wall and cowering, his arms raised to protect himself and blood dripping down his arm onto his forehead, and his father's suddenly at his side and Chewie's at his feet, and Dad's touching his cheekbone, looking at him with love Ben does not deserve, looking at him with a plea in his eyes, as if asking for forgiveness.

"I'll get some peroxide for that," Mom says, and Ben's never felt more ashamed in his life. He just told his father he wishes he was dead, his mother that he ruined her career, and his parents are still taking care of him.

She comes back with a brown bottle of antiseptic and some cotton balls. She pries Ben's injured arm away from him, and Ben can't stop sobbing. Loudly. He hates it. He hates that now they'll know he needs them, but only because of his tears.

The antiseptic stings. Good.

"C'mere, kid," Dad says, hauling Ben to his feet when his mother's finished bandaging his arm. He half-carries Ben up the stairs to his room. "Lie down."

Ben obeys, still shaking. Mom comes with a glass of water.

"I'm sorry," he manages between wracking sobs.

"Calm down."

He can't.

Oh, shit.

Ben's texts are disjointed, but Rey gets the basic idea.

If they were suspicious of Snoke, why didn't they intervene?

Rey doesn't want to think of Han and Leia as being like her mother. Did they try at all?

Maybe. I don't think I listened. But they should have forced me to.

You're right.

I wish I hadn't said that.

You need to apologize, she texts.

I did. But they haven't forgotten. Why would they?

Rey feels the sting of those words as if she experienced it herself. It's not a rejection, she tries to tell herself. Ben's parents still love him. They have to.

I'm scared, Rey. I don't know if I can control myself. I feel like Snoke's completely messed up my brain, or else I was just born this screwed up.

Rey bites her lip. Ben, I really think you need to see Maz Kanata, she texts. You don't even have to tell her about what happened to you. But she can help you figure out if something else is going on, something biological maybe.

Yes, Counselor Rey.

She snorts. But will you do it?

Yes.

She exhales. I'm proud of you, too.

Why?

Because this isn't who you're supposed to be, and you know it. & you're going to get help. In some ways, he's braver than her in that respect. Rey still doesn't know who she's supposed to be.