Rey stirred in her bed and opened her eyes to stare into the darkness. There was no light streaming through the window but she could hear his steady breathing, feel his arm draped around her shoulder, his hand laying just below her breasts. Finn stirred and mumbled something that Rey couldn't decipher.
"Do you love him?", Rey said out loud into the blackness of the night. The sound of her voice was just above a whisper.
Rey heard Finn's breath catch. Rey couldn't see his eyes but she was pretty sure that he was looing at her. "Rey, are you ok?", he mumbled into her hair.
"Do you love him?", she questioned again.
Finn let go of her and Rey felt the mattress shift , before the light from the bedside table flashed on. "Who are you talking about Rey, what do you mean do I love him?", Finn questioned her with searching eyes gazing upon her.
Rey frowned, looked down at the mattress before taking a deep, stuttering breath and speaking. She didn't confrontation. The last time she confronted a man he had left her heart in pieces and she had to flee her hometown to get away from the memories of him.
"Poe, do you love Poe?", she asked.
Finn cocked his head to the side and stared at her blankly. "Poe's my friend. I love him as a friend", he stated.
Rey shook her head. She thought that he was blatantly lying to her face. The rumors, the sightings, they couldn't all have been made up.
She gulped and took another shaky breath, "Are you having an affair with him?", she questioned as her line of sight went down to the hemline of her nightgown and she picked off a piece of lint.
Finn reached out his hand, directed towards her face and Rey recoiled from his touch after his fingers brushed lightly against her cheek.
Finn quickly moved his hand back against his side and stared at her. "Why are you asking me this Rey? I would never cheat on you. I love you. You are going to be my wife", he said.
Rey shook her head and backed away from him. She rose off of the bed and stood beside the bed, looking down at him.
"Do you love him as more than a friend? The nights that you don't come home until late because you say that you have a lot of work to catch up with, are you or are you not spending time with Poe. When you tell me constantly that you are too tired to have sex when you finally do come home, is it because of him?", she asked her voice rising to a hysterical level.
"I..Rey..no..I", Finn stuttered over his words. He looked at her with what Rey believed was a mixture of guilt and sadness reflected in his eyes.
Rey started thrashing her hands an pushing against Finn's chest. "You do love him, don't you? You can't even clearly tell me one way or the other", she screamed at him. Her hands came in contact firmly with his shoulders. She pushed him but he didn't budge.
"I love you Rey, I want a relationship with you", he said.
Rey quickly shot up off the bed and headed towards their closet. She grabbed a duffle bag and started pulling clothes off of hangers as well as items out of her dresser, tossing them frantically into the bag.
She was mumbling to herself as she packed the bag, "I won't go through this again. I won't be someone's second choice. I want to be the first choice. The only choice", she said as she zipped up a hoodie and slipped into a pair of sneakers.
"Rey, where are you going? You can't leave. Its dark out. Its not safe. Stay here with me. We will talk in the morning. I'll sleep on the couch and you can have the bed.", he pleaded.
Rey ignored his pleas, stomping towards the front door, duffle bag thrown over her shoulder, still mumbling to herself. She didn't want to address Finn directly. She was too angry to speak rationally with him at the moment. She just needed to escape. Just like she did when Ben told him he was engaged. Her heart had shattered into a million pieces when the words escaped his lips.
Finn hadn't admitted to loving someone else. Rey knew though, she had seen the way that they looked at each other. She just hadn't put two and two together and realized what their stares at each other meant. They weren't just friends. They were something more even if they hadn't said it out loud. Even if Finn never admitted to loving Poe.
Rey wouldn't ever be number one in his heart.
She needed to leave and she had ahold of the door handle when all of a sudden she was jerked backwards as Finn's hand made contact with her shoulder. Jerking her backwards.
She whipped around and faced him. She was determined not to meet his gaze.
"Don't go", he pleaded. "There isn't anything between Poe and I. Just stay the night, I don't bother you. You can get a good nights sleep and then we will talk in the morning".
"No Finn. I will text Rose, my friend from college. She will come and get me. I will stay there tonight. I need to cool my head off. I can't be around you right now. Please just step aside and let me go", she requested, her voice full of desperation.
Rey hadn't spoken to Rose in a few months beyond some texts about upcoming bridesmaid dress fittings. Rey was so busy with planning her wedding that she felt like she neglected her friends.
She hadn't spoken to Rose in a couple weeks..no months. Her life was consumed with wedding planning and her job. Life had gotten even more complicated now that Ben was back in her life. Back uninvited. She wanted to just forget about him, forget about the pain that he caused.
But forgetting about pain caused by one man shattering her heart was impossible when another man was now stomping on her heart.
Rey wasn't sure if she believed Finn when he said that he wasn't having an affair with Poe. She thought he was just trying to not get in an argument. She thought that was typical of Finn. He was always the peacemaker.
He had promised long ago when they met that he would mend her broken heart. Rey thought that he was trying desperately to hold the stitching together of their relationship desperately even when it was obvious that someone had cut all of the strings.
Rey needed time to think, she needed to breathe fresh air. She felt stuffy inside of their apartment.
Finn's hand lifted off her shoulder and his arm dropped to the side. Rey shivered and wrapped her arms briefly around her body. She wasn't cold; rather the thought of him touching her at all made her shiver in terror. She didn't want him trying to comfort her or explain his actions.
"Rey, I swear to you nothing happened between Poe and I. ", he said as tears were welling up in Rey's eyes.
She walked straight to the door and pulled on the handle, yanking the door open.
"Do you love him?", she asked him again, whipping around to face him as the tears spilled down her cheeks.
Finn silently looked at her and didn't say a word.
Rey walked outside and slammed the door close behind her. His silence spoke volumes. He didn't need to confirm that he was in love with Poe. She already knew that he was.
Rey got in her car and just sat. Letting the tears stream down her face. Letting her mind wonder. She didn't know what she was going to do next. She had only grabbed enough clothes for a few days. She was going to stay with Rose for the night but after that. She didn't know where she would be.
When Rey arrived at Rose's place, it was close to midnight. She had stopped at a coffee shop to get some caffeine in her system as the drive to Rose's house took her around an hour and a half and she was terrified she'd cry herself to sleep at the wheel.
Rose swung the door open and directed Rey inside. Rey hadn't been specific with Rose over text when she asked to stay with her for a few nights. She had only explained that she was having a crisis that involved Finn. She told her she needed to be apart from him for a few days to have time to think about her future.
Rey knew that running away from a problem wasn't always the best solution but that solution had worked for her in the past.
She had run away from Ben and her heart had healed. At least she thought it healed until he inserted himself again in her life.
She was certain that Finn loved her but she just wasn't certain that he was in love with her. She didn't want someone to love her out of pity. She also didn't want to be someone's second choice. She didn't want him to marry her out of obligation.
Also, Ben coming back into her life again forced her to ask herself if she felt the same way about Finn. She wasn't sure if she was in love with him. She also wasn't sure if he was he second choice because her first choice hadn't been obtainable. She needed to answer the question herself. Had she wanted to marry Finn because she was in love with him or was it because he was her knight in shining armor, rescuing her from heartbreak and filling that hole in her heart that Ben had caused.
Rose didn't ask her any questions when she saw Rey with tears running down her cheeks. She just hugged her and kissed her cheek. "It will be alright Rey. Whatever happened. You will be ok. Now come on and put your bag into the spare bedroom. I put clean towels on your bed so feel free to take a hot shower tonight. I'll put on the kettle for some tea", Rose said gently to Rey as she headed into the kitchen.
Rose had made tea for Rey when she was stressed out about her classes in college. The warm tea with honey was soothing to Rey and they would talk, laugh and drink the tea in their dorm room. The added caffeine typically helped Rey stay up to study as well.
That night , after Rey had settled in, taken a shower and changed into a pair of pajamas; they again sat at Rose's kitchen table. They talked and laughed as they sipped the tea. Rey told Rose about Finn and what had happened that night. She also told her about Ben coming back into her life as the new client at her job.
Rose sat there, her tea cup half way to her lips and she held it just below her chin. "So he just told you he's divorce, didn't explain the reason why he was divorce and just acted like you all were good friends again?".
Rey nodded and blew on the hot liquid before taking a sip of the tea. "Pretty much. Sometimes what he says seems like overkill. That he's trying to make up for years apart but not saying anything about what happened in between those years or asking me neither. Its just so strange.", she said signing.
Rose nodded and tipped her head to the side, looking at Rey with questioning eyes. "Did you tell him about Finn?"
Rey placed her tea cup down on the table, "He knows but he seemed to not care. He didn't seem interested in asking about my relationship with Finn at all. He was just focusing on me. Plus he randomly showed up at the gym below my condo out of nowhere. I've been going to that gym for years and have never seen him there. What are the chances of me just randomly going at night to blow off some steam and him just already being there. I never have been to that gym at that time of night. I usually only go right after I get home from work", she explained.
Rose started giggling but stopped when Rey narrowed her eyes at her. "Of course he wasn't interested in your relationship with Finn. Finn is just a speedbump on his was to drive to your house", she calmly stated.
Rey looked at her suspiciously, "I'm not sure what you mean exactly Rose but I am exhausted and need to get some rest tonight. Thank you so much for letting me stay here for tonight. I know that your boyfriend stays over on the weekends so I promise to be out of here by Friday".
Rose cleaned up the dishes and placed the teacups and spoons in the sink, "Where will you go, Rey?" she asked.
Rey let out a deep breath that she had been holding. She got up from the table and walked towards the spare bedroom. "I'm not sure yet. I am hoping that something pans out as I start looking for my own place.
She could barely keep her eyes open. She hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. Every little noise outside had started her awake. Then Rose's cat, marshmallow had kept jumping on the bed no matter how many time she shooed the cat away. Around midnight she had given up and her the cat sleep at her feet.
She hadn't put much effort into her appearance either. She wore the same suit she had worn the day before and had just pulled her hair in a messy bun with minimal makeup. She figured that she had no one to impress anyways. Almost everyone at the company was either squirreled away in their office or working from home. Gwen had looked a little taken aback at Rey's appearance when she ran into her in the break room. She had been on her second cup of coffee since she had arrived in the office and it was only 10 am.
Rey was looking down at the keyboard when she heard a gentle tapping on the glass portion of her cubicle. She looked up startled to see Ben standing at her cubicle with a large smile on his face. When she looked up at him, his smile dropped from his face. Rey knew why. She knew he saw the bags under her eyes, her uncombed hair piled on top of her hair and held in place with two chopsticks and a pin. She knew he saw her cheeks, still tearstained from crying in her car on the way to work.
Ben's eyebrows knitted together and his lips pressed together tightly. "Whats wrong, Rey? You look like you haven't gotten any sleep".
Rey hesitated for a moment before she opened her mouth. She wasn't sure how much she should reveal to him. Although she knew him from the past she didn't feel like she knew the Ben that was standing in front of her. She wasn't sure if she could trust him with such personal information.
"I didn't, it was a rough night for me last night. ", she said to him. She tried to sound peppy but she knew her tone of voice gave her away. She knew she sounded tired. She had to emphasize every word.
Ben cocked his head to the side and Rey swear that she saw a smirk cross his face, "What did he do?", he asked.
Rey silently cursed to herself. She debated telling him anything more. He obviously figured out that her miserable state was because of something Finn had done.
Rey nodded and looked up at him, feeling embarrassed. "We had a fight. I stayed with my friend for the night. Nothing to worry about. I apologize for my appearance. IT was hard getting sleep at Rose's place last night", she told him.
Ben swung his arm over the top of her cubicle, standing on the side of Rey's office chair. He still had a concerned look on his face.
"Are you planning on staying there tonight as well?", he asked. Rey was glad he didn't ask any more personal questions. After all they were standing in an open space in the office where there were about 10 other cubicles spread out across a small space. She didn't want to air her business to everyone that actually was in the office, even if there were only a few people actually sitting at their desks.
Rey looked down at her hands, that were clenched on her sides, her nails dug into her palms. She nodded and looked at his mouth, not meeting his glaze. She used to spend her time studying his face when she was a teenager. He always had such sumptuous lips. She would imagine what it would be like to kiss him, to have his mouth move upon hers.
She still remembered the tingle of his lips as they brushed upon hers the day of his wedding. He had sucked her breath away and for a moment she thought that she had forgotten how to breathe until he broke the kiss. Then he got married. He didn't choose her, he didn't choose endless kisses with her. That was the moment she wanted to forget that he had kissed her at all.
"You can stay with me. I have a small one bedroom guest cottage on my property that no one stays in. Its fully furnished and private. Well as private as you can get for being 20 minutes outside of the city.", he stated.
Rey shook her head. " No I couldn't. I will stay with Rose until the weekend and start looking to rent my own place. I think its for the best that I have some space to reflect".
Ben came over and kneeled before her, wrinkling his black trousers and he got on his knees. He placed a hand on her knee and sighed. "Really, Rey its no problem. I won't bother you , plus its quieter then being directly in the city. You'll get some real rest.", he let her know.
He voice was confident and strong, just like the Ben she used to admire. Rey weighed her options in her head quickly. She could go back to Finn. He had already blown up her phone with texts, asking for her to come back so they could have a heart to heart conversation. Heart emoji's and praying hands were interspersed throughout his messages.
The second option was to go back to Rose's place. She had a warm bed there but there was also a terrorizing cat and her building was right near the train tracks and the street, making outside noise consistent throughout the night.
Her third option was to say yes to Ben. She could stay in a quieter cottage and although Ben would be in the house behind her, he wouldn't be in the same proximity as her. She could get some sleep, take a hot shower and get a good night's sleep.
Rey felt his hand, heavy on her knee, the warmth permeating into her pants leg.
Rey nodded and gave him a slight smile. "Ok, Just for tonight. I'd appreciate that. Send me the address".
Ben stood up and grinned at her. "Ok you won't regret it. Now let's go into the conference room so we can talk about the next steps for the project". He held out his hand to her and she firmly grabbed his outstretched hand, pulling herself up off of her seat.
As she walked into the conference room she hope that she wouldn't regret her decision.