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Chapter Text

Rey had her first taste of alcohol when she was twelve. It shouldn’t have been that significant in her memory; the only other thing that happened that day was the Big Deal that Ben made about her new swimsuit.

She went to Kaydel’s house, when Kaydel brought over a can of cold beer with the lid popped off. “Poe leaves them in my Mom’s fridge,” she said, her chest puffed out with pride. She passed the can around to the rest of the girls – there were six in total, sitting around the pool. Rey sat at the end next to her friend, Rose, who was basically the only girl there that she knew.

Rose didn’t hesitate. When she got the can, she brought the can up to her lips in a swift motion, before handing it to Rey. The aluminum was cold, and damp from condensation and the sweat of five other girls’ hands.

It was a rite of passage. You have your first taste of cold beer, just like how you would have your first kiss. Sometimes, a girl returns to it over and over.

Rey had what Leia lauded as a Left-brain, because she happened to be good at math. Leia considered this to be a miracle, considering that her brother, Luke, was such a ‘Right-brained hippie,’ as she liked to call him. And Ben Solo, her son, was affectionately dubbed a ‘No-brain;’ Leia said that he took after his father, Han.

A lot of times, Rey wished she were more Right-brained. She didn’t seem to fit in with anybody else at her middle school. When Rey lived with her dad, she was homeschooled; all her clothes came from Goodwill, or they were woven from biodegradable fibers. Now in public school, she became aware of how her shoes were shabbier than everyone else’s. She had to make herself comb her hair, or else she would look sloppy – that’s what Leia warned her about.   

Rey had to adapt to the twenty-first century, fast. There were things she liked, things that she was good at – like math. And she liked learning about cars and computers. There were more confusing parts, like… other girls. How to make friends. The school put her in a grade behind the one she was supposed to be in, because her dad never really taught her out of a specific curriculum book.

Before, it was just herself and her dad. Now there were all these rules that she needed to learn.

Rey’s new friends took her shopping and taught her how to dress so she wouldn’t look like a sloppy female hobo. For the first time in her life, Rey wore a bralet, so she wouldn’t have to cross her arms over her chest when she walked in the hallway. She also started combing her hair out, and shaving her armpits.

She let her friends copy off of her homework in class for math. In exchange, Rey would copy off of them for History…. English… and Science. She wasn’t as smart as Leia hoped her to be. The girls also taught her how to play sports like softball, soccer, and baseball, so that in PE she wasn’t the last loser to be picked for teams (which happened for the first months when Rey transferred to the school).

It kind of shamed her, that all these girls were a year younger than her, but they knew how to act and to behave in this world. Rey felt like a big, dumb alien sometimes.

When they wanted to hang out on the weekends, they cycled through each other’s houses. Kaydel’s mom’s boyfriend, Poe, and Rose’s sister, Paige, always supplied alcohol, at least indirectly. Once, Rey stole a cigarette from her cousin’s secret stash, and she took the first hit without coughing her lungs out. That got her some respect.

In Theory of Knowledge class, Kaydel chirped up suddenly: “Rey, you’ve been to all our houses. Why don’t we go to yours?”

All the girls sat in a circle in every class, so all eyes turned on Rey. “Oh… um,” she croaked. That was a good question. Her dad of course never invited anybody to the house. Han and Leia sometimes had people over, though.   

It would be okay. Ben would be the only person at home. Normally, he slept during the day and woke up at night to go deliver pizzas. The only times when he became most active was when Leia was home; then he would make himself busy by bustling around the house, cleaning things.

Rey answered, “Yeah, you can. Leia won’t be home.”

Jannah looked shocked. “Do you call your Mom by her first name?” she asked.

“I… no,” Rey mumbled. “She’s not my mom. She’s my aunt.”

“Oh, okay,” Jannah said.

Rey waited for more questions, but Jannah let the question drop.

On Friday afternoon, they took the bus to Rey’s house. The Organa-Solo house happened to be three times bigger than her father’s house, but there were no good places to explore. No desert, no forest. Identical three-story, two-garage houses lined the street. Rey unlocked the door and let her friends inside.

Her heart jerked around inside her chest while her friends stepped into the foyer. She knew her house wasn’t as big as Kaydel’s, or as cool as Jannah’s. As far as family went…

As she moved through the house to take her friends down to the rumpus-room, she heard sounds coming from the basement. She cursed under her breath. She stopped so suddenly in the corridor, that Rose bumped against her back.

Before she could convince her friends to turn around, she heard footsteps bounding up the basement steps. A six-foot tall man materialized at the end of the corridor.

He squinted in the afternoon light. Although it was fall, all he wore was a pair of jeans cinched tight around his hipbones. His long, black hair flew from his head in a nimbus, and he wore scraggly facial hair.

Ben was a herald of misfortune; his presence foretold the end of Rey’s social life FOREVER. She could’ve died right there.

Ben squinted at them. Then he turned his gaze down to Rey. “What the shit are these people doing here?” he asked, with a jerk of his chin.

“Why are you awake?” Rey countered, indignant. “I’m having friends over.”

“You never told me that. Nobody gave you permission for that.”

Ben reached his hand out to her. Rey tried to back away, but Rose and the other girls formed a three-car pile-up behind her. He snagged her wrist in his big hands and crushed her skin between his fingers. A hot white pain flashed out – Rey cried, her knees buckling together. When she yanked her arm away, a bright red welt formed on her forearm where Ben inflicted the Indian burn.

A flush crawled up Rey’s neck. She didn’t know what to do. If Ben told her friends to get out, then her social life was over. Nobody would be her ping pong partner at PE.

After a moment, Ben scoffed. “Whatever, just… Nobody flush a tampon down the toilet.” He stalked off in the direction of the kitchen.

Even after he left, a horrible, disgusting miasma trailed behind him in his wake. What kind of grown man would just say that to a group of girls? Heat crept up Rey’s neck and face as the silence stretched on, and on, mortifying her.

At last, Rose broke the silence – “What a loser,” she muttered.

Rey heaved out a sigh. Thank goodness for Rose for saying the obvious.

Kaydel leaned in to stage-whisper in her ear, “Rey, I didn’t know your brother was hot.”

“He’s not my brother,” Rey answered in a tight voice. And if Ben was hot… she didn’t notice. He was ten years older than her, and also her cousin. And he hated her – he thought she was annoying.  

After getting his food out of the microwave, he bounded upstairs to go hide in his room. Rey was able to take her friends down into the rumpus-room in the basement. Ben had abandoned his PS4 game down there, so Rey let Jannah and Kaydel fuck around with his Battle Galaxy: Sith Ender save file, while Rose did her homework on the carpeted floor. Ben’s presence left his heat in a dent in the leather couch, but none of the other girls seemed to notice or comment on it. He even forgot to take his mohair throw blanket with him, and it fell onto the carpet.

The conversation drifted to a halt. All the girls sat around in bored silence. Jannah stifled a yawn, and Kaydel asked, “Do you have anything to drink?” Rose looked like she was about to die of boredom.

As hostess, the burden fell hard on Rey’s shoulders to entertain her guests. She went upstairs, into the kitchen. In the cabinet next to the fridge, Rey discovered the wine cooler.  

Unsure of what she was doing, she took out a half-empty bottle – the spout was covered in foil wrap. In front of guests, Leia would normally put it in a glass. Swirl it around and sniff it. But Rey didn’t want to do the dishes. She took the bottle down and presented it to her friends.

Kaydel snatched the bottle out of her hands. Out of all the girls, she actually liked the taste of alcohol; she did the swirl-and-sniff, which she probably learned from her mother, before sucking on the lip of the bottle. Jannah had the bottle next and took a long swig before returning back to Ben’s game. Rose took her share, before handing the bottle back to Rey. Rey put the spout to her lips and tilted her head back, draining the rest back down to the black dregs at the bottom. Then she went upstairs to go open a new one.

“Hey, wake up,” he snapped.

Rey cracked open her eyelids. It was dark inside the basement. When Rey moved her head, the ceiling swam, as if she were underwater. She shut her eyes again, bile rising to her stomach.

A massive presence moved around the room. “God fucking dammit,” he cursed. “What did your bitch friends do?”

Rey had never drank so much before in her life. Mouthfuls of red wine went down easier than sips of Poe’s disgusting beer. As a rule, she would feel great after drinking at her friend’s house, and then a little dizzy afterwards. This felt different – she didn’t even want to move.

She laid on her back, with her arms outstretched above her head. She remembered walking her friends upstairs to the front door, then going back downstairs to get something… The rest was a blur.

Ben appeared right next to her to yell down at her again. “You don’t give a shit, do you?” he cried. “You’re so fucking inconsiderate.”

Rey didn’t really want to deal with him right now, so she kept her eyes shut and played dead. She beamed thought patterns in his head – Leave me alone, she sent out.

“Rey?” he said. In a softer voice, he repeated her name. “Rey?”

She heard and felt his breath wash over her face as he crouched over her. A prickling sensation started on her breath. Her fingers twitched. Did Ben actually care about her?

His fingertips grazed her neck. He placed his hand on her throat; it was a struggle to keep her breathing even. At least the alcohol kept her calm.

Then he raised his hand. His skin ran against the edge of her jaw, before she felt his thumbpad brush against her chapped lips. She remembered that she needed to go to Claire’s to get more of that lip balm that Rose recommended to her.

Just then, his hand moved down her sternum, and made a pass over her chest. Her nipples immediately hardened beneath her bralet; she told herself that it was just an accident. Ben probably didn’t mean it.

Then she heard Ben make a low sound in his throat. His hand swept up her navel, and ran over her chest again, deliberately running over the mosquito-bite bumps on her chest. Rey shimmied her waist, squeezing her eyes tightly closed.

“You look like such a whore right now,” he muttered under his breath.

At first, Rey thought she misheard him.

His breath washed over her lips, and she resisted the urge to lick her mouth. “I could do anything to you and you wouldn’t give a shit,” he whispered. His words fell on her bare skin like a burning brand.

She felt his hand close around hers. He brought it up to his full lips and pressed them to the back of her hand. Slowly, he moved her hand and placed it on rough denim. Rey’s eyes opened just a sliver to see what he was doing.

He didn’t unzip his pants or anything. The metal tab of his fly scraped her palm. What he did was he closed her fingers over the crotch of his jeans.

Rey panicked; what was he doing to her? She tried to pull her hand away, but his grip tightened on her fingers.  He continued to stroke himself through his jeans, using her hand. Rey couldn’t understand if he actually felt anything; all she did know was that a kink was forming in her lower back.

He was so much bigger than her.

Just then, he flipped her over onto her stomach, before moving on top of her. Ben draped himself over her back like a weighted blanket. Rey’s cheek rubbed against the leather couch.

He moved his hips in long, deep strokes. His fingers dug into her hipbones, holding her so tight that she’ll find bruises tomorrow when she looks at herself in the mirror before her shower. His zipper kept scraping her ass; luckily she was drunk, or this would’ve actually hurt. Her breathing condensed against the surface of the leather couch.

His fingers tangled in her combed hair, before forming a fist. He tugged against her scalp, making her eyes water.

He started humping her so hard, that the friction created heat against her butt. It reminded her of the way that her dad would start fires without a flint – he would rub two pieces of wood together until one ignited.

Ben let out a gasp, his hips stuttering. Cursing under his breath, he released her hair and smoothed both of his palms down her back. He pressed his thumbs into the space between her shoulder blades. Rey wondered why he didn’t know that she was awake… but she also didn’t want him to know that she was awake.

He bent down, and with one hand, he swept her hair away from the nape of her neck. Just then, she felt his teeth latch onto her skin. Then, a hot, white pain. She screwed her eyes shut, until Ben’s mouth popped off of her neck.

“There you go,” he murmured. “There you go, kid.” His breath cooled the saliva on her skin.

He slid off of her. In his absence, a chill settled over her back. He drew his blanket over her shoulders. Rey breathed slowly, just waiting to see if he would come back downstairs. She didn’t think she would ever go to sleep again, but she turned out to be wrong.  

Tuesday, at PE, Rey stood in the gym locker room, in the middle of changing into her shirt and shorts. Today was the start of the ping pong season, so there would be a lot of tiny balls bouncing around. Rey searched her backpack and the bottom of her locker. When her search came up empty, she turned to her neighbor.

“Do you have a hair tie?” she asked Rose.

“Sure, just give it back later.” Rose handed over a black scrunchie.

As Rey gathered her hair in one hand, she winced as her knuckles brushed against the back of her neck. She threaded the scrunchie over her ponytail, when Rose turned to her and gasped.

“Whoa! What happened?” Rose asked.

“What?”

Rose waved over Jannah. Kaydel followed and gasped. “Who gave you that?” she demanded.

“What is it?” Rey asked.

Kaydel placed her hands on her hips. “You must’ve been whoring it up behind our backs!”

“What is it?” Rey repeated, mortified.

Jannah pointed – she thrust her nail into the back of Rey’s neck. “You’ve got a hickie!” she cried, so the whole locker room would know.

Rose pulled out her phone. Three hands took hold of Rey’s ponytail while Rose snapped a picture of Rey’s back. She showed the picture to Rey.

There it was, red against the white of her neck. Immediately, Rey slapped a hand over the thing. She searched her mind fast, because the rest of the girls were staring at her. She felt like a martyr tossed into the lion’s pit for the amusement of the Roman Imperial public.

“My – my cousin did that to me,” she said. “it’s an Indian burn.”

Chapter Text

Anything could explain the hospital gown. Rey plucked at the cotton fabric with the pads of her fingers. The last thing she remembered was Finn asking her to the school formal; she couldn’t remember giving him an answer. Some possibilities afterwards included: falling off of the boat and almost drowning. The boat crashing into the dock. The engine erupting into a ball of fire. Rey had never been on a  boat before, but she got the impression that a lot of things could go wrong.

She didn’t want to worry about it, but the question continued to tickle the back of her mind: what if her friends were dead right now?

She should call one of the girls and ask them what happened. Then she could stop worrying.

Rey looked to the bureau for the portable phone, but someone had removed it from its cradle. Its very absence relieved Rey; she returned to bed and tucked the covers under her chin, content in the knowledge that she did everything she could to get answers. If reality was so bad, she didn’t need to deal with it at this moment.

Years later, Rey will read through her emergency file, through ten pages of lab results, and then ask questions about that night. The doctors tested her urine for a gauntlet of drugs. When the nurse woke her up to insert a catheter, Rey had enough fight in her to try to push her away. “Stop,” she whimpered, “not there.” Each drug test came back negative; the only substance that landed her in the hospital was that one drink she had sometime after Finn asked her to prom. Rey always got anxiety on verbal examinations.

The legal blood alcohol limit is 0.8. A 0.4 BAC is considered lethal for the average person. When her tests came back, Rey’s registered a 0.25, at only half of the legal limit.

The Solo’s were very healthy people and had never been inside a hospital before. Leia wore a very specific hospital outfit – she wore a beige jacket, and dark or neutral-colored pantsuits, with a matching conservative handbag. Han didn’t change his outfit at all, but he would plop himself down in a chair and watch the television in front of her bed. Ben would wear a shirt, his jeans, and his sneakers, just to annoy Leia even further.

Kaydel told the doctors that Rey had been drinking for just two hours, but ‘like over a stretch of time’. These included half a thermos of vodka, plus sips of kahlua and rum straight from the bottles. The doctor then informed Han that a few more drinks would have sent her into a coma, or killed her right there on the dock.

Leia did a theater-gasp and clutched Han’s shoulder for emotional support. Han looked morose, like he did when his booky would come to him with bad news. For some reason, they would bring Ben along on these hospital visits, so he would lounge in his chair with a weird, smug expression on his face.

Rey hated him. This was her life-or-death experience, not a morality lesson for her weird and friendless cousin. Han and Leia could’ve just left him at home alone.

Leia and Han took her home from the hospital. Instead of letting her go to her room, they made her sit down on the good upholstered stitchwork settee. It was time for a lecture, apparently.

Normally, Han was never the disciplinarian in their family. He portrayed himself as her easy-going, fun uncle. Leia was the easy-going, fun aunt, but she normally nagged Rey about her grades and her wardrobe. Han never cared about her grades, or her standing with the other girls in class. He wore the same black Henley vest he did on the day they took her in four years ago. All that time, Rey had never seen him angry before.

Rey’s first blackout triggered a dormant fathering instinct inside of Han. When she came home from the hospital, he made her sit down in the good chair across from him. The look in his eyes made her want to cry. He looked like an old, sad Bassett hound. Ben should’ve gone up to his room, but he positioned himself by the window of the room so he could watch everybody’s faces.

Han asked her where she took the bottles of kahlua and rum from. Rey couldn’t have lied if she wanted to; La Cantina served specific, imported brands that Han secured for a reasonable price. Han prided himself in being an entrepreneur, and he took freebies home from his work. Rey saw the bottles sitting on the stoop one day, and instead of selfishly leaving them there to get swiped by a porch pirate, she donated them to a good cause.

“From now on,” Han said, thrusting a finger at her, “no more late nights. I want you home at nine pm.”

Rey swallowed, her heart sinking to a pit in her stomach. “Yes, sir,” she croaked.

“’Yes, sir’?” Han repeated. “Kid, do you realize that you almost died that night? If it wasn’t for Ben, you would be lying on a cold slab.”

Leia placed a hand on Han’s shoulder. She looked at Rey and said, “I don’t mind if you drink, but until you become more responsible, you should be drinking at home, where we can see you. Anything could’ve happened! You could’ve been killed, or raped!”

When Leia said the big ‘R’ word, Han recoiled in dismay. Ben screwed his mouth up real tight and looked away so that his mother wouldn’t see him laughing. Inside, Rey grimaced. Finn would’ve never done that to her.

Han and Leia stood apart from her like two aliens from a different planet. Their threats were toothless and incomprehensible. They didn’t know her. They didn’t know her friends. To be fair, all they were mad about was the stolen alcohol; well fine, if she drinks, she’ll either do outside before nine pm, or at home after nine pm.

Rey went to school the next day, eager to ask her friends about what the fuck happened. Rose and Jannah each gave her a hug, but Kaydel was chilly. Later, Rey would learn that Leia left a strongly-worded message on Holdo’s answering machine.

The embargo spread across the whole grade. Nobody in school wanted to talk to the ugly drunk – the girl who passed out in a puddle of her own vomit.   

Rey wanted to slit her wrists, but she cheered herself up by reminding herself that this too would pass. Girls got blackout drunk all the time; this one only seemed bad because Leia needed to be a busybody. A girl could drink, but she couldn’t be a whore.

Rey caught Finn by his locker after the school bell rang. His eyes lit up when he saw her, but then he took on a guarded expression. Finn was handsome and he had a four-point-o GPA; he had a square jaw, broad shoulders, and he played outside linebacker on the high school’s football team. He liked wearing airman jackets with crazy patches on them.

Rey didn’t know why she wasn’t attracted to him. She knew she should be – she knew she was lucky that he even wanted to be her boyfriend. Jannah confessed that she had a crush on him, and Rose stopped talking to Rey for a month after Finn asked her out during one of their Saturday binges.

Whenever Rey drank with him, dating him made sense. At school, Rey could muster just enough feelings to regard him as an overly clingy best friend. She should’ve ended this relationship a while ago, but at this point, she didn’t know how to turn him down without becoming a social pariah – the sloppy drunk who tripped and fell down on the dock AND dumped Finn Storm.

“Peanut,” he said, “I’m… I’m so sorry I didn’t visit you at the hospital.”

“Oh, it’s – it’s fine,” Rey muttered, suddenly embarrassed. For some reason, he opened his arms, and Rey felt obliged to hug him. His jacket smelled bad – like sweat, cologne, and old DDT. The anxiety returned; she noticed people in the hallway staring at them. She wished that Finn could’ve done this in a more private place… before nine pm… over a beer at his house, or something.

Finn pushed her away but held her by the shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, “it’s just….” He started talking fast. “When your cousin showed up, he said he knew me, and he said he would tell coach Phasma and I would get kicked off of the team. Then I wouldn’t get a football scholarship. I just couldn’t risk it.”

“It’s okay,” Rey assured him, only she was lying now. It occurred to her that she really was disturbed that none of her friends visited her in the hospital; not even her boyfriend. Was that normal? Or was it because she passed out on the docks like a little bitch?

The only people to visit her was Aunty Leia and good ol’ Uncle Han. Oh, and their loser creep of a son.

Finn continued to sweet-talk her and try to kiss her, but Rey didn’t feel like it. It felt performative: ‘Peanut, I’m sorry I didn’t visit you at the hospital after you ate shit on the dock of Takodana Lake; let’s make out next to twenty mouth-breathing freshmen and two of the weird teachers.’ Rey wished she could’ve avoided Finn, but then decided that it would be great if she could go home with him to try to repair this ugly sensation of disgust inside her chest. This didn’t feel like a normal sensation to have towards your perfect boyfriend.

Rey liked Finn and she didn’t want to leave him – because he didn’t deserve it. Rey didn’t know why she wouldn’t feel normal. All she needed was a beer; Finn was allowed to drink part of his foster mom’s stash, so long as he did it at home. Once Rey had something to drink, Finn always seemed more attractive; everything made more sense when she drank – her friendships, her relationships, her place at school.

“Can I go home with you?” Rey asked him, shyly. She touched his bicep and let it rest there. Finn grinned at her. He looked absolutely handsome and yet Rey felt nothing, because she was too sober.

Finn bit his lip. Of course, he was thinking about his college scholarship. But he was about to say yes.

A voice chirped on the PA system: “Rey Niima, please report to the principal’s office for pickup.”

It figured that the front office would let inside Alderaan’s Most-Sexual-Predator. As Rey stormed her way to the front of the school, she peered through the office’s dormer windows and saw the bane of her existence. She knew she was in trouble when she saw that Ben had combed his hair. He wore sunglasses and a leather jacket, and he leaned against Mrs. Mothma’s desk as he chatted her up. Rey debated running away, when he lifted his head and saw her. He grinned and waved before leaving the office.

“I don’t want to go home with you,” she deadpanned. “I’m going to Finn’s house.”

“No. You’re still recovering,” Ben said, looking down at her. “Mom wanted me to bring you straight home.”

Rey’s chest strained a bit. At least Leia cared about her… And Ben cared, too, in a weird way.

Rey ran out of the school and tried to maintain more than a ten foot distance from Ben, until she realized where he parked the Falcon. Then she zigzagged towards the SUV and got inside, beside the driver’s seat. A line of vehicles snaked out of the parking lot; they made it to the road, when Rey had an epiphany.

“Leia isn’t home, is she?” Rey asked. Leia was never at home. “Why would you listen to her when you could just lie to her and say you did?”

As he drove, Ben spoke to her from the side of his mouth. “Spiritually, she would want you home.”

Rey blinked. She did mental calculus in her head: if Leia had wanted her home, then Rey would’ve obeyed no questions asked. If Ben wanted her home… Rey slumped in her car seat, mortified. She’d just chosen an evening with Ben Solo over her own boyfriend.

Rey slammed the car door shut. She slung her bag over her shoulder and strutted away.

Behind her, she heard his car doom close. He called after her. “You do realize that I saved your ungrateful ass,” he drawled, “don’t you?”

Rey doubted it. There wasn’t a selfless bone in his body. Ben had no friends, and the only people who loved him were his parents. She spun around and glared at him. “You’re just a freak who likes seeing me in trouble,” she snapped. “Don’t think I don’t know what you did to me.”

“Oh, what did I do?” he demanded. He circled the car. Rey reached the front door of the house and opened it; but before she could lock him out, he shoved his way inside.

Rey scoffed. Did she have to spell it out for him? “You…” Her lips twisted together.

Ben ripped the sunglasses off of his face. He impaled her with his dead-eyed stare.

Her mouth struggled to capture the words. “You – humped me,” she blurted out, “like a dog.”

He shoved the door closed behind him. “Hm.” He placed a hand on his goatee and scratched his chin. “Some imagination you have.”

“You just stay the hell away from me and my life!” she snapped. She tossed her head and turned away from him.

“Who do you think drove to the dock and rescued you from your shit friends?” he shouted at her back. “If you died right there, they would’ve dumped your body into the water!”

Rey didn’t want to hear this. She wished she never agreed to go to the dock. She wished Ben didn’t drive out to ‘check’ on her; maybe it would’ve been easier if she’d just slept it off on the dock instead of all that drama about going to the hospital. Maybe it would’ve been easier if she dropped dead on the dock, like the doctor promised Han.

“Those people don’t give a shit about you,” Ben said. “You’re nothing to them.”

Rey felt her knees go weak. Her lips crumpled into a thin line. He’s lying, she told herself. Her friends wouldn’t have abandoned her.  

“They would’ve let you drown!”

Her face grew hot. He was lying – he was just jealous because he had no friends, and he would die alone at forty – a kissless virgin. “You’re a liar!” she cried, spinning around to face him.

She came face-to-chest with Ben; he had been standing directly behind her. Startled, she stepped backwards and craned her neck to meet his gaze head-on. She blinked fast, her eyes burning.

Standing in front of Ben was like staring straight into the sun. He was too close to her, so she couldn’t ignore the fullness of his mouth, or how his nose was just a breath away from nuzzling hers.

Her heart stuttered in a way it never did when she looked at Finn, her own boyfriend. His eyebrows furrowed together as he watched her. “Shit,” he said, “are you about to cry?” She could feel his breath against her lips.

“N-no,” she croaked.  It was the only word she could muster through the tightness in her chest. She didn’t know what she was feeling, or why she was feeling it. Sober Rey didn’t do well in situations like this. Before she could stop him, he raised a hand. His knuckles grazed her cheek.

Before he could hurt her further, Rey shoved his fist aside and ran upstairs to her room. She slammed the door behind her and locked it shut.

Chapter Text

Of course, Leia and Han would butt heads over ‘Rey’s drinking issue.’ They fought over everything else under the sun.

One weekend, Han put a lock on his liquor cabinet, and tried to get one installed on the wine cooler. “No,” Leia insisted, “Han, it’s like sex. If she really wants it, she’s going to get it from her friends. One hundred percent abstinence never works.”

Friendless, sober Rey sat on the couch with nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon. At the mention of ‘sex,’ Rey sank into the sofa, wishing that the seat cushions would open up and swallow her whole.

“If you ask me,” Han said, “she should be getting neither.”

“Excuse me,” Leia demanded, “is Rey your daughter? Or is she Luke’s daughter?”

From the dining room, Han glanced at Rey with a pained expression, like he was being frozen in carbonite. “Right now,” said Han, “she’s nobody’s daughter. As long as she doesn’t touch my stuff, she can do whatever she wants.”

Rey slid off of the couch. Holding her ears, she left the living room and ran upstairs to her room. Ben was away driving First Order Eats deliveries, which was fucking fine with her.

Han and Leia didn’t fucking understand her. They didn’t really give a fuck about her; Han was right, she was nobody’s daughter. Rey didn’t like alcohol; she didn’t even like the taste of it. She only drank in social situations, outside of the house. The only reason why she’d drink at home is if she wanted Ben to molest her.

But why was Rey Solo alone on a Saturday afternoon? Basically, the stomach pump incident broke up Rey’s friendship from her group. Kaydel and Jannah turned their backs on her because she was the one who couldn’t hold down her water. Rey’s friendship wasn’t the only one that was sundered; after what happened, Amilyn Holdo and Leia stopped talking to each other for the rest of the school year. Kaydel blamed Rey for drinking herself into a stupor that night, and Amilyn bought it, and so did the rest of the school. A month later, Kaydel would drive into a pole and get her provisional driver’s license revoked, but somehow the blame would get put on Rey again even though she was nowhere near ten miles of Kaydel’s piss-yellow Kia Forte.

At school, only Rose and Finn continued to talk to her. Finn because he was still in love with Rey or something, and Rose because she was closer to Rey than Kaydel or Jannah were. Either that, or it was because Rose was hoping to get Finn to leave her. After a month’s embargo, during lunch period, Finn casually mentioned a party at Poe Dameron’s house. It was clear at once that Rose knew of the party, but Rey didn’t.

“Yeah, of course I’m going,” Rey said, forcing a smile. “I’ll see you there.”

“Cool,” Finn answered. He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek, and then stood up to throw out his French fry carton.

Rey turned to Rose. She was less angry and more hurt. “That night, I had the same amount as you,” Rey whispered, “how come you were okay?”

Rose shrugged her shoulders. She was actually shorter than Rey – she barely cleared over five feet, which hurt Rey’s pride all the more. “Maybe you’re just a lightweight.”

Casa Solo was definitely not the Fort Knox of home incarcerations. Han and Leia weren’t home often enough to enforce their imposed curfew. Their only jailer and stool pigeon was Ben Solo, their rat-faced son. His ineffectiveness didn’t stem from his performance (in fact Rey knew that he produced a log of every time she left and returned to the house) but rather from the fact that Han and Leia wouldn’t do anything about curfew infractions. Rey told Han and Leia that she would be studying at a friend’s house, and they chose to take her at her word. Ben wasn’t there to cast doubt on her; he’d locked himself in his room.   

Rey took the bus to Poe Dameron’s street, because she didn’t want to bother Rose or Finn by asking them to pick her up. After Kaydel had crashed her car into a pole, her mother Amilyn Holdo kicked Poe Dameron out of her house, which forced Poe to rent in a new neighborhood. So, Rey was heading towards a housewarming party, and also a means for Poe Dameron to reenter the dating pool.

The stars shined coldly down on Rey as she walked alone through the deserted streets. On nights like this, when she was alone, she felt deeply unhappy and afraid inside her soul, for reasons she couldn’t explain to herself. She walked faster.

When Rey knocked, Poe Dameron opened the door for her. He looked good – for a man Ben’s age. “Hey,” he said. He wore an airman’s jacket and a black shirt underneath. A short salt and pepper beard covered the lower half of his face.

“Hi,” Rey answered. Rey chose black sweetheart jeans and a gray cardigan, because it was cold out, but she wore a spaghetti strap underneath. She’d taken the hair ties out of her bun in the bus, because she didn’t want to lose them during her walk.

“Rey, right?” Poe ushered her in through the doorway. Bachata played from an Amazon Alexa, and the lights were turned on low. “I didn’t think they would let you out of the house. Leia was pretty strict with Ben when he was growing up, not that she needed to be.”

Oh great, Rey thought. She took it to be a bad sign that Poe knew her family better than she did. “Leia thinks I’m studying with Finn. Which I kind of am.”

Poe made a weird face. “You call your Mom by her first name?”

Rey blinked. “She’s not my mom. She’s my aunt.”

“Oh – weird, I thought that Leia would’ve adopted you by now. Like formally.” Poe rubbed his hands on his jeans, frowning. “Hope you didn’t come here thinking this was going be a high school party. At first, I just called Finn and a few other guys I know, but I called them again because we have beer here and I don’t need the cops coming over.”

In an instant, Rey longed to head back out of the door and onto a bus to anywhere. She shrugged helplessly and said she needed to look for Finn. Poe nodded his understanding and left her to mingle somewhere else.

Rey wandered around the house, ignoring people. Poe hadn’t been lying to her – a lot of the people there were older. Rey didn’t see anybody from her school, except a flash of blonde hair which may have been Kaydel.

The food and drinks were laid out on the kitchen island. Rey helped herself to chips and dip, while she drank steadily from a red cup. She should’ve gone home, but she didn’t want to be alone anymore. The guy next to her started chatting her up. He had hideously blonde hair, and prescription glasses that made him look like a serial killer. But he had Ben’s face, and he was nice to her.

Why couldn’t Ben be nice to her? Why couldn’t he be normal?

Matt snaked his arm around her shoulder. “I think he’s trying the only way he knows how,” he said in a nasal voice. Fuck, he even sounded like Ben.

It looked like Finn was a no-show, but that was a good thing. Rey didn’t think she was drunk, until she felt Matt’s hand squeeze her ass. When she took a step back, the whole room spun. Rey looked at her red cup – the thing was magic; it never emptied. Every time she thought it did, Matt would tip the end of the bottle into it.

Rey had to throw up. Everything would feel better once she threw up.

Matt supported her weight as she teetered back towards the house. Her stomach felt a lot better after she’d hurled into the back of the yard. But the pain was still there; the pain was still there and only sleep would get rid of it. Rey wished she could close her eyes and jump forward in time, to a place where she stopped hurting.

When Rey opened her eyes again, she felt as if she were floating outside of her body. Yellow sunlight streaked the ceiling. She raised her head.

She was in her room, with her bedsheet tucked under her chin. Rey searched her mind, but last night evaded her. Faces swam in her mind’s eye; her stomach rolled from the memory of nausea.

Rey let her head flop back onto the pillow. Matt, her brain supplied. A shudder rolled up her spine.

Part of it came back to her, in sensations. A hot, sour mouth on hers. Large hands squeezing her breasts together, kneading them against her ribcage. His breathing heavy in her ear. Fingers clawing at her scalp, after she’d horked it in Poe’s bushes.

But how romantic is that? Even after she’d thrown up in the yard, he’d still wanted her.

But what happened after? How did she get home?

She pulled the blankets back, and found herself in her Galaxy Wars jammies. Her mouth tasted sour.

Had somebody stripped her, and changed her? Who could it be? Was it… Matt?

That’s… weird. Was it good or bad that she came home safely? She didn’t know. These questions bothered her, until her brain just… shut it out. If it were important, she would know later. Right now, she didn’t need to care.

Rey’s mind just stopped working. She sat back in bed, and closed her eyes, until the sun drifted off of the ceiling. The light left her.

In the afternoon. Rey brushed her skunky teeth and went downstairs in her bare feet. She half-expected Han and Leia to be lying in wait for her, ready to give her the sternest and most-totally-serious lecture ever. But the living room was empty. Her heart sank.

She went to the kitchen and made herself toast and oatmeal to eat. As she sat at the kitchen island, chewing, she thought of what she would say to Finn and Rose, her last friends. She really needed to get back to real parties, ones where her friends would watch out for her, where there’d be people her own age. That was the issue with last night – that she was alone in a house full of people.

As she was scraping her bowl clean, footsteps tramped down the stairs and Ben made his appearance. He scratched at his waist under his basketball shorts and yawned. A five o’clock shadow covered his jaw, and his hair floated around his head in a nimbus.

Without a word, Ben brushed past her to get to the sink, so he could fill his cup with water. He drank it right there.

A cold, creeping sensation skittered across her flesh. He knew something.

“Ben?” she said.

“Hm?” He set his cup down and reached for the bread bag.

“How – how did I get home last night?”

“It’s because I found you,” he answered. He put his own bread, in the toaster, when he straightened like he’d forgot something. “Oh,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

Ben scrolled through it like he was checking his emails. Then he moved in front of the kitchen island and propped the screen in front of her.

His fingers were so big, they almost obscured the edges of the video. She saw black, and heard snuffling, like the heavy breathing of a boar.

“W-what is this?” Rey demanded.

A large hand moved into the frame. He pinched the black fabric, and rolled it up, revealing a taut stomach. He continued until two small breasts appeared in the frame.

Ben didn’t answer. The breathing on the phone triggered her fight-or-flight reflexes; the oatmeal and toast sat in her stomach like concrete. A hand reached out and pinched one of the nipples.

“Where did you get this?” she asked in a high voice. “Was it Matt?”

The camera flickered, and there was an audible zip as the recorder freed himself. The camera jostled, revealing her neck. Rey caught the shape of a girl’s mouth, and her jaw.

“Do you recognize yourself yet?” Ben asked in a bored tone.

“I – I don’t remember this,” Rey whispered in disbelief. “That’s not me.”

“It could be you,” he said. “Keep watching.”

Rey shook her head so violently that she saw stars. No way.

One-handed, the recorder roved down her body. Her jeans were already discarded, and she laid on her bed with her legs outstretched. She wore only a pair of red lace underwear.

“Fuck me,” the recorder whispered, in a painfully familiar voice.

“Did you get this from Matt?” Rey choked out.

Those weren’t Ben’s big, pink hands squeezing her chest. His thumb never tweaked her nipple, never pressed it like a button into the small lump of her breast. He never played with her unconscious body.

Rey didn’t know why she was getting so turned on. She wasn’t a whore. She never watched porn.  

She watched as those big hands massaged his cum into her breasts and stomach. Then the camera dipped low. Slowly, he peeled down her red underwear, revealing her to the eye of the phone camera. With two fingers, he spread her pussy wide for the camera. Rey could see the past the pink fleshy folds, and the swollen clit. She saw soft, pink walls. He pushed two fingers deep inside.

Rey felt her own channel pulse – with what, sympathy? She turned away, her body clenched as tight as a wire.

Rey glanced up at Ben to see his nostrils flaring. He was looking at her, watching her as she watched his video. Her bottom lip trembled.

“I hate you,” she said.

Ben ended the video and slipped it back into his pocket. “Now you know better,” he said. “I’ve warned you time and time again that you’ve got a problem. I’m not going to be here to bail you out of every problem.”

Did he hear her? She told him again.

“This video could destroy your life, your reputation, forever,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “I know you don’t fucking care about your life, but you care about what people think, don’t you?” He grinned at her. “You’re just like Leia – you’re as shallow as a pool.”

Rey stood up from the chair. “I HATE YOU!” she screamed.

She rounded the kitchen island and threw herself at him. She was going to get that phone and break it into a million pieces. She was going to break him into a million pieces.

Although she was smaller, she was fueled by rage and humiliation. In the heat of surprise, she managed to knock Ben down onto his back. Rey sat on top of him, reaching for his pants, but he grabbed her wrists. Rey yowled, and lunged for his eyes, but he pushed her away, holding her like a puppet in his lap.

He was hard against her pajama bottoms. Rey froze when she realized what it was she was sitting on.

Heat crawled up her neck. In an instant, she stood up, and Ben let her go. He stared up at her. His bottom lip flushed pink, and his pupils were blown. 

Terror and heat flashed in the whites of his eyes. He stared up at her, their eyes locked together, until his grip weakened enough for Rey to yank herself free. She stood up, her knees threatening to bend under her.

“You delete that fucking video!” she snapped.

“No one is going to see it but me,” he answered. He pushed himself up on his elbows.

“If you share it with – with anyone,” she grated out, “I’ll kill you.”

He sat up with his head resting on the kitchen base cabinets. The desperately hungry look on his face made Rey realize how stupid she’d been. There was no ‘Matt;’ she was just that drunk and lonely enough to get fooled by her psychotic-virgin cousin in a wig.

Stupid, stupid Rey, the Sober-est Girl in the World, turned from the kitchen and ran back to her room.

Chapter Text

After Ben received a formal diagnosis for his attention deficit disorder, his doctor prescribed him Adderall. He had a lot more energy than just three years before, and he started working on his undergraduate degree again. Leia liked to joke that maybe Rey and Ben would graduate from college and get a bachelor’s degree at the same time. It was a stupid joke; she was a grade schooler and ten years younger than him.

The punchline was that he was stupid.

Ben Solo received fifteen help desk tickets a day; twenty during the busy season. He came into the office of First Order Enterprise about once a week, but otherwise, he worked from home in his room. The Adderall helped him order his thoughts, and keep his head on work instead of thinking about video games, or whether he would carry on his grandfather’s legacy, or Rey and wondering where she was.  

He drew out a diagram of the multiverse, trying to map out how different his life would be if his mother had actually given a shit and gotten him diagnosed earlier in his life. He would probably be married by now. He would either start up his own business, or be a systems architect for a start-up company. Leia and Han would actually be proud of him. Rey would move into his house (With him and his wife? (If he had a wife, Rey would live in a semi-detached garage; if not, in the main house with him)).

His Discord pinged; Hux sent him the link to a Hikikomori self-test. Hikikomori is the Japanese word for severe social withdrawal, and he knew the word from his consumption of Lain: The Serial Experiments. Ben turned away from his work monitor. He rubbed his neck as he scrolled through the questions. There were twenty-four statements, and you rated each statement on a scale of 1 to 5, with a 1 being ‘Strong Disagree’ and a 5 being a ‘Strongly Agree.’ On his work monitor, he waited for a Boomer to successfully link a new mailbox to Outlook using the instructions he sent her.

I do well in social situations.

Hard disagree, Ben thought. Rey of course would give that a 5.

I like meeting new people.

No.  

I spend most of my time at home.

Fine, Ben conceded. At this moment, Rey was hanging out at the mall with her friends yet again.

There is no one special in my life.

He paused.

Her face flashed in his mind’s eye.

He marked his answer as Neutral.

It’s been seven years since Luke abandoned his daughter. Rey became beautiful in that time.

At the mall, Leia squealed with glee as Rey emerged from the dressing room. A pulse ticked in his jaw. Leia had never gotten that excited over anything he did.

Ben lowered his phone, expecting to see Rey in some new slutty, overpriced outfit. This time she wore a sleeveless grey dress that ended mid-thigh.

Ben felt a tightening in his chest. His skin crawled and he looked away. It always disturbed him how… adult, Rey looked. She used to be Uncle Luke’s weird tomboy kid, but since Leia dug her claws into her, she started dressing like an Instagram model. Or an expensive prostitute. An eighteen-year-old shouldn’t be that – shouldn’t look like that.

“Isn’t she beautiful, Ben!?” his mother gushed. She was never supposed to have a son. She was meant to be the mother of a daughter.

Ben shrugged and said that she looked ok. “It doesn’t matter because the graduation gown will cover it.”

Leia huffed and slapped him on the shoulder. Rey didn’t spare him a glance. At his sides, Ben’s hands made fists. The two of them never knew what he went through. Rey had it easy; everyone loved her. She was so beautiful and fucking perfect, that his own parents loved her more than they loved their own son. Leia had shrieked when Ben refused to go to his own high school graduation; Luke told his sister that he had psychological issues.

His undiagnosed attention deficit disorder and the fact that he was ugly and introverted and male held him back. Otherwise, he knew that he was smarter than Rey and could do better than living in his parents’ house. Because Rey was beautiful and a woman, Leia coddled her, celebrating her total mediocrity. Rey’s brief stint with alcoholism had disappeared after that confrontation at Poe’s house; he wondered if it was some sort of hysteria. Oh, she still drank, but it was sort of an open secret – as long as she didn’t go overboard, Leia okayed it, and Han looked the other way. It was all because of Ben that her ass landed on the right path, but of course the ungrateful bitch wouldn’t see it that way: that he saved her life.

After the stupid high school graduation, Leia forced Han to drive the family out to a restaurant attached to the Mos Eisley casino. A crystal chandelier hovered over the main dining room; the carpeted floor absorbed the sound of his sneakers. Ben hated all this ritzy shit. The waitress shot him a glare when he entered wearing jeans and a shirt. Rey turned heads but for all the wrong reasons; besides her dress, Leia treated her to a pedicure, and a trip to a hair stylist. She wore that smoky eye-shadow that made her look like a porn artist ready to cry mascara down her face. Men ate her up with their eyes. Sometimes Ben wished he could kill his mother. 

The essay that Rey wrote got her accepted in some liberal college in Canada. Ben bit back a sigh as Rey proudly told his mother that she was going to study a major in Art. All of them drank, even Rey even though she wasn’t legal, but no one batted an eye because she looked legal and no one was going to question Senator Leia Organa on the day of her assumed-daughter’s high school graduation.

Rey excused herself, got up, and went to the washroom. Ben stood up, too. He needed some fresh air.

He pushed his way out the doors and onto the balcony. It was a cold day in May. A light rain fell down on the balcony, which overlooked the Mos Eisley racetrack, and the surrounding forest. No one else wanted to be outside in the shitty weather.

“I’m going to tell them what you did,” Rey said.

Her voice made him jump. He spun around and saw Rey standing behind him, holding her fourth glass of emerald wine. “What?” he said.

She was silhouetted by the lights from the restaurant, but he could hear the carefully-controlled rage in her voice. “I’m going to tell them what you did to me.”

“And what did I do to you?” Ben asked, his eyes narrowing. Were they really having this conversation, now? He thought nothing would ever happen again, and here she was. He glanced at the wineglass in her hand, and in that moment, he saw the multiverse of potential futures: Rey, dead in a car crash, or raped in an alleyway, or dead of liver cirrhosis.

Doing her best imitation of sobriety, she started listing his crimes against her. “You’re a monster,” Rey insisted. “I was twelve, and I was down in the basement. Then, then when you picked me up from the dock.”

“I saved your life!”

“You wanted to find me so you could rape me,” Rey countered.

Ben’s neck snapped backwards. “Now you’re just delusional,” he said. “You’re so right, Rey. Maybe I should’ve left you there to die. It would’ve saved my mom and dad so much heartbreak.”

“You have a fucking video on your phone from the night you molested me,” she hissed. “You bought a fucking blonde wig and wore it to Poe Dameron’s party so you could sleep with me!”

“Okay, snitch. Listen to yourself. Listen to how stupid you sound,” he said. “You disobeyed my parents and got yourself in a blackout drunk, again. You almost got raped, but I took you home. The end.”

Rey’s mouth fell open. She took a step away from him; as she brought her wineglass to her lips, her hand kept shaking. The sight of her trembling was so pathetic, that for the first time in his life, he actually… pitied her. Ben wondered if he’d pushed too hard, but he couldn’t stop himself.

“You were so goddamn drunk that anything could’ve happened to you,” Ben said. “I wanted you to stop me.”

“You - you knew it was the only way you’d ever touch a goddamn woman,” Rey snarled, “you’re a pathetic incel.” Her teeth flashed at him in the dark.

“But you know what happened? You started begging me for it. You started whimpering, saying, ‘Ben, put it inside me.’” He started getting hard in his pants as he remembered that night. He never… ever would’ve actually touched her. But after she was safe in bed, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t rewatch that video ever again –.

The slap knocked his glasses off his face. Ben staggered backwards, his head reeling from the blow. Before he could bring his hands up, Rey shrieked and dug her pedicured nails into his cheekbones.

He tried not to kick her off because he was wearing jeans and his hiking boots, and Rey wore a thousand-dollar dress and kitten heels. But he didn’t have to kick her off, because hands pulled her off of him.

Ben washed his face in the bathroom mirror at home. She’d made a deep scratch down his right cheek. His ears strained to hear the conversation happening outside. For some reason, he wasn’t afraid, just resolved. If Leia and Han wanted to kick him out, that would solidify everything he’s only suspected. His parents would lose their worthless son and gain the daughter they’ve always wanted.

Ben left the bathroom and slid his hands in his pockets. Rey sat on the loveseat at one end of the living room, and his mother sat on the sofa on the opposite end. Han stood behind her, but in a position so he could leave whenever he wanted.

The conversation died when Ben stepped into the room. Han covered his mouth with his hand, as if he were going to be sick. He kept his eyes trained on the carpet.  

Leia looked as though she were grieving. Slowly, she extended a wrinkled hand towards Rey. “You were drinking when this happened, right, honey?” she said.

Ben looked at his parents.

“I was,” Rey said woodenly. 

“You tend to go a little overboard when you do, don’t you?” Leia said. “Sweetheart, when I was your age, I did… so many drugs.”

“Princess,” Han warned her, but Leia held up a hand to stop him.

“My parents had just died,” Leia explained, “and I was looking for a way to grieve. People took advantage of me. People hurt me, but then I turned around hurt the people I loved. But I have to take responsibility of my own addiction, my own grieving.”

Ben turned to face Rey. Her shoulders were slumped in a posture of defeat, and she stared at her hands in her lap. What did you tell them? He wondered.

“Do you understand?” Leia said sharply. “I… took responsibility… for my own addiction. For my own trauma.”

Rey muttered something under her breath. It took Ben a moment to hear I understand.

Ben wondered if he had walked into the Twilight Zone.

Rey stood up from the love seat, and came face to chest with Ben. She muttered again, before brushing past him and running up to her room.

Her words rang in his ears, and filled his head until there was nothing left:

I ‘M  S O R R Y,  B E N .

For the first time in his life, he realized that Leia and Han loved him more than Rey. She never took his place.

Han reached out and took Leia’s hand, which she placed on her shoulder. “I think it’ll get better once she heads to college,” Han said.

Leia bit her lip and nodded. “I just don’t know how to help that poor girl.” She glanced at Ben and waved for him to approach her. “You saved her life and this is how she repaid you,” she said, pulling him down to sit next to her. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder, and hugged him.

Ben wondered what part of the multiverse Han was seeing. The old man had to be deluding himself. If Rey leaves, she’ll die.