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The first perception came when she realized she didn't like the music that was playing at all. The irony of it was so ridiculous that it fell like a bucket of cold water so strong that she found herself frozen in the corner of the hall. The event was huge, the most expensive hotel was completely booked, closed only for her hundred guests, the most influential people, the singers and actresses most beloved by the media and social media public. The party at the top of the 50-story building in the heart of the city of Coruscant pulsed with light and sound. A huge party for a huge event. Her engagement was the news of the month; what was once a joke, her, at 32 and single, had now fallen into oblivion.
“The greatest singer of her time, with more than 10 albums about love, couldn't tie down a man.” So today she would go home with a ring on her finger. Now she had fulfilled this task; she had managed to win over a man who wanted her as his wife. Soon, legally, she would no longer be alone. Everyone was happy. Now the world would look at her differently; the desperation of aging like a crazy spinster was now something buried and forgotten.
She could tell everyone to go to hell, take a vacation, and say she was focusing on her family; no one would question her sanity. Now she would have a Family, she could have children, even if the idea of children with Poe still needed to be worked on, now she could breathe from all this pressure. Everyone was finally fucking happy.
Her gaze sought out Poe and found him in the middle of the dance floor, the lights of the mirror balls bathing his figure and his friends as they shouted and celebrated with drinks in hand. He was already drunk; she suspected he had been slightly intoxicated since the start of the party. It even surprised her that he hadn't started to feel sick.
They met through her publicist; she needed a date to pose with after the disaster that was the breakup with Ben, after the last album. After what everyone was saying, after the pitying looks from the women around her. After that piece of shit horror show inside her and in the media.
So it was a great triumph when Poe proved to be genuinely nice and made her laugh. She felt desired; she didn't imagine the marriage proposal so soon, honestly, even though she wanted it very much. Apparently, it was a thing among couples over 30, to marry fast.
Then he knelt on the grass before the victory dinner of the championship final and asked her to be his wife. When she said yes, her voice startled her, part of her expected she should have cried, part of her expected any reaction other than that icy calm. But Rose said it’s okay not to cry; we can't control how we will feel in special moments like this.
But the tingling sensation she expected never came, and when he took her hand with the expensive engagement ring and presented it as a second trophy of the night, she felt satisfied. She was no longer the garbage rat who lived with hands full of grease and clothes with oil stains that never came out no matter how many times she scrubbed. Now even her toenail polish was the most expensive brand; now she was bathed in gold; at that moment, it was all that mattered.
Just like that day, now he was radiant.
Now they celebrated like crazy; she only hoped that whatever Poe was using that left him in that state was just alcohol. But she quickly put the thought aside; it wasn't good to go down that path.
She had to focus on the fact that she was going to have a Family; that’s why everyone was here. The rest would work itself out, and that was all that mattered.
But why didn't it feel like enough?
The music changed, and she shuddered. It was That song. Maybe Poe forgot what she mentioned, or ignored it when she said she didn't like that song much; it must have been a mistake. But the chill that rose in her bones and ran through all her nerve endings was too real for her to ignore. That song shouldn't be played there, not like that, not with those people. Not at this moment. The pressure in her chest began to crush her.
In all her career, while performing at dozens of shows around the world with billions of fans, all the songs she had ever written about people she had fallen in love with were redefined at some point. So almost half of her discography was no longer chained to its initial meaning.
All except that one in particular. From that album in particular.
Every time the first chords played, the memory was relentless. The feeling of the cotton pajamas, the hot chocolate cooling on the small table, his arms around her while she bent over her favorite old guitar while he balanced himself to keep up, writing and correcting the song on a piece of hotel notepad paper. She had never seen such beautiful handwriting, and even in that situation, the detail of each letter was so beautiful.
She still kept that paper, as well as others with his writing, in a shoebox at the back of the closet. And in the worst moments, with an open bottle of wine, she would tuck herself away back there and trace the contours and flourishes with her hand.
It was the easiest lyric she had ever written; his warm whispers in her ear, lifting the hair on the back of her neck and making her whole body shiver, fused like an irreparable mark on her soul. Encapsulated in the music in a way that didn't feel like a song, but a spell.
She wouldn't know to this day, even if she tried to remember, who wrote which part. Only that it emerged delicately and passionately from a love she had never felt before.
Ben.
Her eyes scanned the room frantically. She found Rose in the distance with Kaydel and the girls; they were high too. In reality, she was probably the only sober one among the group that mattered to her there.
The second crushing perception came when she opened that floodgate. She made that little slip that she had pushed deep into the corner of her mind with all her strength and sought to ignore.
Her life, as well as her engagement party, were composed of people she cared about and everyone else, and it was almost obscene how the percentage of strangers occupied the entire hall.
The champagne sweating on the delicate crystal in her hand ran down her fingers while she remained static through the whirlwind unfolding over her.
The ice in her bones running through her body to the point where she felt herself trembling. The forbidden verses sung by her own voice roaring through the hall as if in mockery of herself. Bringing to life feelings and memories she could barely hold in the back of her mind.
She watched Poe and Rose; they seemed content. How long would it take until someone noticed she left if she went away now?
Rose was always a dear friend; the others around her were also nice. And they were everything Rey always wanted to be when she was just an orphan wearing second-hand clothes with an old guitar she bought at a garage sale, writing about her last teenage romance. Among the various foster families she passed through while growing up and later when she settled with Plutt until she managed to leave and chase her dreams.
She wanted to be glamorous, for people to look at her and never think she was once a garbage rat, that she was left in a box in front of a fire station. Looking around, was this it then? When, at the beginning of her career, she felt extremely uncomfortable acting the wrong way and speaking the wrong way, praying that no one would notice that her clothes could have come from a thrift store.
Was this all that little Rey wanted? Was that why she felt like she had finished a contract? Finished a project? Handed in a finished exam to the teacher?
Was there something beyond this that she should be feeling?
Many times throughout her career there were moments where she felt herself floating beyond her body. Besides singing, writing, and performing, everyone had to learn to act. So she learned how to speak, how to carry herself; she was great at observing, analyzing. Repeating.
She tried so hard to fit in there, and now she had made it? Feeling herself fall apart at her own engagement party was part of all this? Was this supposed to happen? Was this all?
The door closed with a thud and when she turned the lock the noise was muffled by the sound of the party.
If the pressure in her chest that flared up when she was standing in the corner of the room had any hint of doubt about the internal collapse within her, the relief she felt when the bathroom was empty and she found herself alone now would have no more.
Her eyes were hollow when she faced herself in the mirror, mascara smudged, lipstick smeared. The knuckles of her fingers holding the cold marble of the sink were white.
But the giant ring on her ring finger glinted in the bathroom lights.
Poe was the only one to ask for marriage. She repeated out loud. He wanted her as a wife; he was the first to say it out loud.
That should mean something.
“you know I did one thing right Starry eyes sparking up my darkest night”
It was everything she thought she wanted. The ring, tangible proof of her achievement, that no one else could talk about her loneliness. Married women are not alone. And for so long she fought not to feel alone.
Then why now did she feel more alone than ever?
If she crumbled, would he still stay by her side? If she needed to end this party right now, would they understand? Could she ask that of them? Was it too much?
Muffled by the door, she heard her own voice exploding through the speakers in the drunken crowd.
“You don't need to save me But would you run away with me?”
She realized she was crying when she turned her eyes back to herself. He was in town; she tried so hard to ignore everything about him. Kaydel, like a good publicist, blocked any and all news of him that reached her.
Every thought that dared to pass through Rey's head was promptly muffled by the pure determination of a heart that had never felt so much pain.
A sob interrupted the silence of the bathroom when she collapsed onto the cold tile.
Like a dam breaking, everything poured over her like a flood. The deeply rooted sense of abandonment that always accompanied her bubbled up strongly to the surface, the absence of any family, of always being on her own. The fake friends who turned their backs on her, when the world painted her as a villain and she hid. Having thought she had found where she belonged, someone who would never leave her. Seeing everything go to shit in gossip tabloids as if it wasn't her whole universe, but just another event in a TV series. She thought of moments when she really felt the feelings she expected to feel in moments like her damn engagement party.
The first show, in a mall parking lot in Jakku, it was a shitty town. But there were about 10 people and there was applause and she felt that it could work out. That she wasn't insane for using all the money she earned at Plutt's workshop and part-time jobs on that dream.
The first time Ben kissed her on a bench in Coney Island, how she thought she would explode with all the affection she never imagined being able to feel for someone when she saw him get up in the morning after their first time.
The first award she won at an awards show, how even though she had no one in particular to thank besides Maz, the social worker who visited her sometimes in the various homes she passed through: “The Maz who always checked if I was alive.”
The first time she composed with someone, of course it would be with Ben; she tried with other people but the connection she had with him in a creative way beyond the sentimental was hallucinating. His parents were musicians, his mother a conductor, his father a pianist. He grew up in the midst of sheet music and classical music concerts.
Nothing prepared her to see his long fingers playing one of her compositions on the piano. After that, she made sure he fucked her on top of a 300,000-credit piano a few times.
They composed some songs from that album together, and all the others she wrote alone were either looking at him asleep wrapped in the sheets, or him distracted with his reading glasses memorizing some script, or in literally any moment where they could just live together in silence.
But then everything returned to the reality of her constant history of abandonment when things started to go wrong.
The voice in her head that always whispered she was alone laughing with contentment when Ben said they weren't ready to get married. That he didn't want the marriage with her yet.
How she screamed and cursed him, how that was absurd because what she wanted most was a piece of shit ring on her finger for her to rub in the faces of those sluts who were now stuffing themselves with alcohol in the hall on the other side of the door.
Talking to Ben was always like diving into a tropical sea, like infinity. Rey never got tired, he always pushed when she pulled. She never felt so connected to someone, maybe she never will be again.
The error began when, against all restrictions and the greatest self-control Rey managed to sustain, she dared to search for him.
As if it were a last goodbye. Today she would be an Engaged woman in the eyes of society; tomorrow everyone would talk about her party and speculate about the ceremony.
Ironically he was in town. Promoting the new movie, it was an adaptation of a book they had read on the last day of the life they spent together before everything started to go wrong.
It was a great story, and the news of the adaptation and his casting as the lead actor exploded in her chest in a way she couldn't absorb.
The ring felt too tight on her finger. The environment too stuffy, her dress too suffocating, the hairpins hurting her head.
It shouldn't be surprising when no one noticed her leaving, even though she didn't try to hide, it shouldn't hurt even more. But it did. In the suite shared with Poe, she took off the dress, looked for the last time at the ring before leaving it on the dressing table.
The thing about desires is that they become prisons when they don't adapt to their own evolution. All of that was a dream; maybe she needed to feel this euphoria at the top to realize what she would resent forever if she didn't feel it. It was a dream that is no more.
All of that belonged to someone she might once have thought she would be, that she was. Who was she trying to impress? Was the sacrifice worth it?
Leaving the hotel wasn't that difficult; years of sneaking around and learning how to avoid the press was a skill Rey was proud of.
Taking any taxi on the streets of a city where people of all kinds wandered and going to any destination didn't draw attention either.
The bay was quiet. The rolling waves reflecting the prism of colors of the buildings on the other side of the shore. The saltiness of the night sea air contrasting with the warm tears that continued to flow from her eyes.
Alone on a bench in Coney Island was the most painful irony she ever felt. Admitting at last the difference between what one really wants and what one thinks one should want.
Admitting how much it cost to live what was hammered into her.
It was as if she were bleeding; she didn't know what she would do, where she would go. What she would say to people when she returned.
Some time passed until the wave of sobbing that reached Rey subsided when she felt the other person sitting on the bench next to her.
The sounds coming out of her were suffering; as much as she tried to muffle the whimpering, it seemed to have come from somewhere she couldn't reach. Perhaps years of disappointment with herself. The disaster she saw herself become. She gave up what made her connect with so many fans for what? A stone worth thousands of dollars stuck to her finger?
“It just crossed my mind that…” Ben stuttered, his voice stuttering out in a breath “I think I just hoped for the best even though… Rey, I’m sorry.”
He whispered when his large, warm hand slowly covered hers, smaller and cold now with all the fingers empty.
“I never wanted you to be sad” his eyes were like a summer sky. She could lose herself in it if she didn't look away. Ben looked tired, if the stubble of beard and the marks under his eyes indicated anything.
Rey's sobs were now low; she closed her eyes when she felt the fingers of his other hand slowly and delicately stroke her cheek, as if touching the wings of a butterfly; carefully he dried the tears that still flowed.
“I'm so sorry for screaming so loud and running away” the memory of how it ended flooded her mind. The screams, the look of desperation from him when he said that the marriage with him wouldn't bring what she sought, that it wasn't the time. He wasn't going to marry her that way.
His hands were now at the back of her neck pressing Rey's body against Ben's large one, the feeling of security she once thought she had lost forever, his arms surrounding her like embers in a cocoon.