Chapter Text
Rey wasn’t sure when the thought first occurred to her, but it had so comfortably made its home in her mind that by the time she understood what the voice within her was saying, it was too late. It had wrapped her in a comforting embrace and nestled into every atom of her being until it wasn’t really a thought anymore, but more of a feeling.
Night classes were the first casualty of this feeling. Earlier that year, Rey had enrolled at Chandrilla Community College in hopes of earning an associate degree in some type of engineering. Because even though she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do career-wise, she knew it had nothing to do with fixing up cars at Plutt’s garage. Despite those aspirations, quitting school came rather easily. Rey had never been very book smart (part of the reason she barely made it through high school,) and she rationalized that getting the degree wouldn’t automatically mean she’d get some cushy, higher-paying job anywhere else. She was stuck with Plutt for the rest of her life.
Once the classes were gone, Rey stopped hanging out with the few classmates she had befriended. All she did anymore was work, go home, and then watch TV, so she didn’t have much to offer in terms of good company. No fun stories to tell. No suggestions for fun activities they could do on the weekends. Nothing. Rose and Finn were a little more persistent than the others, but after declining months of karaoke and movie night invitations, they finally got the hint, and Rey’s phone stopped ringing.
There wasn’t much to stop doing in terms of hobbies since Rey wasn’t really good at doing anything but fixing cars. Drawing was useless, she wasn’t a particularly inspiring writer, and she burned every baked good that she put into her oven. Rey had even tried to pick up needlework, but that only served to cause more frustration than it was worth. All she had left to do in her free time was read or watch TV, but eventually, even doing that became too exhausting.
Rey stopped going to the doctor’s shortly after. Her insurance wasn’t that great to begin with, so paying hundreds of dollars for imaging and labwork that kept coming back inconclusive or suspicious was just throwing money down the drain since she neither had the money nor the energy to deal with treating another recurrence.
Brushing her hair was next, followed shortly by brushing her teeth and showering. Rey was surprised she got away with not showering for two weeks before Plutt made a snide comment about her hair looking like a rat’s nest and telling her she stank. It stung a little, but it wasn’t like Plutt ever smelled like anything but car grease and onions, so Rey didn’t dwell on it for too long.
One particularly gloomy Saturday, Rey woke up late in the afternoon and stared at her medication for an hour before reluctantly reaching over to take them. By the following week, she stopped taking them altogether. That’s when it finally dawned on Rey that she didn’t want to be alive anymore. She let the idea of killing herself linger in her mind to see if it would scare her to reach out for help, but she wasn’t scared—she was tired. Tired of being weighed down by every failure she’d ever made, every inadequacy, every negative report that the doctors gave her, every medication she had to take, every ‘no’ a potential employer gave her after looking over her resume, every failed relationship, and every failed dream.
Rey was tired. And she was tired of being tired.
***
Ben had been alone for a long time. His mother was a lawyer on retainer to just about every skeezy politician with enough money to hire her firm, and his dad only cared about himself and whatever “technically legal” money-making scheme he was currently working on, so they were never around much while Ben was growing up. They didn't try too hard to be around either. To them, Ben was a constant reminder of their one-night stand turned long-term commitment, and neither of them was shy in showing their resentment.
When he was in high school, Ben found temporary solace from the loneliness with his uncle Luke. Luke had opened up a retreat of sorts, believing that God had called him to raise up and train warriors and guardians of peace and justice. Ben didn’t hear any sort of “calling” from God, but he figured it was better to spend his time with a couple of hippies in the woods than at home alone.
After a couple of months of learning the fanatical ways of the Jedi and observing the suspicious ways Luke managed the money of his followers, Ben came to the realization that his uncle had started a cult and left. To Uncle Luke, abandoning the way of the Jedi was an unforgivable sin, and he made good on his vow never to speak to or acknowledge Ben again.
Being the son of a cutthroat lawyer and a con artist, as well as the nephew of an unhinged cult leader, made making friends very difficult. And aside from the occasional joke about how big his ears and nose were, no one paid any attention to him.
College was supposed to be different. There would be more possibilities of meeting people who knew nothing about his eccentric family background and befriending those who shared similar degree plans and course loads. But he was wrong about that as well. Ben had spent so much of his life alone that being in large classrooms or cafeterias with too many people made his chest tighten and his fingers tingle. The mind-numbing anxiety that weighed down on Ben slowly morphed into fear, and any slight overstimulation from social interaction left him hyperventilating.
He cried himself to sleep most nights in his one-bedroom apartment, and by the time he earned his bachelor’s in engineering, he hadn’t managed to make a single friend.
It didn’t take Ben long after graduation to realize he couldn’t go through the rest of his life like that—with anxiety that broke him out in hives and no one close enough to talk to about it. He had no one to spend time with and no one to love.
So on a sunny summer afternoon, after reading his acceptance letter into the master’s program at The University of Chandrila, Ben turned on his speakers and blasted Radiohead throughout the whole apartment as he swallowed an entire bottle of pain pills he’d bought from his father.
Doubt momentarily crept into Ben’s mind as he paced around the living room, practically chewing a hole through his cheek. He took a step toward the hallway bathroom, tempted to purge the contents of his stomach, but before he could, a sense of calm washed over him. It was a hazy kind of peace that gently vibrated from his chest down to his fingers and toes. He could feel the beat of his heart slow down as the prickly sensation of worry and doubt dissolved. It was most likely the pills causing the calm, but Ben didn’t care.
He toddled over to the couch and laid down, facing the large window he’d left open. A small fluffy cloud came into view, and Ben watched as it disappeared past the boundary of his window pane. After several minutes, it became difficult to focus his eyes on anything. Ben fought against it for a moment—mustering up enough strength to open his eyes and take one last look out his window to the blurry swirl of blue and white that danced along to Thom Yorke’s voice.
He wanted to savor the moment for longer, but thinking about anything was getting too tiring. Breathing was too laborious, and focusing on anything was nearly impossible.
There were no significant moments that flashed before his eyes as his lids got too heavy to hold open. No happy memories of going to parties with friends, going out on dates, or having his first kiss. His parents never came to his basketball games, and there were no special birthday dinners or anniversaries. No heart-to-hearts with his mom or awkward puberty talks with his dad that he could look back on.
There was nothing behind him and nothing ahead of him. So with one last, weak breath, Ben faded away into that same nothing.