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The parrot is crammed into the back corner of the supply store where the vents are loudest and the ceiling mildewed. He’s wearing a chipped plastic bite collar and less than a third of his dark feathers.
The rest are arrayed on the floor of the cage in a pitiful, dirty pile.
As she approaches he ducks away, shy. Trembling, hiding his face in the worn tarp that covers the cage.
“Are you a pretty bird?” she asks.
In her outstretched hand is a stale Wendy’s cracker ripped from its packaging. It was all she had in her purse. A poor offering nonetheless.
“Fuck off,” he tells her. “Dirty nuisance. Shut up, parrot.”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
He looks emaciated, grimy and plucked raw. He’s big for a Seychelles, rare and smart. She can tell by the way he glances around, watchful.
Wary of the door.
“Shut up,” he says again, tucking tight against the bars. “No food for bad birds.”
Rey’s chest falls. She jumps as the inner gate slams, signaling the entry of the owner. The parrot scrabbles away from her, making his body small in a bed of fallen feathers.
He picks compulsively at his skin as Snoke talks, digging deep. The man rattles the enclosure with his foot, kicking the stand once, twice to make him stop.
Inside the bird jostles, panting, “Sorry, sorry. Bad.”
---
“Three hundred dollars? That’s it?”
“He’s a loudmouth and he cusses. He’s untrainable and he bites hard.”
Snoke shows her the scars along his wrist, his thumb from where Kylo must have latched on. Probably in self defense.
Nobody should be crushing a Seychelles in a clenched fist. Especially not to teach it a lesson about boundaries.
“Do you want to come home with me?” she asks the shrinking bird. “I have four mangoes.”
Kylo titters. Repeating, “four mangoes,” like it’s a joke.
“Really,” she says. “And bananas.”
“He doesn’t know what you mean,” Snoke says. “He’s stupid like that.”
“Stupid bird,” Kylo agrees.
When she looks back his head’s cast low, eyes fixed on the tile. Curiosity gone, replaced by a hollowness like grief.
Even when she gets close he refuses to interact. Shamefaced, turning away from her careful pets. The bite collar prevents him from lashing out, but she can tell he wants to do anything, break anything, to be free.
“Sweet bird,” she corrects. Whispering so only he can hear. “You don’t know what happiness is, but you will.”
---
She declines to purchase the cage, holding out her hand for Kylo to hop on instead.
Coaxing him forward, saying, “do your worst,” as he climbs over the discarded feathers and rusted metal.
Slowly he lifts onto her wrist, then her arm. Shaking, bristling so if he had plumage it would be ruffled. Instead he has a manmade choker, so tight he imitates human coughing, retching when it cuts into his neck.
“Don’t be afraid,” she says. “We’re going home.”
“Home,” he tries, rising up on his toes to be brave. Puffing out his chest, cocking his head. Repeating loftily to Snoke, “Going now. Bye.”
Words defiant, painful like it hurts to hope.
---
He’s silent the entire car ride. Rey plays the radio loud, trying to get him to sway to the beat, to tap the dashboard or do anything playful.
No such luck.
He only perks up at the gate to her apartment, side-eying the doorbell as she hunts for her keys.
“What?” she asks, laughing when he gestures. “Go ahead, ring it I guess.”
Excitedly he presses the button. Then again just to annoy her. Over and over until Rey gets them inside. Ears ringing, hearing phantom bells and a deranged parrot yelling-
“Take that, and that. Want another? Make my day!”
---
He must have been a pet. Lost or sold along the years. Judging by the brokenhearted way he acts, the latter.
When she asks he turns manic, walking in circles around the kitchen table, clawing apart magazines and bills. Babbling endlessly-
“Expensive bird, untrainable. Doesn’t listen. Dangerous. Has to go. Bye, evil thing.”
“Who told you that?”
“Fuck off,” he shouts.
“You fuck off, crazy bird,” she says. “You smell like a shoe.”
“Bath me."
"Bathe."
“Same difference.”
“Same difference,” she mimics. “Smartass.”
---
He explores as she runs the bathroom sink, knocking into walls and imitating the Doppler effect of the cars outside, passive aggressive as can be.
“Loud road. Whoosh. Whooooshhhh.”
“I know,” she says. “It’s all I can afford.”
“Afford?”
“As in money, as in three hundred dollar impulse bird.”
“Impulse bird.”
He takes to that one quick.
"Impulsive bird would be more correct.”
“Smartass,” he says.
She actually laughs at that, throwing her head back. Kylo rushes closer to watch and she pokes him in the stomach, saying-
“Funny bird, pretty baby. You like me.”
Tickling him until he starts to chirp, rubbing against her hand.
---
“I know we’ve developed a healthy rapport,” she says. “But if when I take this off you feel the need to bite to protect yourself, you can. I won’t hurt back.”
She goes to pry the collar off, taking his silence as consent.
“And I won’t think less of you.”
Her fingers are on the latch. It’s so tight he must not be able to eat much, to drink-
Then it’s gone.
Rey braces for the worst.
Except Kylo’s frozen, hardly seeming to know she’s there. Wobbling on the vanity, turning to the mirror only to yell at his reflection.
“Worthless bird!”
Before attacking the few feathers kept safe by the plastic.
“No, no,” she says. “Leave it be.”
“Ugly bird,” he says mournfully. “Freaky goth bird.”
“You’re not. You’re an African Seychelles, from the most beautiful place on Earth.”
“Where are we?”
“Arizona.”
“Ugly bird,” he starts again.
Exhausted of the ability to reason, Rey tries touch. Splashing him with water, presenting him the bottle of baby shampoo like he’s won an Oscar.
“Here you are. For the biggest manchild there is.”
She lathers him up, careful of the tender parts on his back. Thumbs massaging his neck, eager to remind him how good he can feel.
His head bobs; he studies her. Then without pretense, Kylo jumps backwards into the sink. Dunking only to resurface, telling the mirror-
“Kylo’s a Seychelles. He’s from the beach,” in Rey’s soft voice. “Fuck you, I think he’s pretty.”
---
It’s a relief to see him preen. Sitting tight at the back of the couch while Rey makes a smoothie.
“No vegetables!” he yells, just as she’s opening the spinach. Ambling across the furniture to supervise, giving her the feeling he can’t - or won’t- fly. “I’m watching you.”
Rey does the gesture from the movie. She can’t remember which one but he must have seen it, because Kylo’s laughing, short and sharp and barky.
“Funny bird,” he says. “Again.”
Letting Rey take him in her lap to eat, sweetly opening his mouth so she can spoon feed.
“Mmm, cold,” he says, over and over. “Yummy.”
They stay like that for a long time. Rey rocking him in her arms, wrapped in the same threadbare blanket. Listening to the sounds of the highway.
At one point he rolls over, showing her his belly.
Cuddly bird, she thinks but doesn’t say.
Stroking and petting him until he falls asleep, lulled by the fading light from the window.
Rey sits in the dark for hours. Thinking of hospital corridors, liminal spaces and aerodynamics. Of not being able to breathe and the Xanax hidden in a drawer.
Her assignment was to go to a coffee shop before nine. It’s good for her to be in the noise and confusion, to be jarred when strange men bump against her. To feel overwhelmed, put on edge by the hissing machines. Back to the door, exposed.
She lasted ten minutes before running out, chest heaving. Crossing the street to the supply store for cover. Only to come out of it with the only creature in the world more scared than her-
More beautiful to her than anything else.
---
“Hi, sweetie,” he says within moments of cracking his eyes. “Bad day?”
He reads the climate of her moods with such sincerity. It’s only been a few weeks but he’s a part of her, attached so closely she finds herself begging-
“Help me,” as she still can’t say to others.
He doesn’t sleep on the bed but nests next to it on the floor, in a tangle of blankets and used towels. She knows for a fact he hoards her hair ties there, her sweaty tank tops from running bleachers.
Now he produces kisses from it like they were hiding under the covers.
Doling them out one by one until she’s laughing, forgetting her panic for the briefest second. Immune to the vise around her neck, to her clenched teeth and sore jaw.
No longer worried about the mattress on the floor, the bills on the table or the coming semester. All she sees is a parrot growing back his feathers, sitting heavy on her chest singing lullabies.
---
One of his issues is with being high maintenance. Every time she tries to take him to lunch he protests, refusing to leave the car or her arms. Sitting belly up, prostrate as she explains in circles.
“You’re like a corgi. Everybody’s happy to see you. You’re not a problem. If you need something I’ll find a way to get it to you.”
“Nuisance bird. Loud embarrassment. Never shuts up.”
Her heart aches and Rey hesitates. Finally telling him what her anxiety always wants to hear.
“If it’s too much, give me a sign and we’ll leave. No hard feelings. Everything on the table like it’s an emergency. I’ll fake a call, or pretend to be sick-”
“Promise?”
“Yeah, bird. I swear to god.”
She brings him on otherwise painful outings. She doesn’t mind crowds so much when he’s there, can’t run out of restaurants with him on her shoulder.
Over time Rey grows to love the grounding weight of his body, filling out as he gorges on bags of peanuts, lentils and bananas and clementines. She likes how people smile at the sight of him, how he goes shy with their praise, hiding in her neck. She excels in the role of the protector, the provider supplying every comfort.
He thinks she’s beautiful and kind, and she can’t get enough.
---
Hux is perilously close to getting bit.
There’s a hierarchy to her friends, Rey can sense it, and Hux has always been at the very bottom.
Finn he perches on gladly. Rose he’s happy to kiss, if only to make Rey jealous enough to retrieve him. Pretending she’s wounded, tortured by the sight. Hands going to her forehead in a swoon.
Only this isn’t play.
She’s been seeing Hux off and on for a while at the word of her therapist. They watch movies, they get drinks. Normal college stuff that bores and terrifies Rey in equal measure.
Now he’s parked on her couch, scrolling through Netflix while she’s supposed to be making popcorn. Except she thinks Hux just flicked Kylo in the face for humming.
There’s a ten foot forcefield around that bird. This is his home, his safety.
Did he really expect her not to notice?
Of course she’s received rude comments before about how spoiled Kylo is, how clingy. His open adoration grosses people out. Calling Rey pet names at the dinner table, bringing her shelled EOS balms and other people’s jewelry.
Yet none of them have ever touched him in anger, not since Snoke.
No one dared.
And her poor bird is taking it. Glancing towards the kitchen, hoping she’s on the way. Edging to the very corner of the sofa until he’s almost skittering off.
Hux flicks him again, hard in the side and Kylo yelps, reflexively going to pluck. Stopping himself at the last second, clearly in agony.
Forcing it down so plainly, so purposefully to be good and respect her mate. Every emotion is written on his body. It’s impossible to ignore his distress.
Still Hux smirks, drawing his hand back to push him off the couch. To slap Kylo against the edge of the table. Knowing he’s petrified to fly, to lash out in self-defense.
“Stupid bird,” he says meaningfully, and Rey snaps.
Throwing Hux’s jacket at him so hard the zipper leaves marks on the wall. Saying, “I guess your best defense is that you’re jealous,” though she can barely speak.
“Of that thing. You sleep together. It’s not normal.”
“I love him. He saved me. I don’t care about anything else.”
She lowers her voice, anger gone when she spots Kylo cowering in the corner, upset at causing a fight.
“Get out,” she tells Hux. Already forgetting his face, his annoying habits and stridency. Making every effort to focus on what’s important.
“Baby bird,” she says as the door slams. “I’m so sorry, did he hurt you?”
Rey kneels by the couch so he has to look in her eyes.
“No,” he says softly, in her voice. “I’m fine.”
“You hear that a lot from me when I’m not fine. Come here.”
“‘It’s not normal.’”
“Fuck normal.”
So he crawls into her arms, shaking hard. Willing to accept bites of cashew, pets and kisses until he’s calm.
“Rey loves me,” he states, leaving it hanging as bait. “Just words?”
“True fact,” she says. “24/7 forever.”
---
It takes weeks for him to say it back, spread out in the shade at the park. Rey thought ahead to prepare for the heat, the loud crowds of dog owners and blasting stereos.
Soaking watermelon in chamomile tea, packing a thermos to share. As soon as it hits the glass he takes half a dozen gulps, no longer so internal but carefree, bobbing to the music.
“Love you,” he says to her, feathers dripping on her shirt. “You own me.”
“Not quite. You’re free, you know.”
“I’m yours.”
“Okay,” she says. “But you own me, too.”
---
The same as her own recovery, Rey has to pick and choose her battles. Kylo still thinks Truth or Dare is a way to get her to put him under her shirt. He still shrieks and goes to the door when she gets out the broom. Above all, he still can’t fly.
“Please sweetie, just around the room. How many kisses?”
“A million.”
It’s his code for drop it, delivered with such an attitude she has to smile. Headstrong bird is one of his favorite nicknames. Or just stubborn. Fighter.
“Upfront,” he adds for good measure.
“Deal,” she says, just for the hell of it. “Can I start saving now?”
---
Days later she bribes Kylo enough to get him through the door of the sanctuary, anxious to know if there’s a mechanical failure with his wings.
From her research she learned the term fear crutch, knowing in this case they function as such for each other. Inseparable, holding on for dear life in the waiting room.
Rey apologizes to the doctor, explaining, “He’s a special bird. I’d rather keep him in my arms.”
Supplemented by Kylo as backup, giving his studied impression of Rose after more than a few vodka tonics. Shrieking in eerie detail, “I do what I want! Goddamn.”
“Okay, then,” the vet says. “I'll get the hawk gloves."
---
“You have,” Rey quotes from the assessment, “Perfect wings. Effective waterproofing. Exemplary intelligence. Your flight feathers grew back, you’re packed with muscle. Says here, cleared for takeoff.”
“In your dreams.”
“We’ll see. Just wait until you meet someone.”
Teasing him like they always do each other, watching him spoon all the good nuts out of the trail mix.
---
The vet broached the topic at the register, talking low in Rey’s ear. Delicately, sadly saying-
“He’s possessive as hell, girl. Stop giving him false hope.”
“He gets that I’m off the table. Irreconcilable differences.”
“No he doesn’t. He’s playing the long game, trying to win you over.”
“Is this your professional opinion or your personal one?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
---
The problem is she’s right.
It’s a cop out on Rey’s part, viciously unfair to Kylo. Heaven for her is a world without sex and dating, just affection. A sweet face to wake up to, a reason to get better.
There they differ.
The more she pays attention, the more it seems he’s courting her, shameless and bold. Pushing food onto her plate, preening her hair. Gossiping in her ear.
Gratified, spurred on when she smiles and laughs.
Turning their petty neighbors into recurring characters in a less vicious reality, whispering here comes tuna breath or ugh, the jogger as they stalk over to complain about the noise.
All her parents taught her was how to be afraid. To take the path of least resistance. Waving opportunity away, passing up chances to grow.
Now Rey sees another side, flashes of another self. Using words she never felt worthy of, like-
Don’t touch me and no.
---
“You have this pigeon convinced he’s 6 feet of abs.”
“He’s all that to me,” she says.
“I’m a hunk,” he tells them. Rey blushes at the obvious quote. “I’m studly. Pretty eyes, soft feathers. Yummy kisses.”
“Ick,” Finn says, but he’s smiling. “Spare me.”
“You know this used to be my number one man,” she tells Kylo. “Before you came along.”
“Don’t worry,” he says automatically. “Gotcha now.”
“Yeah, you take good care of Rey,” Finn says. “Atta boy.”
The dynamic between them was hard-won, impossible to pinpoint for months. Now she recognizes the feeling for what it is: agree to disagree.
In the beginning Finn took her aside every few minutes, claiming their behavior was sick, bizarre and unnatural. Now he’s used to it -to the change in her.
Making peace at last when she confessed, staring at the carpet, I feel like myself again.
---
Dinner’s ready, she’s just wasting time. Scrubbing the sink. Folding the dishrags. Basking in the sight of Finn spread over the couch, Kylo perched on his knee.
He’s holding court, sampling from a mix of impressions. Tonight the hits are airplane toilet and Rey on a deadline. He cracks up every time she asks, “Do I really sound like that?”
Sucking the awkwardness from the room with his antics, loud and boisterous and unafraid. On the topic of therapy Finn never knew what to say. Now he learns by example, patting her on the shoulder, saying-
“I’m so proud of you, sweetie,” with painstaking clarity.
---
In return she gives Kylo the hot sun on his back. She gives him coconut husks to destroy, venting his latent anger. She treats him to endless presents. Audio books and potted plants, Bjork CDs and homemade tokens for neck rubs.
It’s never enough. He’s always the one to sacrifice more.
When Rey wakes in the middle of the night crying, clutching her neck, screaming, “Stop, stop,” with what feels like her last breath, he’s right there.
Narrating a breathing pattern for her, vocalizing, “hee-hoo, hee-hoo,” in his softest voice.
After several minutes of coaching the panic recedes. Her vision clears. She rasps, “good bird,” and he falls apart, exhausted. Rolling over to be cradled.
“Hold me,” he begs.
She does, stretching her fingers over the length of him. Squeezing tight, bringing him down to her face like a dumbbell.
Half a dozen reps and her arms start to burn. Still he insists, bobbing his head, saying, “Shuttlecock, shuttlecock, shuttlecock,” as she taught him.
“Is it a bird?” she asks, kissing his beak. “Is it a plane?”
“It’s me,” he says shyly. “I’m flying.”
“If that’s what it takes. I’ll carry you across space.”
“Space?”
“It’s the biggest sky there ever was,” she says, drawing him close. Whispering for effect. “Nobody knows where it goes, or exactly what it is.”
“You know,” he says, so sure. “You always know.”
“No, I’m lost too. Except right now, the universe is just us. So what do you want to do with it?”
His answer is to nestle close, asking for the forbidden pets that make him shudder in frustration. Not for what the vet said but simple things. Wanting so hard to protect Rey, to shelter her from the elements.
So she caresses his back, chaste and sweet and slow. Telling nonsense stories of the time when he was a man. Pretending there will be a chapter to come where she grows wings, standing naked in her glass slippers. Where they slip away in the glittering rain like Ever After.
Down the ravine to a dark shore.
Running in the sand like she did as a girl. Pretending the misty lights of the cargo ships were an afterlife, a place for her just out of reach. All alone, separated from what was real by an immovable ocean.
“Now I look at you,” she says, tears spilling, “and know there is a soul.”
---
“Again,” he tells her.
She sings Kylo the bridge to Chasing Cars, putting extra emphasis on all that I ever was just the way he likes. When she’s done he goes to pieces, hiding in her neck.
“Again.”
“Oh, honey. Can we take a break?”
He nods and she pushes her glasses up, stumbling to the coffeemaker. Helping him to drink from a bottle of his special Fiji water.
Fond, smoothing back his wet feathers. Setting aside the book she fell asleep on, turning down the sheets so he can settle in.
This makes the third nightmare in as many days. He suffers exactly as Rey does, seeing men in the dark. Saying-
“What if,” after, though words fail.
“Wait,” she says, completely at a loss. “Do you know what day it is?”
---
“How old am I?”
“Older than me. You’re practically geriatric.”
He hates that. Peering over her shoulder, winding up to start making demands.
“Can I have a smoothie?”
“Yes.”
“And watch Jeopardy?”
“Yes.”
“And birdie cake?”
Kylo really thinks he’s pressing his luck. Just because she has to get out the stand mixer, preheat the oven and handle suet.
“Haven’t you had a birthday before?” she asks.
It turns out to be a stupid question, launching him into a summary of years past. Complete with sound effects of people yelling, dogs snarling. Blunt objects connecting with his skull.
All this after he was abandoned.
Her lower lip trembles. Eyes swimming, she paws around in the closet, producing a Ziplock bag of water-stained pictures.
“I wasn’t going to burden you,” she says. “But this is me.”
Showing him a faded Polaroid of an unsmiling, austere girl. Eyes red, sleeves pulled over bruises. Reading out for him, voice shaking, “surrendered on May fifteenth.”
"No,” he says softly. "Not you."
"It was."
She wipes her tears, laughing when he does the vampire bat. Raising her arm until he’s eye level, hanging off every word.
“What do you think?” she asks, kissing his forehead. “We’re a mess.”
---
Maybe she can give Kylo another birthday next time he’s upset. She hopes he gets used to the attention in time. That he begins to understand what she does is performative, a pretend way to feel better. That love is whatever they want or need it to be.
Knowing her bird, he’ll play along. Turning the tables to say-
“Happy birthday,” one morning.
---
They still see Hux at the library, in line at coffee shops and the grocery store. Rey’s gotten used to it, knowing Kylo whispers fuckface or well, well, well to hide his fear.
Only once does he actually approach them, laid up in the produce section. It’s always the scene of a debate, fond and bickering and charged.
“I hate zucchini. Tastes like wall.”
“Well you’re getting heavy. There, I said it.”
“Traitor,” he grumbles. “Backstabber. Et tu, Brute?”
Hux must see that as an in. Most people do. Commenting endlessly on how well Kylo’s trained so she has to admit, I have no idea where he picked that up. For all I know he’s Caesar.
“Asshole’s coming over,” he tells her, scrambling behind Rey’s back.
“I know, sweetie.”
“He’s right there. Do something.”
“Hi,” she forces out. “Can you believe this heat?”
Hux looks to be enjoying a petty triumph of some kind. Ignorant enough to think she carries Kylo around as punishment.
“You’re right. The bird got fat.”
“I’m not a bird,” Kylo hisses. Backpedaling, saying, “She never liked you much.”
“Well he said it best, so.”
Rey turns to leave and Hux grabs her cart, baiting Kylo. Except there’s no hint of aggression, just impatience and overwhelming distaste when he responds-
“Ugh. Get a life.”
---
She can’t help but reward Kylo after. He ran that fucker off like nobody else.
They never see rain in Arizona. Sometimes she thinks Kylo yearns for it in a quiet way. So parked next to the broccoli she says-
“Feel that? There's a storm coming.”
“Huh?”
“Listen, hear the thunder?”
Explaining that the sound over the loudspeakers is a warning. They’re going to shower the food, just watch.
“Okay, okay,” he says, fluffed with excitement. Then, “Rey! Oh wow.”
It’s a tactic borrowed from the shrink. If something unpleasant happens, if she gets spooked in a familiar place, she’s told to override it. Overcome the fear so it doesn’t fester, turning into phobia, barreling towards avoidance.
So when he asks shyly, “Can I have a rain carrot?” it hits deep.
Rey laughs, pulling down her glasses. Saying as coolly as possible, “Baby, you can have whatever you like.”
---
“What’s the worst that can happen?”
“You drop me.”
“I’m not going to drop you. You’re a Ming vase.”
“I'm a dirty pot.”
“You’re priceless.”
She throws him again and he tucks, landing in her arms.
“Oh, come on.”
“Fifty more reps,” he says. “Feel the burn.”
“Alright, smartass.”
“I don’t want to fly. I told you.”
“What if I die tomorrow,” she says, searching his eyes. “No, think about it. What if I keel over? And someone comes to grab you, or hurt you and I’m not there. I can’t live with that kind of fear.”
For a second she worries it goes over his head. Then Kylo paws at her, saying, “Let me go again.”
This time he spreads his wings. Squawking murderous obscenities, upending like a feathered brick. Rey catches him, ravishing him with pets.
“Oh fuck,” he chants, exhilarated. “Holy shit.”
“Good bird,” she says. “Wanna go more?”
---
Rey tells him a lot of unorthodox things. She claims they’re telepathic, that she knows by magic when tacos or sneakers pop into his head. She says he’s the love of her life.
Only the newest thing is sweeter than that. She repeats it over and over. Ducking close, giving him her pretty neck, the smell of her peach lotion that’s like a treat. He can taste it.
“You’re so beautiful when you fly,” she says. “Like a postcard.”
The view makes it worthwhile. For hours he’s suspended, windblown. At the mercy of the sun and sand. Muscles aching, heart hammering with fear.
Then he sights her, standing by. Baking in the heat, shirt tucked up to her bra. Smiling, waving. Shouting, “you got it!” across the desert.
---
It doesn’t last.
Once he’s in the air he starts to have flashbacks. The smell of vodka, dirty gravel. Prying his jeans off to find welts, blood where they tore at his thigh.
He hears a name, Ben - and tumbles to the ground.
As promised, Rey’s right there. Unconcerned in that sixth sense way of hers, knowing it’s not remotely physical.
“I gotta go,” he says, looking around dazed.
The thought alone makes him shake. He can’t even stand it when she closes the door to pee. They’re a mess, they’re a matching pair. She was supposed to be his forever home.
Except for all he knows he’s dangerous. That’s what it feels like. Getting pulled into nightmares that aren’t just in the dark anymore but everywhere. Running rampant over everything good.
He doesn’t want that near Rey.
---
“How long?” she asks. Apple juice in hand, pillow on her lap. “When can I expect to have you back?”
“Soon. Soon as I can.”
It’s a lie and she breaks over it, giving the racking sobs he associates with parties, phone interviews and midterms and fights.
“Birdie, no. I can’t.” Then, “Are you really sure?”
“Yes.”
He goes to her chest, planting his feet on her lungs. He loves the way she breathes, blowing back his feathers. Her air feels warm on his cheek.
“Are you maybe...not a bird?”
It’s lingered between them for a while, that quiet hesitation. He knows Rey wants him in the way of another person, as love and as shelter.
She's said it before, smiling in her sleep.
“I think I'm more. I know it.”
She brightens. Sitting up straight, stroking his back like there’s an end in sight to the frustration, the mismatch of what they are. It’s within her to be strong, to wait for a good thing. The same as the girl in the Polaroid.
“Go on,” Rey says at last. “Hurry back.”
---
~~~
---
Years later a man follows her home from work. Rey’s heart starts hammering after the second block. She breaks out in a sweat, crossing the street at a jog. Still he gives chase. Just like before.
At the intersection in front of her building she whips around, thrusting out a can of pepper spray. Quickly ducking down so she doesn’t catch it. That was her mistake last time.
Saying, “fuck off,” as finally as possible.
“You work on the fourteenth floor,” he says. Casual like nothing’s amiss. “So you’re a lawyer?”
“I’m a fighter,” Rey says, fumbling with her phone. “And right now it’s you or me, so trust it’s going to be you.”
When he laughs she stops to look. The man’s well-off, too decently dressed to be bothering her. It doesn’t make sense.
“What the fuck?” she asks, lowering her arm.
The stranger holds out a weathered flyer, hands shaking, and she understands.
---
“He wasn’t lost, per se. I set him free. But I paid to advertise anyway, in case he saw and knew I still loved him.”
Rey pauses. Suddenly aware of sounding unwell, of making her guest uncomfortable. He’s sitting rigid on a chair no one uses but her, in a home she considers empty.
It’s already too much.
The man sets aside his tea, still staring at her lips.
“See, he wasn’t just any bird. He was a gorgeous Seychelles and he talked, and talked. He made me laugh. I put up the flyers every weekend. It gets me out of the house.”
Out and walking the streets of adjacent towns. Going places she’s never been, expanding her search to include the suburbs. Weeks into it she was fired by her therapist for being too stable, too comfortable with flux.
“I thought maybe we were meant to be together,” she says, finally taking a seat. “I don’t do so well with other people.”
The stranger’s eyes are soft and faraway, no longer focused on the room or the tacky beach decor.
She’s exhausting him. It’s a consequence of spending too much time alone. When someone finally listens it all comes out at once, jumbled and insane.
“So you work downtown?” she tries, just to get a response.
---
“I don’t eat meat,” she says. “But I have premixed salad, I have-”
“Vegetables,” he tells her. “Yes, I know.”
“Will you eat sweet potatoes?”
“Will you make me?” he asks, smiling through watery eyes.
Rey goes cold, brushing the thought aside -the feeling that this happened before. She’s not nineteen anymore; she’s safe in the future in an apartment with no cages. There’s no ceiling to what she can do or say, to what she can be.
“Is that a request?”
Momentarily bold, she nudges his socked foot under the table. The stranger nods, throat bobbing. Hiccuping, saying-
“Yes, please.”
Through endless tears.
---
“I was a teenager when we met. Still in school, trying to make it back to campus in the fall. Something awful happened and my life was stalled. He was thirty and never got to live.”
“You were star-crossed.”
“Exactly.”
“A bird may love a fish,” the man says. “But where would they live?”
Rey turns sharply away.
“Do you know that movie?” he insists, taking her hand. “Do you remember what comes next?”
“Her wings get broken. She has to save herself.”
“But?”
“She loves him no matter what. I’m not sure if he ever loved her.”
“I did. I do.”
“You left.”
Rey knew immediately from the lurching way he walked, from how he spoke in mixed metaphors. She hasn’t let herself look any closer, doesn’t want to see the truth of all she lost.
A bird in the sky is different from a man with scars.
Nothing feels real anymore.
She pulls away from the table, cracking her elbow on the wood and cursing. Hoping to barricade in the bedroom until he leaves, until she can call Finn to pick her up-
Except Ben’s on his knees, grasping at her legs. Holding Rey so tight she has to bury a hand in his hair to keep standing.
“Why won’t you look at me?”
“Because I already know your face.”
“Please. Please try.”
He’s so helpless Rey moves automatically, fingers brushing the tears from his eyes.
She hears him ask, am I still pretty to you? from a thousand miles away, past the cars on the highway and the years in between.
Her voice breaks saying yes.
She falls to the floor.
---
He still thinks kisses are short pecks; he still asks to be pet on her lap. Acting so soft, neglected and hungry for touch.
She offers him anything and he asks to talk.
They watch the sunset through the window like that. Feeding each other grapes, cautiously rehashing the past.
When it’s dark Rey’s hands go to his hair. Lifting it from his sweaty neck to kiss and nose at the curve of his spine, his collarbone.
Thinking of him wrapped in a blankie, small on her chest. Falling asleep just the same. Fitful, listening out for danger.
Ben stays belly up on the couch, eyes closed until she moves from under him. Curling in his lap, spreading out over his hips and thighs.
“Hold me,” is all she needs to say.
He rushes to embrace her. His hands go to her cheeks and Rey smiles, pressing her lips hard to his, full and soft.
“Like this,” she says, tipping his jaw. His tongue tastes sweet, warm at the corners of her mouth.
Rey sighs, drawing him in deep. Kissing back until he’s desperate, shuddering in the dark.
“What do I do,” he begs. “Show me.”
Trusting her to be so patient. Unbuttoning her dress pants, inching his boxers down until she sees the thick hair between his legs, until his cock pokes out over the fabric, swollen pink.
She touches the tip and he starts to shake.
“Lay on top,” Rey says, hands carding over his back. Feeling for wings or lines of scars, for what made him so sad before. “Let me touch you first.”
She finds the ridge where his collar chafed, pressing down hard. Watching his face change, his color rise as he bites his lip, squirming. Still sensitive, vulnerable there.
“You have me,” he says in a rush. “You own me.”
Years ago, all Ben knew was a binary. Light and dark, good and evil. So when Rey whispers, “perfect,” he melts.
“Perfect boy. Your hands. Your lips.”
“Pretty bird,” he blurts, trembling all over. “You’re really here.”
“24/7,” she tells him. “We said forever.”
---
Her smile hurts. Delivering soft kisses to his pecs, his stomach. Running her tongue in circles across his back. Lapping at his earthy smell, breathing deep.
Falling back on the mattress when he begs to try.
“Fuck,” he says, nosing down her neck. Pulling Rey into his lap, hard against her thigh. Tonguing, sucking her nipples. Studying her expression. “Feel nice?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want-”
“This,” she says, rolling on top. “Me over you.”
She knows he learned from movies how it goes. The guy on top, the girl there for show. Except she’s more interested in control, better able to stand intimacy on her own terms.
Of course he understands. Panting, putting his hands above his head. Whining, “take me,” like he’s in danger of being left behind.
“Okay,” she says. “But you have to look.”
Splaying her hips so Ben can see. Opening her body with the tip of his cock, rubbing it against her clit until it sinks inside her, impossibly warm.
His head falls back and he whimpers, thighs shaking. Hands gripping the sides of the mattress, trying not to thrust.
“You can move,” she says. Stroking his hair, cupping his face. “Look at me.”
His eyes are a dead giveaway, implacable and bright. So many times she teased you’re shooting arrows at me but it’s true. Even with his back against the wall, crammed in the corner of a cage. Rey heard him think I love you and felt it back.
For as long as she stares the universe collapses. There are no survivors. Just what's left of an orphan, holding in her arms a flightless bird.
Together they are everything.
She comes when he says her name, sharp and burning. Seeing through his eyes the wine-dark sea to home, the city lights from above like stars.
“Take me with you,” she says.
He does.
Clutching her close she feels him fall. Pinwheeling, spiraling down to earth. Caught at last in the throes, turning his head to whisper, “be with me,” as he comes.
She goes to a place of freedom, holding him inside forever.
---
After that it's slow, deliberate.
They teach lessons. Not about anatomy but preference. Vocal, chasing every move with yes or just there.
He's always been a chatterbox. Cursing a litany in her ear while she works him in her palm, whispering filthy things about pulling his hair, biting his cock and bedtimes.
"Again," he says, lying spent on the mattress. "Your turn. I'm gonna be really evil this time."
She hardly sleeps.
---
Rey freezes at the cash on the table. Turning so fast Ben cringes, looking like he forgot his speech.
“Sorry I was so expensive. It wasn’t practical while you were in school. To expect you to take care of a messy-”
“Don’t.” She wants to confetti the money, to throw it off the balcony. Instead she takes his chin, asking, “Is that all you learned out there?”
“I remember what happened now.”
“Then tell me that, please." She rolls up the bills, sticking them back in his pocket. "Just don't say sorry. You were my best friend."
---
“My parents didn’t even like me. Tough love was only there as punishment, after I made them pay attention. So I drank as a freshman. A lot. And my friends encouraged it.
They used to lead me around the yard on a leash, light my sleeves on fire. Write on me, dump me off couches. I wanted to be hazed, because they were talking to me.
After they took care of me. They bought me breakfast.
So it just got worse, and one night they drove me to this lookout. I hated heights and I was so wasted. I kept falling asleep in the car, asking to go home.
But they led me out on the ledge, told me to strip and that there was water below. It was a dare to see if I would do it.
I jumped and hit concrete. I broke my face so bad I couldn’t see. And they tried to lift me up and take me to the hospital, but I stopped breathing. They left me in a ditch.
I thought I was dead.
When I crawled out I was feral. I didn’t want to be near humans, but I was petrified to fly. I didn’t know what I was. I figured I was cursed or in hell.
Snoke made me believe that.
The way he hit me, I thought I was going to crack into pieces. I was scared all the time.
It felt like karma. He tried to train me not to bite but I fought back. So he gave up. He told the employees I was an angry paperweight. They weren’t allowed to speak to me.
He wanted me to starve.
So I hoped,” he says, fumbling for her hand. “I wished you were there to tell me it was over. That I could be done.”
“I was,” she says. “I guess you caught on that I wasn’t doing so well either.”
“Did you know him?”
“No, it was at a party. I was there because I lived in the house. And they say college is the time of your life.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“The thought that he was out there, that he could pass by me and I wouldn’t know. That’s what made me anxious. When you left it was replaced by thinking any day, I could run into you. It helped.”
“I looked in on you.”
“I thought so. Did you see all the different flyers?”
“I kept them in my wallet.”
“Your wallet,” she laughs, wiping her eyes. “Big man. You sure that's not Monopoly money?”
---
“You know, it’s not unheard of. King Arthur’s soul became a bird.”
He’s naked at the counter peeling potatoes. It’s not a precision job. She loves the inexpert way he works, the messy lines and edges.
It’s been like this for months with no diminishing return. The novelty never goes away. Now she’s the one easily amused, smiling at everything. Hiding in the doorway, eavesdropping on Kylo as a human.
Trying to relearn every vivid detail she once knew, hoarding it tight. The memory of him was deliverance all through college. It took her headaches away.
It still does.
How he slams on the brakes trying to parallel park. How he stares when she’s naked. Kneeling between her legs in the shower, saying, imagine that feeling in your belly but for hours. Days.
So patient a teacher when she falters. Catching Rey as she spirals, righting her midair. Safe in his arms far above the street.
The world is wide and impossibly blue.
She’s not scared anymore.
---