Chapter Text
There is something familiar about her warm brown eyes and her tanned, freckled skin. Ben Solo isn’t sure what it is, but he knows that the barista feels it too. And how can she not? The jolt that goes through him, through the both of them, when their hands touch as he hands her his debit card, nearly makes him jump, and he’s convinced – he’s convinced – that it also caused the lights to flicker.
Not the raging July thunderstorm outside, no.
She looks shaken, but nonetheless rings him up. “Sorry about that,” she says. “The squalls make this happen in the summer.”
And that’s what it’s like, living in New Jersey. Ben personally hates this godforsaken state, wishes he could go back to Baltimore or Philadelphia, but if he lives with his Uncle Luke then he gets in-state tuition.
“Yeah,” he says, and his mouth is dry. He takes his debit card back, noting how the girl is careful to keep her hand from brushing against his.
It’s three in the afternoon, far past most people’s normal coffee hour, and the shop is empty except for the two of them. She busies herself making his iced latte and he picks at his nailbeds, unsure how to proceed.
She gives him his drink in a mug. “Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t even ask if you wanted it to go. I just figured…” and she gestured to the storm raging outside.
“It’s fine,” he says, and he tries to smile but he thinks it comes out as a grimace. “I don’t wanna go out there anytime soon, anyway. Too much water for my liking.”
The girl – Rey, her nametag reads – gives a small laugh. “Yeah, well, that’s the East Coast for you.”
“Oh?” he asks, interest piqued. “Grew up somewhere else?”
Rey nods. “I lived in Arizona before moving to Philadelphia. I’m only working here for summers – my grandfather’s retired and spends all his time on the beach.”
“No shit?” he asks. “I grew up in Philly.”
Rey wrinkles her nose, and Ben can’t help but think how cute it is. “That explains your accent.”
Ben gawps at her. “I do not have an accent!”
“Oh please,” Rey says, and her laugh rings throughout the empty shop. “You totally do. You pronounced “water” like wooder.”
“It rolls off the tongue easier,” he quips. “And it’s not nearly as bad as those guys from Long Island.”
“True,” Rey concedes. “Then again, I have no room to talk. I’m staying in America’s armpit for the summer.”
“Finally, something we can agree on,” Ben says, and in the back of his mind he thinks that maybe this is the Solo charm his father was always going on about. “I’m here for the rest of summer, too. I’ll be at Alliance U in the fall.”
Her eyes brighten. “Really? Me, too!”
“Freshman?”
“…is it that obvious?”
Ben grinned. “You’re way too excited to not be. I’ll be a junior. Have your class schedule yet?”
And they continue talking, until the storm clears up and the sun reappears, and the loamy scent of just-after-rainfall enveloped them through the open windows. No other patrons entered the coffee shop at all that day.
“Hey, I have to get going,” Ben said, truly regretful. He liked this girl, but he was already over an hour late and Uncle Luke was going to kill him. He took a napkin and scrawled his number on it. “Text me, and let me know if you’ve got any questions about AU.”
Rey smiles and makes to reach for the napkin, and their fingers brush again and –
Ben’s caught up as the energy in the room takes form, enveloping him. The atmosphere gets so heavy he thinks he might crumble under the weight of it; black spots cloud his vision, and then...
It’s Rey who pulls away first, with a yelp. The light fixture overhead has shattered, glass from the light bulb scattered around the counter.
Ben curses, and looks up. His heart is still racing, blood pounding in his ears. Rey’s calling apologies over her shoulder as she goes in the back, getting a broom and dustpan to clean up the mess.
“That’s so weird,” she mutters, not meeting his eyes.
“Yeah,” he agrees, but he doesn’t think they’re talking about the same thing. “Need any help?”
“No, no,” Rey says. “It’s my job, not yours. I’ll have to tell my boss, anyway – I’ll text you tonight?” She looks at him, hazel eyes bright and hopeful.
He smiles. “Sounds good,” he says. “Later, Rey.”
Later that night, Ben Solo sits in his attic bedroom at his uncle’s shore house, staring at his hand. There’s no change, no physical difference, but he thinks that there should be. He knows it’s impossible, knows that two people touching hands cannot generate enough energy to burst a lightbulb, but…
No, he tells himself, firmly. He’s always rejected that New-Agey shit that his mother and uncle were into. He was a practical man, like his father. He was a man of science.
But…
Then again, wasn’t science all about asking questions and looking for answers?
He didn’t even know what to look up, what sort of question to ask. He doesn’t know what, but he feels that something inside of him was awakened when he met Rey, when their hands brushed. He wants to chalk it up to hormones, but Ben’s been with women before, and nothing like this has ever happened.
Maybe static electricity, he thinks, even though he knows it’s impossible, that he was walking with leather soles on a linoleum floor.
The buzzing of his phone jerks him out of his thoughts. It’s a text from an unknown number, with a message that says, Hey, it’s Rey! How’s your night going?
And Ben forgets about all the improbabilities and stupid questions, and answers the stupid text, and saves her name in his phone as Rey<3.
He asks her what she’s doing, if she wants to meet him on the boardwalk. It might be a little bit forward, but he doesn’t care. He feels like he’s known this girl for years, and he instinctively knows that she feels the same. Ben is very intuitive, just as good at reading people as his mother is, and he knows how girls get when they’re politely deflecting unwanted attention, he’s watched his female friends do it at parties countless times. Rey was doing none of that, was definitely genuine, and her text read, Sure, meet on Beach St and fourteenth at 10?
Ben glanced at his clock. It was nine-twenty-two.
Sounds good, he types, hits send.
He doesn’t bother getting ready-ready – it’s late, and the sea air had a way of undoing any preening you did. He runs a comb through his hair, thinks about tying it back but decides against it. It was getting long, almost past his shoulders now, but he doesn’t care enough to cut it. He steps into a pair of black jeans, tugs on an old Nine Inch Nails t-shirt that used to be his uncle’s, and throws on a maroon hoodie. The coastal town gets cold at night, and he can already feel the chill in the air through his open window.
He tells his uncle that he’s heading out, and the old man looks genuinely happy for him.
“Have fun, Ben,” he says, his old eyes kind. He looks almost nothing like Ben’s mother, even though they’re twins: Leia is smooth skin and dark hair and eyes, whereas Luke is light hair, light eyes, and weather-worn skin.
“You too, Uncle Luke,” Ben says, and he’s off.
Ben may be twenty, but he feels like a fucking fifteen-year-old going on a first date. He’s excited and jittery and there’s pep to his step, and his palms go sweaty when he sees Rey as he approaches.
She’s wearing a mint-green hoodie and shorts. Her hair is pulled back, and she grins when she sees him.
“Let’s get ice cream,” she says when he’s in earshot. “I need it after the shift I just had.”
“Seemed pretty dead to me,” Ben muses as they walk onto the boardwalk, joining the crowd of tourists and teenagers.
“Exactly,” Rey said. “It was so boring.”
Ben laughed, then. “Let’s switch. You can work construction all day with my uncle and I’ll man the empty coffee shop.”
“Honestly, I’d rather.”
This instant connection and easy conversation is something that Ben isn’t quite used to, but it feels like the most natural thing in the world. Rey gets her ice cream – rocky road – and coerces him into splitting it with her.
“Seriously, they give you huge scoops. I’m not going to eat it all!”
“I guess I could do you a favor,” he says, and gives a long suffering sigh, but he’s smiling.
He doesn’t know if this is a date – sure, they’re sharing food, but Rey even says, “Sorry, I almost always make people try some of my food. I get it from my grandfather.”
“So he lives here?” they’re on a bench facing the beach, watching as noisy crowds pass. Normally the hubbub of the boardwalk is too much for Ben, but with Rey they’re in their own little world.
Rey nods. “He has a house down here. We used to just stay for the summer, but I think he’s going to live here once I’m off to college. Something about the ocean air being good for his old bones, or whatever.”
Ben nods. “My uncle’s like that. I think he came here to get away – he grew up in the middle of nowhere, and I think the city was too much for him.”
“What are you majoring in?” she asks. “Not to change the subject, I’ve been meaning to ask all day.”
“It’s fine. I’m doing computer science and criminal justice. You?”
Rey scoops ice cream onto her spoon. “Undeclared. I’m thinking physics or engineering.”
Ben gives a low whistle. “Here’s hoping you’re good at math.”
“I’m entering with credits up to calc three, I think I’m good.” She grins, her eyes glinting.
“Well,” Ben says, and there’s not much else to say to that. “That’s actually…very impressive.”
Rey shrugs. “I like math. It makes sense to me.”
By the end of the night, Ben thinks he might be in love with this girl.
“It’s weird,” Rey says, as they’re walking along the beach, sneakers dangling from her fingertips. “I’ve been in this town nearly three months and I haven’t made friends with anyone so quickly as you.”
“Yeah?” Ben asks, heart leaping in his throat.
“Mhmm. Like, I feel like I’ve met you before? I know I haven’t, but…” she shrugs. “Is that weird?”
Ben shakes his head. “No, no. I feel it, too. It’s…” he struggles to find the words, tries to explain how this – whatever it is – between them feel timeless and old and impossibly good.
“Yeah,” she says, turning to him. And this is almost too perfect and so cliché, two teenagers by the sea. Her skin looks silver in the light of the almost-full moon, and she’s beautiful, really beautiful, and she tilts her head up and Ben leans down, and for one blissful moment, their lips meet and his world is electric.
And then his world is literally electric as a surge of heat lightning splits the sky, and then everything is falling apart, and there’s a weight in his chest that feels like a thousand pounds. There’s an onslaught of memories and visions, drenched in blood and draped in wires, and the only thing he can think or say or remember is her name. Rey.
When he wakes up, later and across a thousand lifetimes, that will be the name on his lips.
The images come in flashes and fill his head so much he thinks he’ll burst, and then, just as suddenly, they’re gone.
Rey has recoiled. She looks fearful the way a feral cat does, like she’s teetering on the edge of a knife between fleeing and attacking. “What the fuck was that?”
And Ben is lost. “I don’t know. I – I don’t know.”
She looks like she might actually cry; Ben instinctively takes a step forward to put a calming hand on her arm, but she backs away. “Don’t – I – I have to go.”
Ben watches her as she leaves, and feels something deep inside of him call out in agony.