By ETL Echo
The podcast currently has 20 episodes available.
Chapter 20 of Conscience and Unconsciousness by PontMercy44
EPILOGUE: PART TWO: BEN
Ben waited until his parents were tipsy before he snuck upstairs. Han and Leia were playing Heart and Soul together on the piano in the hotel lobby – if it could even be called a hotel, it was really a motel – quite sloppily. The manager would probably would probably creep out from behind his desk and ask them to be quiet in a matter of minutes, but in the meantime, he could slip away and use the key card he’d secreted out of Rey’s purse during the rehearsal dinner.
Chapter 19 of Conscience and Unconsciousness by PontMercy44
EPILOGUE
The letter was wrinkled and damp with sweat. Rey worried it between her hands, over and over, in the alleyway behind the diner. She was framed, on either side, by garbage, and for a moment, she wanted to throw the letter into a dumpster and pretend she’d never seen it.
Leaning against the brick wall, Rey smoothed the letter out again, and re-read it. Under intimidating letterhead and an explanation of her deportable status were two words that almost made her laugh: voluntary departure.
Chapter 18 of Conscience and Unconsciousness by PontMercy44
Ben rang the doorbell of his parent’s house, formally. They stood in front of it, not quite holding hands. Their littlest fingers brushed against each other and then they jumped apart like teenagers.
Leia had always insisted that Rey let herself in, saying that the house was never locked and that she was always welcome. Now, Rey wasn’t sure she was welcome at all. She wished for a wig, or hair dye, and glasses. Anything to make her look different, so that she could pretend she was just a girl being brought home for dinner by a boy for the first time. That would be less nerve-wracking than this.
Chapter 17 of Conscience and Unconsciousness by PontMercy44
Rey did sleep with Ben on the second date, if it could even be considered a date.
They went to a pizza place and ordered a bottle of wine. There wasn’t any awkward, stilted conversation. That is not to say either were comfortable – they sat silently, each jiggling their knees under the table.
Chapter 16 of Conscience and Unconsciousness by PontMercy44
The judge looked, for a moment, remarkably unperturbed. He looked over his glasses at Ben, and then Finn, and then, finally, Rey. He cocked his head to the side, narrowing his eyes at her. “Well, this is new.”
“We’re not engaged.” Rey told the judge, gesturing helplessly to Ben with her cheap bouquet.
The judge’s brows rose. “He seems to think you are –”
Chapter 14 of Conscience and Unconsciousness by PontMercy44
Two weeks later, two minutes after the bell tinkled, heralding Ben’s silent, sullen departure from the diner, the door swung open again. Luke stood in the doorway, his hands tucked into his pockets, as if he needed permission to come in.
Rey held a plasticized menu up to her mouth for a moment, to hide her expression, and then gestured, silently, to an empty booth – not Ben’s booth, but a different one. Luke sat, and folded his hands on the table. When she approached him, he reached across the tabletop and patted it with his palm, signaling that she should sit down.
It was still early, and there was only one other person in the diner – a geriatric, glaring pancake-eater. Rey slid into the booth, wrapping her arms around herself protectively. “You just missed him.”
Chapter 14 of Conscience and Unconsciousness by PontMercy44
Rey stood behind the cash register, fiddling with the strings of her apron. It was that dark, quiet hour before the daily commute roared to life. It used to be her favorite hour of the day – or, at least, it had been for three months.
She glanced at the corner booth. Every time someone sat in it, Rey had to bite back the urge to say, no, not there. That’s his place. I’m saving it for him. I’m hoping he’ll come back.
Chapter 13 of Conscience and Unconsciousness by PontMercy44
“I can explain.” Rey repeated, futilely. Her words sounded hollow. They were. How could she explain herself? How could she explain the horrible, deep hole she’d dug herself into him. She’d lied to his parents. She’d lied to him. She’d slept with him.
It was silent in the kitchen for a moment, and her words rung. They echoed off of the dated backsplash and linoleum floors. Then Ben told Rey, in a low voice, that somehow resonated just as much, “You’d better.”
Rey’s jaw flapped, uselessly. She didn’t have the faintest idea of where to start. Perhaps with her hopeless, pathetic crush?
“Ben, it was my idea.” Luke voice was more gravelly than usual.
Ben looked sharply at his uncle, and then back at Rey, as if he couldn’t quite believe it. “He put you up to this?”
Chapter 12 of Conscience and Unconsciousness by PontMercy44
Rey lay awake for hours.
Ben’s breathing was steady and slow, the rhythm of a man perfectly satisfied and comfortable. Her heartbeat echoed in the drums of her ears. It was out-of-sync with the rise and fall of his chest. The sweat and stickiness on her skin made it crawl.
Sometime between midnight and dawn, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She climbed out of bed and out of his arms – navigating precariously over his prone body; he’d wedged her against the wall.
Topless, Rey stood by the window and pressed her torso to it. It was still cold outside – it was barely February – but it felt stiflingly hot in the little bedroom. The glass of the window was frosty. It was a relief. She fogged the plane up with her breath, studying her own distorted reflection.
Chapter 11 of Conscience and Unconsciousness by PontMercy44
Ben was quiet, hands in his lap in between bites of chicken cacciatore. Leia kept looking at him as if she wasn’t quite sure he was real. Han’s joke’s kept falling flat.
Perhaps this had been a terrible mistake, Rey thought. She was trying to fit Ben into a mold he simply wasn’t made from. She was trying to make him into fantasy Ben. Real Ben didn’t have dinner on Sundays in his parent’s dining room.
The podcast currently has 20 episodes available.