Permanent Mark

Chapter Thirteen

Rey painstakingly works on the project. Her hands are covered in splotches of ink. To her right, on the floor are piles of balled up papers, also covered in ink blots. 

"DAM….mit!!" she almost hollers but catches her voice to a whisper. After all, it is the middle of the night. 

And his birthday is less than a week away. 

Still, she carries on, tracing the letters over and over, whispering to herself. 

"H….." her hand twists into a loop, the pen scratching on the fine, expensive linen paper.

"A…." she flicks her hand up then down, around, back up and pulling downwards, back up then stops.

"P….." she says out loud, pulling down again, back up and over.

She loops so carefully, now biting hard on her bottom lip until she tastes a tiny bit of blood. Her eyes cross and uncross.

Finally, finally, it's finished. She blows out loudly, once again able to breathe. 

She sits back proudly, nodding her head in triumph and sitting up straight. 

"Ow," she says, her back hurting from hours of work bent over. 

"Happy Birthday Ben" she says out loud, smiling. 

She'd done it. Calligraphy. 

She'd taught herself, by herself, practicing for days, trying to get it right. 

She knows he will be so proud of her. 

She still feels that he's sad, upset, lonely and confused. She can't understand why he hasn't written her. 

He must be really, really tired, like Leia said. 

The next morning, she shows Leia.

"Oh wow, Rey! This is beautiful! He will love it. He taught you?"

Rey smiles, proud of herself. 

"No, I copied it from his notebooks. I hope he doesn't get angry that I looked through them."

Leia sits, looking at Rey in awe. 

"You...you taught yourself how to do this? Rey, honey, that's amazing. I'm so impressed. No, Ben won't be mad. He will love this."

"What did you get him?" Rey asks. 

"Well," Leia whispers, "don't tell Han, you know he doesn't exactly like a boy doing calligraphy but I got him some new notebooks to write in and a new set of pens." 

Leia and Rey giggle together. 

"I'll box it all up and send it to him today."

"Leia, can we please take it to him? Please??"

Leia sighs. 

"No. Luke says it's not good for Ben to have visitors."

Rey jumps up. "Why??? For how long??"

"I don't know how long," she lies to the girl. "Luke says he needs to stay focused and seeing us won't help with that."

"It's not fair!" Rey cries. Leia hugs her. 

"He'll be home soon…." Leia assures her.

Rey rips away, running to Ben's room and digging her doll from under her pillow. She knows Leia just lied. She felt it in the force.