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He was sitting in the greenhouse, as he did every afternoon since they’d moved here. What pointed him out to Cal, though, was the fog on the glass pane from outside, a sign that there was a cup of tea on the sill, a sign that none other than one Ben Kenobi was probably reading something between Sylvia Plath and Edgar Allan Poe on his uncomfortable brass chair as he overlooked his plants.
Cal gave his, now tall, dog a gentle pat on the head and went inside the greenhouse. It was full, impossibly packed to the limit, to the point Cal almost denied his own memory of Ben saying he’d leave for the farmer’s market on Friday to get more plants last night at dinner. These plants looked ancient, despite being a few months old, as Ben had started collecting and caring for them the second day after they settled in the small house up on the hill. Something also told Cal that Ben didn’t ‘buy’ this land, rather inherited it or came back to it somehow. He’d never quite seen his dad look around at their new house strangely or even curiously. Ben always sat on the armchair in the homely living room like he’s always been there, like that was the only place he belonged. Maybe it was like Bracca to him; a place packed with bad memories but the only home Cal remembered from his childhood. Maybe this house on the obscure outskirts of Coruscant was where Ben had grown up. The only difference was that if someday, some demon possessed Cal to return to Bracca, it’d be full of people, full of workers, but this house…this house was empty. Has been, for several years. It wasn’t even slightly hard to tell. So empty that the sad look on Ben’s face when he turned the key in the rotten lock and opened the door to a haunted house will forever be imprinted in Cal’s head, so much that Ben quickly got onto renovating it and filling it with the life that’s been stolen from it.
“Kid? I’m in here,” Ben raised a hand from where he was sitting to beckon Cal to him. The other hand was lifting his metal-framed glasses up slightly. Ben was nearing his forties— he looked it, the lines on his face were a storybook—, but there was a child in those eyes, somewhere, still struggling to break free. Cal felt the corners of his mouth lifting up at the sight of his dad in his own element, without a care in the world, sitting amongst what he made, in a place he’d grown to love, with his own chosen family after years of fighting for one. Cal watched Beedee jog lightly away from him to hop into Ben’s arms and start licking at his bearded visage. He laughed, “Hey, dad.”
Ben lifted his face up after he kissed the golden retriever on its head and smiled at Cal. He motioned for him to sit on the chair opposite of his and Cal watched as he poured a cup of tea for him. He felt as if a blanket was being draped over his cold body despite it being April and fairly hot outside. He couldn’t ask for anything better at that moment.
“Have you finished your essay?” Ben asked as Cal sat on the chair. He nodded.
“What’re you up to?” Cal motioned vaguely at the green space around them. Ben shrugged.
“Nothing, at the moment. Other than contemplating tearing The Bell Jar to pieces.”
“See, I told you!” Cal lifted himself up and pointed to Ben scandalously. Ben scoffed playfully and nodded. “Next time, you’re getting nothing at the bookstore unless I approve.”
“Fine. Same goes for you, at the video store.” He whispered the last part and Cal looked down after chuckling, the Great Failure of Watching Blade Runner 2049 with Ben Kenobi making its way back into his head, his cheeks reddening with embarrassment.
“It’s not my fault I’m like you, dad, please consider understanding that.” Cal leaned down to ruffle Beedee’s soft fur. Life was so great with Ben, Cal never had to carry anything heavy, not like at the scrapyard, never like at the scrapyard, he was never grounded for being a boy, never chastised for what made him different, never discouraged. Ben was built to be a father, it was such a shame he’d never had children before, Cal wanted to say, but in his mind something told him he wasn’t the first scrapyard boy to stumble into Ben’s feet, so he stayed silent. He guessed that the experience was responsible for his stoic, practised parenting, that there were many dirty homes before the clean, warm one he hosted now.
“So, is there anything you want to tell me? You seem…” Ben said, his glasses further down the bridge of his nose as he penetrated his son’s nervous movements. “Preoccupied.”
Cal’s head snapped up, his eyebrows furrowed as Beedee nuzzled its head into his leg. “Preoccupied?” He echoed.
“Yeah,” Ben nodded. Cal stared back into Ben’s knowing blue eyes as he silently battled with what was attempting to escape his tongue, the urge to tell his father everything tearing him apart because this was no matter of trust, it was a matter of change. He knew Ben wouldn’t pressure him into saying whatever it was he was going to say, which made him feel more comfortable with just saying it. It was conflicting, growing up was conflicting, being sixteen was something so inherently terrifying, and Cal knew that because he’d been warned of it, his speed train childhood made sure he was warned of it, the imaginary scenario of what was going to occur in a few seconds made him want to turn into one of the plants hanging everywhere in the greenhouse. But, as always, he took a chance.
“Have you ever been in love?” His eyes travelled quickly to the concrete floor the second he blurted the question, his stomach knotting into the most complicated pattern known to man. He knew the size of Ben’s eyes without looking up, the colour of his face without stealing a glance, the dark grey concrete becoming the most interesting thing in the world to Cal right now. Ben went to laugh, but it came out as a sigh.
“Yeah, I have,” he said. “I guess I’m never not in love.” Cal’s eyes widened, admittedly involuntarily.
“Wh—, but, how? You—,” Cal nervously babbled on.
“I fell in love way more times in my life than I ever planned.” Ben went on. “I guess, I…just let myself feel everything, you know?” He took a careful sip from his tea. “And it was not…always healthy, for me, but, yeah, my friends said I fell in love as quickly as breathing.” His face was weirdly sobered after admitting all of that, after knowingly changing how he looked to his son. Part of Cal tugged at his brain, wanting to ask why would Ben hide such a thing about himself, but the rational part kept him in check, straight to the point as he’d subconsciously trained himself to be. Before he could open his mouth, Ben went on. “It was a privilege, it made me think more about my sexuality and prevented me from making mistakes in my adulthood, but I’m not…proud of it. I’m still in love with all of those people in a way, even though more than half of them are dead now.” He finished, and smiled at Cal.
“Why…aren’t you proud of it?” Cal’s voice slightly rasped, and he cleared his throat, the smell of Ben’s rich anise tea engulfing his senses for a change.
“It was impossible to—,” Ben was reddening, he was sweating, and Cal could see it, but before the guilt and horror truly settled in, his tongue beat him.
“You know what, you don’t have to tell me everything, dad, it’s okay,” Cal reassured Ben, his scarred hand resting on his father’s forearm. It looked impossible, but Ben smiled anyway. “I was just asking because, um…” it was Cal’s turn now to get flustered. “There’s a girl, at school, wait, no, not at school, at another school, yeah, I met her at the café around campus, you know where, right? Anyway, the others told me she wouldn’t talk to anybody at her school or even ours, but the first time that I visited that café, she sat next to me on the barstool and said I had good taste in music, she— she overheard the Walkman you gave me playing your music. Dad, I think I started loving her then. I…I don’t know, if that’s how it’s supposed to feel?” It came out as more of a question, but Cal was, at that point, spontaneously brainstorming, and the victim was his poor dad. “God, sorry, I don’t know what’s gotten into me—,”
“It feels however you want it to feel. If you like the idea that loving her feels the way you feel now, then yes, you are in love. I don’t think I can be of any use to you now, I don’t think anyone can be of any use to anyone regarding love despite being the worst hopeless romantic to walk the Earth, honestly. It’s a subjective experience, falling in love.” Ben trailed off, seeming in deep thought, and as Cal stared at him, he forgot about what revolved around him now, he leaned forward in his chair.
“Now tell me, dad, who was— who’s your great love? The love of your life, if there ever was one.” Cal asked and Ben looked like a deer in the headlights, never having been asked that question before. He glanced up at Cal, hesitant, but he breathed in anyway.
“Quinlan Vos.” He stated, like it was an everyday occurrence, him telling his son about the man who held his heart since he was a preteen.
“The one in the drawings?” Cal blurted and Ben looked confused for a second.
“Drawings?” He muttered.
“On the wall in the basement.” Cal explained and Ben let out an ‘ohhhh right,’ and placed a hand on his chin.
“Yes, him.” He mumbled, reminiscing. The drawings were his, he’d taken up sketching whenever overthinking got the best of him, but when he found that he couldn’t draw anybody but Quinlan, he hung up those that made him envision the subject of art himself rolling his eyes affectionately at, and abandoned sketching altogether, taking up gardening instead.
“Is that why you…drew him? Because you love him?” Cal stammered, unsure of how else to ask. It was a long while before Ben answered.
“For me, it’s…different. The way I fall in love with people isn’t the way we’re all used to. When I was about your age, there was a girl, too, and she, like the rest of them except Quinlan, mistook my— my principles.”
“In what way?” Cal asked, his voice low in wonder.
“How I love people — is different. It’s not the usual ‘I want to hold hands and kiss,’ concept and whatever else crush culture is, it’s— wow, I haven’t talked to anybody about this since Quinlan,” he paused to laugh, the crinkles by his eyes showing how much this meant to him. Cal felt himself smiling at his father’s antics. “It holds all that’s special about love, but it comes from longing for a ‘forever’, like—,”
“Like a life partner, yeah.” Cal interrupted. “Sorry.” He added once he realised what he did.
“Yes! A life partner, just without the romantic and sexual attraction.” Ben acknowledged.
“So you value and acknowledge platonic love more?” Cal asked. “Like, you’re aromantic?” He added.
“Yeah, in a way, in that place somewhere, but frankly I don’t know where, all I know is that no one’s for me, romantically, but my true love is Quinlan.” Ben said, a sad look tugging at his features now, no matter how hard he attempted to beat it away, his feelings betrayed him once again. Cal gently kicked his dad’s foot and gave him a sympathetic look. It was his sign for ‘talk to me’.
“I’ve made all of my relationships meaninglessly complex to realise one thesis I had, it cost me…everything.”
“Maybe it wasn’t all meaningless.” Cal offered, “Yeah, maybe you love too fast for everyone including yourself to keep track of, which in my opinion isn’t a wholly bad thing in itself, and maybe the way you feel about him isn’t as complex as you might think?”
“Maybe you’re right, kid, but that’s of no use anymore.” Ben sipped on his tea. Cal stood and started pacing in the small space, collecting his thoughts. Ben had no friends the entire time Cal had known him, never had he needed the phone in the living room and found it occupied, never had he witnessed Ben be a guest host. His father was a loner, but not by nature, no, absolutely not by nature. When Cal looked at him, he saw boyish blue eyes that belonged to an adolescent who definitely snuck out and stole cars and laughed and let himself live and love freely, without his telltale eyes he was a deadening branch, a fossil of what once was, a man who watered little ferns regularly and decorated any empty space with tulips and lilies to feel like he still had the power to make something live and breathe, like his skilled, scarred, veiny hands could paint a grey house green. He added more and more saplings and flower bushes to remind himself that the decay that his father slowly imposed upon him for his entire childhood wasn’t going to be forevermore, to show Cal through a rose-coloured lens that the greenhouse was the long overdue revenge but the final stage of healing for Ben. Hell, even adopting Cal was proof that his veins and roots were evergreen.
Ben Kenobi loves like he’s destined to die in a few hours and wouldn’t have any chance to show it then. His definition of love was so mysterious and intriguing and unique that Cal felt a strange pride rise up within him towards the man who chose him for a son.
“Now tell me one thing, why do you never talk to me about such things?” Cal’s fingers rested on his temple as if he could access confidential information by doing that, and Ben chuckled.
“I didn’t think it mattered much.”
“But it does! Don’t you get it? Just as you think you can somehow please the entire world and still be happy with being second to everyone, I think I can help everyone, relentless as I am.
“Maybe the way you think you somehow ‘ruined’ your relationships is the way you’ll fix them,” the redhead explained, “I…I don’t know how you feel, you see, because that’s you, I’m just trying to help, and I know one thing, it’s that putting whatever you’re hiding away will make you more guilty and regretful if you don’t act on it.”
Ben stayed silent, his eyes travelling between his plants like a hawk, contemplating saying everything because now he was sure you’re never a closed book to Cal Kestis if he knew who you were. He felt helpless. He felt seventeen again, explaining to Siri Tachi that yes, he did like her, but no, he can’t upkeep this relationship tradition if it killed him. Twenty-one, rearranging sentences in his head to tell Satine because he wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea, but to think that maybe he’d develop feelings for her, but it truly was the direness of their living situation that gravitated him towards her, not for some stolen kisses but for some comfort. Thirty-six, refusing to tell Cody that he was kind and wonderful and deserving of love and a normal life because who was he, leading people on like that? And now, thirty-nine, itching to be twenty-five again, not even twenty-five, but twelve, because he could be any age and love Quinlan the same.
“You, Cal, are something else.” He pointed at Cal, who was now smiling like an idiot.
“It’s my good taste in books.” Cal smirked.
“Shut up.”
“So, you’re aromantic and asexual?” Ben gently nodded. “You were? or are in love with Quinlan Vos. You tell me nothing about yourself after nearly four years of living in the same house, hmmm,” Cal tapped his chin with a grin playing at his lips. Ben copied his stance.
“You, on the other hand, love taking the spotlight off yourself, —which is a good manoeuvring method, but not to me—, and placing it onto poor old me, who has failed to explore his own shortcomings in forty years, how truly impressive.” He touched his beard again.
They stayed like that for what seemed like an hour, sipping on their tea and lost in their own thoughts, until Cal broke the silence.
“What happened between you and Quinlan?” It was a hesitant question, sensitive as its topic, just enough to freeze the blood in Ben Kenobi’s veins. He’d expected a hundred and one things from Cal at that moment, but this wasn’t expected at all. Ben shifted in his creaky brass chair and took a large breath, the vast greenhouse suddenly out of oxygen.
“I lost him.” He said. Cal felt his stomach sink a little with horror.
“Is he—?”
“No, he’s not dead. I…my pride and carelessness led him away. It led many people away.” Ben ran his clammy palms on his brown cargo shorts and sighed. Cal furrowed his eyebrows.
“I don’t understand.” He muttered.
“If Quinlan were to act like Quinlan, he’d have forgiven me ages ago, but I…I ran. I gave him no space, no chance to fix things as he always does. One way you changed me is that I never walk out on my own dirty laundry anymore, but before that I did, a thousand times.” Cal’s features seemed to be a statue at the moment, frozen, eternal, painful to look at. Ben wanted to beg for forgiveness from a person he’d never wronged at that moment.
“What did you do that’s so bad?” Cal asked.
They were peering at each other now. “I played with his feelings unknowingly, but what’s awful about it is that I kept going. I hurt him and myself in the long run, but he came back every time, and someone please convince younger me that I deserved to be loved properly.” Cal laughed quietly then, because that’s what made them similar.
Cal broke the silence again. “I think that maybe one day he’ll show up at our doorstep and pretend that nothing’s happened. I don’t know what you think but you’re pretty miserable, dad, you need someone to excitedly chat about crosswords with.”
“One day I’ll be the one to psychoanalyse you, my dear boy, one day.” Ben reached for the teapot again. “Besides, Quin hates crosswords, he’s more of a video game guy.”