#meliko

“Oh,” I said. I didn’t know what to say.

Meliko had been Fannie’s student mentor at the school, and she was the Jedi I had suggested Fannie reach out to first. Deirak had been Fannie’s boyfriend for three years, and I’m not really sure how much they’ve spoken since they split.

“I thought Deirak took a vow of celibacy or something,” I said. “At least…that’s what he told me last year.” I frowned and patted her arm absentmindedly. “…Huh. Guess it didn’t stick.”

“I never heard about that; he never told me—but he also never told me he was interested in my best friend!” Fannie wailed.

“Meliko was your best friend?”

“Well, I saw her more as an older sister than a peer, but—she was the person I was closest to, who was dearest to me, who influenced me the most, and—oh, how could they do this to me?!” She pounded her fist against my chest once and leaned into me and I stumbled backward, my knapsack slipping down off my shoulder and into the crook of my elbow.

I stared down at the top of her head, bewildered. Maybe I could understand her reaction if she and Deirak had just broken up. But it had been five years. And she was marrying me.

I dropped my bag to the ground and took hold of her wrist, slowly lowering her fist back down to her side.

“Fannie, not to be insensitive, but c’mon. You dumped Deirak. You got engaged to me and didn’t tell him. I don’t think you have the moral high ground here.”

“But Meliko was like a sister to me; it’s like he’s dating my sister—”

I stiffened up suddenly, and let go of her wrist.

We looked at each other awkwardly. An uncomfortable silence followed.

“…Well, my point still stands,” I said at last. “You were best friends with me while you were dating him. He probably felt the same way when he found out about us, or at least had every right to. So…I think you should just be happy for them, and let it go.” I picked up my knapsack and started moving toward the porch.

“How can you tell me to just be happy for them?” Fannie demanded behind me. “Don’t you understand why this hurts?”

I turned back around and looked her right in the eyes.

“No,” I said, deadpan. “You’ve got me. We’re getting married in three weeks. I have literally no idea why this upsets you so much.” I took one step up the porch before stopping again. “I mean…I can think of one reason. But if that was the reason, it would mean you didn’t really love me, so…I’m trying not to think about it.”

I got to the top of the steps and tried the door, but it had locked behind her when she’d come running out. I sighed, slid my knapsack back down my arm, and started fishing for my key.

“Ben, I do love you,” she protested. “It’s just…I have a lot of complicated feelings about this. Can you try to understand?”

My key was sticking in the lock and wouldn’t turn. It had been doing that a lot lately. The metal edges bit into my fingers. I hadn’t eaten since noon, and my head kind of hurt. Work had already depleted my patience for the day, and this was the first night I was planning to have dinner with my family again, and…

I got this rising feeling in my stomach that meant I was probably about to say something I’d regret if I didn’t hold my tongue.

I lost the war.

I whipped around to face her. “Well, you shouldn’t have any complicated feelings about it,” I said, glaring at her over my shoulder. “You broke up with him because you didn’t love him. If you don’t love him, you shouldn’t give a damn who he’s with. You said yes to marrying me. You keep saying yes every time I ask. I have been doing so much for you. I have been doing so much for you I can barely think, and I come home and you’re crying because your ex finally moved on—Fannie, I’m sorry. I don’t have the bandwidth to comfort you this time. Not over something that is honestly such a huge insult to me, and I can’t even process that right now—I’ve got to psych myself up for dinner with my family and then I was gonna call Amalia tonight to ask about the housing thing and then I need to message Luke about you meeting with him so you can complain to him about me—and, apparently, cry about Deirak now. So can you just cut me a break. Please.”

She looked shocked and hurt and scared, and that angered me even more. Like I was the one being unkind. I turned around and yanked the key back and forth and slammed my fist against the door and let out a growling shout— “UuurrraAUGHHH—why won’t this kriffing key turn?!”

Rey opened the door. “You could use the bell, you know.” Her eyes flitted behind me, and I could see her study Fannie’s face—I didn’t feel like turning around to see what she looked like now.

“Thanks,” I muttered, and brushed past my sister. I rushed up the stairs and into my room and closed the door and sat down hard on the bed and dropped my head in my hands.

Dinner that night felt tense, but it wasn’t my mom I had tension with this time. I actually found it kind of easy to interact with my family. I smiled and cracked jokes and asked everyone about their day and talked about the wedding and my mom was forced to be polite.

I got through that entire meal without even looking at the person sitting to my right. I had my call with Amalia and I sent my holorecording to Luke and I probably could have gotten all the way to bed without speaking to her, if she hadn’t been waiting right outside the bathroom door for me to come out.

“Ben, I’m…I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice.

“Yeah, you should be,” I said gruffly. I pushed past her. “G’night.”

“Wait, please…can we talk?”

“No,” I said. “I’m tired and I’m mad and it’ll only make things worse.”

“I…I thought you wanted us to communicate better.”

“Exactly. And if you talk to me right now I am going to communicate like crap, so—let’s just table it for now and talk about it later.”

I took one step toward the room before she broke down in tears.

“Ben, don’t go,” she hiccuped.

She had made me the bad guy again. I was so exhausted I could collapse on the floor, but I was still evil because I couldn’t muster up the energy to comfort her over the ex-boyfriend she had left because she’d loved me.

I turned back around.

“Fannie, please, I have nothing to give,” I said, and much to my surprise, I began to shed tears—only a couple, but they swelled up and spilled over, like they were the very last dregs of my emotional energy. “I have nothing left to give tonight. I’m sorry.”

She opened her mouth and closed it again and opened it again like a little fish.

“…I love you,” she said, but she looked terrified.

“Love you too,” I said immediately, like she had tapped a rubber mallet on my knee.

I wanted to say something more. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have anything to say.

I looked at her for a moment, then went into the room.

Half an hour later, I heard her tiptoe around where I lay on the floor and strip the bed of its covers to carry them into my mom’s study, which was where she had been sleeping before I’d moved her to my room. Melodramatic. Part of me thought I should get up and move to the bed then, if she was gonna be like that, so I could at least try and get some better rest. But I was feeling melodramatic too. So I stayed where I was on the ground, and indulged in some good old-fashioned self-inflicted torture.

But I don’t know that I would have slept any better even if I had moved to the bed. I could hear her crying through the wall, and it made me feel guiltier and guiltier and guiltier till I was crying too.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I left the room and knocked on the door of the study, and saw her sitting on the sofa in the dark, and remembered that night when I had found her holding her saber. And then I couldn’t be mad at her anymore.

Amalia is no longer a Jedi, and has not spoken to him in years. Fannie is definitely a Jedi, but last year she decided that even though she respects Luke, she must use her own discernment instead of relying on his. Deirak, Fannie’s Jedi school sweetheart, is not only a Jedi, but a Jedi teacher—but Deirak and Luke disagree on a doctrinal standpoint, because Deirak is a Jedi traditionalist whereas Luke’s approach has been Jedi reform. Meliko, Fannie’s former apprenticer, is also a Jedi teacher—and while she seems to hold to the same ideas as Luke, they disagree on execution—she thinks that the Jedi school model, where students must come to Ossus to learn, is less accessible than if the Jedi roamed the galaxy as the Force led them and spread their teachings that way.

Others of Luke’s graduated students have left Ossus to pursue the Force’s callings on other planets (like Fannie did). It’s difficult for Luke to stay in contact with all of them. I’m not sure how they’re all doing.

On top of that, he still has to teach his current kids…and as I said before, he and his appointed teachers don’t always agree on the best way to teach them.

And on top of all of that, Luke’s got a sister with one messy grown-up problem child, and his sister is really counting on him to fix that guy—one weekend visit at a time.

I haven’t told Luke how much I’ve observed. I think it’d freak him out. He’s really trying to hold it together. To his credit…I think he’s doing a lot better than most of us would.

I did ask him though if he had someone he felt he could talk to. The little Jedi kids come to the older Jedi kids. The older Jedi kids come to Deirak and Meliko. Deirak and Meliko come to Luke. Who does Luke have to come to?

“I talk to my father often,” Uncle Luke told me, and I saw warmth in his eyes as he thought about his dad.

“Anakin?” I asked, surprised. “Do you, uh…ever hear back from him?”

Our training consisted of a few different components: group lessons with Master Luke, one-on-one lessons with Master Luke, mentor-apprentice relationships among ourselves, and times of individual meditation and reflection. These were scheduled throughout the week, and we had recreational time on weekends. We also ate meals together, and we were each responsible for preparing meals (as well as other duties, like cleaning communal spaces) on a daily rotation. Sometimes, there were days when the kitchen team ended up being all boys. I love my brothers in the Force—but, I’m afraid the food did tend to be worse then.

What does it mean to be a Jedi? Mind, spirit, heart, body. All of these must be attuned to the Force. Our involuntary emotions are tied to the light and dark side of the Force, as are each of our conscious thoughts, decisions, and actions. The Force flows through our bodies—through our flesh and blood. We learned to still our minds, to observe our emotions and let them go, to feel compassion and love for others and to love ourselves in humility, to practice physical discipline and experience balance and wholeness in the body. The dark side of the Force comes naturally; the light must be cultivated. Nurtured. Learned, and encouraged. In the most difficult of internal struggles, it must simply be chosen out of obedience. It must be chosen out of the knowledge of what is right, rather than caving to one’s deepest desires.

This is what it means to be a Jedi.

I think what I liked most about Jedi training was how much it transformed me for the better. I always knew the Force was there when I was young, even if I didn’t have the words for it. But when I was a child, I was angry and volatile and determined to fight. Yet, with time, the light altered me—made me a new person, so to speak. And, though I still struggle at times, I am so different now—peace, gentleness, and compassion live at my core.

A long glow stick! Well, that’s certainly one way to describe a lightsaber! Yes, I do have one. I built it when I was fourteen. My kyber crystal is pale blue. I have rarely found myself in combat, but I do carry it with me wherever I go. Sometimes, I ignite it during meditation, and hold it upright in my hands, and listen to the low hum, feel the subtle vibration of the hilt… It’s soothing to me. Yes, it is a weapon, but it is also something else—a sort of…talisman, I suppose.

Now that I am no longer a student at Luke’s school, it is a little harder to be a Jedi, I think. The Jedi of old remained closely connected to the Jedi Temple and the Jedi Order their entire lives, even after completing their training. I do go back to Luke’s school monthly, and I remain close with my classmates and with Master Luke. But here on Ryloth, I feel alone a lot. My colleagues at the anti-slavery organization I work at share my passion for justice and freedom for Twi’leki women. They know I am a Jedi, and often they say “may the Force be with you” to me, to be polite. But…they do not really understand, which is difficult.

…Ben does not really understand, either. I have been struggling with this. But, that is a separate topic, and one I’ve not been able to think through very clearly.