Paranoia (Zayn Malik) (editing)

Chapter 7: Peace

LUNA

I wonder what it would be like to know peace. That is what I ponder as I lie on the black leather sofa. Maybe I'm trying to emulate the depictions of people in therapists' offices, laying on a long sofa as someone filters through their thoughts, intrusive or otherwise. Though, here in the house, the one I cannot leave, the closest thing to a therapist I have is the white paint of the ceiling I stare at and varying shades of the grey areas my emotions exist in.

I wonder if anyone, at all, truly knows peace. Part of me thinks it's a lie that rich white people have pretended is attainable for all, no one can truly be peaceful. Another part of me thinks the fact I even think that is the reason I'll never know peace.

For at least five years, I haven't known what it means to not have tension in your muscles, to not have your brows creased deeply in your forehead, to not have your tongue pressed firmly to the roof of your mouth, not just to sleep, but to rest. Stress has built up and settled in my body, and it is not willing to leave any time soon. All of it seems displaced now, though, as I sit on an expensive sofa in an expensive house and all the things that were the source of my stress – work, family, the general struggle to figure out my life's direction – are elsewhere currently.

My phone buzzes and I lift it. Tiago has text me again.

Seriously, Luna. Tell me where you are, I'll come get you.

I sigh. I have attempted to explain to him time and time again that I think that's a bad idea. That I haven't had enough time to assess whether I am indeed safer in this house, or if I need to escape, and if I do need to escape, that I don't think he is the best way for me to do that. Besides, I feel like I'm running an experiment with myself here. I'm trying to see if everything that is wrong with me is a product of my environment. Maybe in this environment, without my usual stressors, I can become normal, shed my problems like a snake sheds it's skin.

I know that's not doable. I know that's not going to happen. I have spent too many years in my scaly skin to part from it, too many years drowning in trauma to suddenly swim to safety. I begin to wonder if peace is inherently linked to being a good person. Do good people find peace, even momentarily? More importantly, does my lack of peace mean that I am not a good person?

Or is all that we are just what we do?

Does it matter that sometimes I have bad thoughts? Sometimes I want to do bad things and I want to say bad things. But I don't, mostly. Does the simple act of repression make me a good person because I haven't done those things? Or is there a part of my soul – my very being – that is rotted? Because I know that there is. It is like carrying around a dead limb, this part of me that died along time ago but hasn't yet withered away, it just sits there like a lump in my throat, constantly reminding me that it does exist. Sometimes it comes out, when I think or say or do those bad things. And even though no one can see the rotting externally I can feel it festering inside of me, it is what makes me hate myself and everyone else. The rotting is real and visceral and as tangible as the sofa I lounge on, and I know that I am one bad decision, one wrong turn from becoming a villain, and ultimately, does that mean I will never be more than a neutral person with the capability of being both good and bad?

Surely that is too simplistic. Surely the nature of humans is not as fickle as the flip of a coin, a 50/50 percent chance. Surely –

"Deep in thought?" Zayn's voice makes itself known to me before the sight of him does.

I sit up, and my eyes meet his. His white t-shirt is loose, and his hair is growing longer by the day.

"Kinda." I admit, tucking my legs into my chest and holding myself as if I'm scared my inner musings will slip of my rib cage and into the atmosphere.