Sane (PAUSED)

Chapter 24

Eventually, once her thoughts calmed down and her hands stopped shaking, Luna fell back into sleep, sleep that was not comfortable, sleep that was haunted with more night mares of her father.

*BOOM*

Luna jolted awake.

What was that?

It was dark, very dark, the only light coming from the city outside the window.

*BOOM*

The door, someone was pounding on the door. Panic started to rise inside of her.

'who could it be?'

Thoughts started to rush into her head, too many thoughts. She was sure whoever was pounding on the door like that was not about to invite her over for tea. And she knew that she had to do something about it but she was too scared to get out of bed, too scared to move actually, so she just laid there in the dark clutching the sheets and wishing that whoever it was would give up and leave. Suddenly she felt like she was 9 again, alone in her room, in the dark, in the middle of a really bad storm. She would crawl under the sheets and pretend that the sheets were her castle, and inside her castle no one could harm her. Stupid as it was, she tried to redo that right now but the castle felt foreign and very vulnerable. It was, after all, not her bed.

*BOOM BOOM*

It couldn't be Zac, he has his keys, he wouldn't knock on his own door.

She waited a few seconds, anticipating more noise except this time nothing happened.

Silence.

All she could hear was her heavy breathing and her heart hammering in her chest.

'Luna, you have made it through worse. Man the hell up and go see what the matter is.'

So, slowly, cautiously she removed the sheets away from her face, barely enough to peek out but it was too dark to see anything. As she prepared to get up and out of bed, a noise broke the silence, except this time it was not pounding, no it was a noise she was very acquainted with.

The sound of a key being jammed into the keyhole and turned.

Zac maybe...?

'please be Zac, please be Zac,' she thought.

But how could it be Zac? Why the hell would he knock his own door?

The door was pushed open with so much force it hit the wall and almost slammed shut again, but a hand stopped that from happening.

Zac's hand.

A very drunk Zac entered, swaying, obviously barely able to stand up.

"Zac...?" she whispered, more to herself than to the wasted Zac in front of her.

She got out of bed and slowly approached him, the smell of whatever it was he was drinking hitting her nostrils and making her gag.

"How- how much did you drink?" she said, taking a few steps back.

"Enough to forget that this is my house and that I have the keys," he slurred, chuckling.

"Oh no, Zac, why would you do that?"

"To celebrate honey," he said, his voice suddenly turning deeper, taking a step closer to her. It was like someone turned a switch off inside of him and the giggly/smiley attitude was replaced with a serious dark somewhat scary attitude.

"One: don't honey me. Two: to celebrate what?" she said, slight anger replacing the concern in her voice.

"Why can't I honey you, honey?" he whispered as he reached out and touched her hair, twirling it between his fingers.