Paranoia (Zayn Malik) (editing)

Chapter 10: Behind The Looking Glass

                          LUNA

Just as the sun dips from the sky, leaving an orange tinge, and the transition from day to night begins, I spot Zayn carrying a large cardboard box in from the garage while I'm heading to the kitchen. He's been in there for the remainder of the week, still not breaking his routine of a morning run, but spending less time with me in the evenings. I have no clue what he's been doing in there, I haven't bothered to ask, so maybe it's pathetic to be jealous of whatever it is. 

"Redecorating?" I raise my brows and gesture to the box.

"I'm working on a car, have to move some stuff out to have space, I don't wanna get paint on my stuff." He explains, and I notice black smudges of paint and dirt on his knuckles.

"So it is cars that you keep in the special garage I'm banned from, not dead bodies." I step closer, peeking at the box in his hands. I spot the back of a picture frame, a few model cars and what look like magazines.

"Yeah, I keep the bodies downstairs." He decides to rally with me.

"What is all of this?" I ask.

"Just bits and pieces." He shrugs "Nothing, really."

I reach in and pick up one of the car models. It's a small grey Mercedes. I turn it in my fingers, admiring the small details put into it.

"These are cute."

"Don't call them cute, they're collectables." He scolds me playfully and I put it back.

I reach for the picture frame next, it's old and made of a dark chipped wood. I turn it to examine the photo. 

Zayn stands tall, hair shaved much like it is right now. He looks the same, no younger, no older, dressed in a simple black button-up shirt with short sleeves that sit baggy on him and a pair of dark jeans. His tattoos peek out from under the sleeves and spread across the rest of his arms. It looks like summer where he is, it's sunny, he squinted ever so slightly and he smiles lazily, his arm draped over the shoulders of a much smaller woman. One who it takes me a second to recognise. Walnut coloured curls flow from her head and over her freckled fawn shoulders, slightly pink like she had burned in the sun. Her pillow lips are spread as she grins and her brilliantly blue eyes pull focus as they always used to. She stands in a pale blue dress, bumped out at her swollen stomach, pregnant and glowing and for a moment I don't believe it. 

I don't believe that I am looking at a photo of Zayn standing next to my mother.

My hand begins to tremble as I look back up at Zayn, facial features exactly the same as they are in the photo. Only now does he realise what I have realised. His eyes widen, like mine did not long ago, and I can feel the panic settling between us in the air, thick like smoke. It is a stalemate as we stare at each other, and I'm not sure who is going to break first. I begin to breathe heavily, and Zayn lowers the box to the floor, as if freeing his hands in preparation to grab me if I try to run.

But I am frozen on the spot, I'm not sure if it's in fear or terror and absolute fucking confusion but my limbs have betrayed me. I cannot move, despite how I try to will every synapse in my brain, every bone in my body. I cannot move.

"Luna..." Zayn whispers, reaching out to take the photo from my hands, but I keep an iron grip on it, it is my evidence in the case I'm building, though I don't know what I should be trying to prove.

"What?" Is all I manage to choke out initially "What... is this?"

"Luna, please." He begs, but I'm not sure what he's asking for "It's not what you think."

"She is pregnant in this picture, it's at least twelve years old, and you..." I look back down at it quickly and then dart my eyes back to him to confirm what my eyes already know, he looks exactly the same, like he hasn't even developed an extra freckle in all that time "What is this?"