Choices and Actions

Everything is still. Quiet. No…silent. The moment stretches in that odd way things sometimes do where it goes on for an eternity, yet seemingly ends in an instant. Peg can feel it start to fade and she fights back against the ending, even as her lungs begin to burn and her body cries out for breath.
 
What would it take to just stay?
 
The single thought breaks the silence and in a rush, the cacophony of voices, ever-present in her mind, comes rushing back. She pulls her head up from the water of her tub, gasping for breath.
 
What was wrong with her? Life was nearly perfect. She and Vera were getting on well and spending so much time together. The Seekers were really coming together as a group. Her South Ward schools project was going better than she would have imagined. She was loved…and in love…both of which she still found utterly baffling. Why couldn't it be enough?
 
She had wanted so badly to join the fray at the protest. It would have been so easy to send shadow or fire into the crowd…to whisper into the minds of the workers and urge them to fight back…
 
Peg shivers despite her bath having not yet gone cold. She imagines Aloysius hurt, frightened, alone. No, not alone, she tries to remind herself, but the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach doesn't go away. How long would it be before he was with her and she hurt him…made him feel afraid…alone.
 
She clambers out of the tub, slipping and hitting her head into the nearby cabinet. She groans, reaching for a towel and wrapping it around her. She starts toward the door, but stops as she catches sight of her reflection in the mirror. Her red hair is a tangled mess around the crown of roses that grows from her head…a deceptive, superficial beauty that distracts from the reality of the hag beneath. She screams into the mirror, a deep guttural noise that sounds strange to her ears. A tendril of shadow emanates from her hand, shattering the mirror.
 
She runs from the bathroom to her bedroom, grabbing Dolly from her shelf and throwing herself onto the bed. Too much noise. Too many feelings.
 
Choice and action. What is she choosing? What has she chosen? She chose to calm the crowd. She had done that, hadn't she? That wasn't just a lie she was telling herself so that she'd feel better, right? She chose to help, not to fight. She chose and she did. Right? That was good, wasn't it?
 
The school. She'd chosen to help and she was…right? She was raising money and bringing awareness to the situation in the Warrens. That was good, wasn't it?
 
Wasn't it?
 
She clings to Dolly, her head pounding. Why couldn't she just be happy? Why couldn't she choose that? But it was never just that. Behind it, always more…anger at the injustice of the world…fear of the people she cared about being hurt or killed…the constant itch, scratching at the back of her mind to push things…anything…just a little bit farther…the thought that she tried to push away that life wasn't perfect right now, it was boring. For the first time in her life she feels safe and loved…and she doesn't know what to do with that.