Gemotions

He had been working late. Exhausted, he'd sunk into the couch. The book, left carelessly on the coffee table, was now open. It was a novel by his wife, Clara, that he had never known about. Her depiction of him was a bitter pill to swallow.

The words stung. He was depicted as a weak, ineffectual man, clinging to the vestiges of his youth. A flicker of something unpleasant ignited inside him. He started reading the parts that were about him, and found his jaw clench, his hands forming fists.

He snapped the book shut. He got up and began to pace, back and forth, the floorboards groaning beneath his weight. Then he went to the fridge and grabbed a beer, and chugged it down, quickly, and walked back and sat on the couch again. He felt a deep, profound sense of disappointment.