Gemotions

Her fingers, usually deft at navigating the touchscreen, fumbled. Amelia’s thumbs were trembling. She had been about to text her best friend, detailing the disastrous date from the night before, filled with scathing critiques of her date, but instead it went to her mother.

She stared, mortified. The message, filled with sarcastic commentary about his terrible fashion sense and dull conversation, sat there in the inbox, a digital grenade primed to detonate. Her stomach twisted into a painful knot. This was going to be bad.

Amelia considered, briefly, if she should call her mother straight away. But she knew that it would only exacerbate the problem. Instead, she stared at the screen, her vision blurring, and a light sweat broke out across her forehead. How long should she wait before she attempted damage control?

She imagined her mother’s phone ringing. The ringing, then the eventual silence, as she read it. It would all come out in the end, Amelia knew.