Gemotions

Sarah felt her palms begin to sweat. The venue was a dive, the kind of place she used to frequent. She shouldn't have been here. She should have turned back at the door. But the lure of the music, the familiar chords, had been too strong.

He was up there, Liam, the new rising star, belting out "Echoes," her song, a song she'd written in her bedroom in college, a song about the fractured pieces of a broken heart. He had stripped it of its soul, smoothed away all the rough edges.

She wanted to scream, to shout and tell him to stop. Instead, she found herself shrinking further into the shadows, the darkness of the bar a welcome embrace. His voice rang in her ears, hollow and empty, devoid of the pain that had birthed it. Every note felt like a fresh wound.