Gemotions

"So," David said, his voice clipped, to his mother on the phone. "There's a…sister." He spat the word out like a curse. She’d been so careful, so guarded for so long, and now this. A whole life she’d neglected to mention. The phone felt like a burning coal in his hand.

He knew he should have been more curious, more inquisitive. Instead, he simply hung up, the silence ringing in his ears. He slammed his fist onto the countertop, a wave of sickness washing over him. The thought of his father, the man he'd idolized, with another family, with this... this *other* woman, filled him with a cold fury.

He went for a run, pounding the pavement until his legs burned. The world felt wrong, warped, as if everything he'd believed was a lie. He didn’t want to meet her. He didn’t want anything to do with her. The idea of sharing his inheritance, his memories, his space with this stranger filled him with a physical revulsion.