Gemotions

The world felt muted. Colors seemed dull, sounds distant. He was on the phone again, this time in the spare bedroom, the door closed. She could hear the muffled cadence of his voice, the unfamiliar inflection. The air in the kitchen felt thick, stale. She hadn't eaten all day. A headache throbbed behind her eyes, a constant drumbeat.

She forced herself to the mirror, examining the hollows beneath her cheekbones. His calls were a new element in the landscape of her life, a disruption of the already precarious equilibrium. She felt a growing void, a hollowness that seemed to be expanding within her chest, threatening to swallow her whole.