Gemotions

The phone vibrated against Maya's palm, the caller ID displaying her ex-bandmate, Leo. She ignored it. He was the one who'd stolen her song, “Crimson Tide,” and claimed it as his own, launching his career while she struggled to keep the lights on. Now, she was hunched over the keyboard in her cramped apartment, composing a jingle for dog food. A tinny, familiar melody, “Crimson Tide,” began to leak from the cheap laptop speakers. She'd accidentally clicked on a streaming service.

Her breath hitched. She slammed the lid shut, but the music continued to play in her mind. It was his version, faster, more upbeat, stripped of the vulnerability she had imbued it with. She had to shut it out. She threw herself onto the worn sofa, burying her face in a threadbare cushion.

She wanted to scream, to smash something, to make the song stop echoing in her skull. She ran a hand through her hair, tangled and greasy. There was an empty bottle of cheap wine on the floor. She needed to feel something, anything other than this suffocating emptiness.