Gemotions

She kept fiddling with the microphone, her fingers trembling. The stage felt like an island, separating her from the warm hum of the crowd. The lights were almost blinding, and she felt a wave of nausea wash over her. She’d spent the entire week rewriting, deleting, starting again. Each attempt felt flat, inadequate, a hollow echo of the emotion she knew she should be conveying.

The champagne glass in her hand wobbled. She considered dropping it, feigning some kind of accident to escape the impending doom. It was easier to imagine the floor cracking beneath her feet, the earth swallowing her whole, than to utter a single coherent sentence.

Her father’s kind face, beaming up at her from the front row, only increased the pressure. She felt the tears prick her eyes, blurring the faces in the audience. She had to do this. He had sacrificed everything for her, and she owed him this much. But how? How could she?