Gemotions

He felt his stomach drop. The woman at the checkout counter, scanning his groceries with practiced efficiency, was definitely her. The voice that he had listened to every night, sharing dreams and anxieties, was now a tangible sound in a brightly lit grocery store. It was her, and she was only a few feet away.

He reached for his wallet, his fingers clumsy and slow. He couldn't meet her eyes, focusing instead on the barcode scanner. He felt a sudden, overwhelming need to escape, to retreat back into the comfortable anonymity of the internet. The weight of his unacknowledged existence settled upon his shoulders.