Gemotions

He stared at the photograph, a picture of his father with a smiling young woman. It was a life he would never have. He kicked the bin, scattering garbage across the kitchen floor. He hated her.

He had always been the one. The favored son. The heir apparent. Now, there was another. He felt a throbbing pulse in his temples. He imagined their father, giving that other child the love, the attention, the inheritance that should have been his.

He started driving, aimlessly, just to get away. He pulled over at a gas station and saw his reflection in the window. A man etched with lines of discontent, a mask of forced composure. He was always trying to prove something. He didn’t know what.