Gemotions

The mug slipped from Amelia’s suddenly clumsy fingers, cracking loudly against the kitchen tile. Mocha stained the white squares, a spreading brown disaster mirroring the mess in her mind. She glared at the laptop, the screen displaying a side-by-side comparison of her short story, “The Whispering Pines,” and the opening chapter of her literary idol, Julian Blackwood's, new novel. A sinking feeling had settled in her stomach, a lead weight pulling her downwards. She couldn’t believe it. This had to be a cruel joke.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, hard. How could he? Julian Blackwood! The man whose words had comforted her through countless lonely nights, whose prose she had devoured and re-read, line by agonizing line. Was all this admiration a lie? She wanted to scream, to lash out, to rip the computer from the wall. Instead, she knelt and began scrubbing the coffee off the floor, the motions mechanical and detached, each swipe of the sponge a futile attempt to erase the truth.