Gemotions

The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the dorm room, but Maya felt a chill crawl up her spine. She'd left her journal open on her desk. A pang of unease throbbed in her chest. Liam, her roommate, was unusually quiet, hunched over his laptop. His posture was stiff, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes. She wanted to ask him if he’d touched it, but the words stuck in her throat.

Her hand trembled as she reached for her water bottle, spilling a little down her chin. She quickly wiped it away, the movement too fast, too jerky. The silence in the room was suffocating. Every click of Liam's mouse echoed in her ears.

She thought about pretending to need a shower, anything to escape this charged atmosphere. The thought of being alone in the cramped bathroom offered a strange sense of comfort, a temporary reprieve from this unsettling tension.