Gemotions

The party was a blur of forced smiles and shallow conversations. He spotted her across the room, the woman he had spent his adolescence dreaming of, now engaged in a lively conversation with a stranger. He took a long swallow of his drink, feeling the alcohol burn a path down his throat.

He had introduced himself, and she looked at him with polite confusion. “I don’t recognize you.”

He wanted to knock over the buffet table, to expose the superficiality of the gathering. Instead, he forced a laugh, a sound that felt hollow and brittle. He grabbed another drink, the ice clinking loudly in the glass.