Gemotions

The coffee tasted like burnt tires. Sarah slammed the mug onto her desk, the cheap ceramic rattling against the particleboard. It was the email, of course. Ben’s new offer. Senior Software Engineer. Salary: significantly higher than hers. She’d trained him, for crying out loud. He’d barely known Java when he started. Now he was soaring, while she was stuck reviewing code and managing interns. Her jaw clenched.

She glanced at the clock. Still an hour and a half before lunch. Maybe she could lose herself in the bug reports. Anything to avoid the feeling bubbling in her chest, the slow burn of…something.

The fluorescent lights hummed, a relentless, maddening drone. She pulled out the spreadsheet, the numbers blurring through her vision.