Gemotions

The coffee tasted like ash in her mouth. Brenda swirled the bitter liquid in the mug, her gaze fixed on the phone in front of her. The fake TikTok account. Her daughter, Chloe, a girl who wouldn't share her *real* life, was putting on a show for strangers.

Brenda felt a heat creep up her neck. Every meticulously edited video, every vapid comment, felt like a personal insult. She had always tried to be a good mother, always open, always… This felt like a betrayal.

She pushed back from the table, the chair scraping against the floor. She wanted to throw the phone across the room, smash it into a million pieces. The clenching in her jaw was so hard that she felt a strain in her cheek. Instead, she stood and walked to the window, staring out at the rain-streaked glass.