Gemotions

The cafe smelled like burnt coffee and regret. Liam drummed his fingers on the sticky tabletop, the rhythmic tapping growing louder with each passing second. He’d driven an hour in rush hour traffic, just to be met with a blank stare. "We played pirates on that beach, remember? Built a whole fort?" he'd asked. The woman across from him had just blinked, a polite, vacant smile on her face. "Oh, that sounds lovely." Lovely? *Lovely* was a ridiculous thing to say when confronted with a shared history that was clearly now…nothing.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to throw his lukewarm latte in the general direction of her pristine, perfectly coiffed head. Instead, he forced a smile of his own. “Right. Well, it was a long time ago.” He stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the tiled floor. He had to get out, away from the air of detached civility that was suffocating him.