Gemotions

The apartment felt too large, the sunlight too bright. Clara wandered through the rooms, touching objects with a detached curiosity. Each possession felt imbued with a strange significance, as if she were a museum visitor examining artifacts from a bygone era. She'd found it in the bottom drawer of the bedside table: a bound copy of "The Girl in the Yellow Dress."

The protagonist, a woman named Iris, was a mirror image of herself, the same quirks, the same insecurities, the same quiet desperation. Each chapter was a slow, painful unraveling, a catalog of her failures, her fears, her unspoken desires. The knowledge that David, her husband, saw her this way, documented her, made her stomach churn.

Her own reflection in the mirror startled her. She looked hollow, her eyes devoid of sparkle. She'd lost herself in this meticulous observation, and the recovery seemed a daunting task.