Gemotions

He kept fiddling with the paperclip, bending it into increasingly absurd shapes. The stark white walls of the hospital room seemed to close in, the air thick with the smell of antiseptic. This wasn't how he’d imagined his afternoon. Getting a call about someone else's test results—results that were supposed to be *his*—wasn't exactly on his to-do list.

His pulse hammered against his ribs. He tried to focus on the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor in the adjacent room, but it did little to calm the flutter in his stomach. What if they’d missed something? What if he was already… compromised? He swallowed hard, the dryness in his throat a physical manifestation of his disquiet.

The nurse’s footsteps echoed in the hallway. He quickly straightened the paperclip and casually dropped it into a small metal wastebasket.