Gemotions

A vein throbbed in Maya's temple. Her fingers, usually graceful on the keyboard, now clenched into fists. The email, the damning email, remained open on her screen. "The similarities are too striking," it read. She slammed her laptop shut. Impossible. She had poured hours, weeks, into that research paper. She had sweated over every comma, every semicolon.

She paced her small dorm room, the worn rug offering no comfort. Her teeth ground together. It was a mistake, a clerical error, a malicious misinterpretation. She wouldn't apologize. Not when she knew, with absolute certainty, she was in the right.

The phone rang. It was her mother. Maya ignored it, the incessant buzzing echoing her own internal fury.