Gemotions

The email notification blinked accusingly from the laptop screen. Maya’s breath hitched in her chest. She scrolled down, each line of the article a fresh wound. Someone had taken her diary – the diary she’d painstakingly filled with angsty poems and crush confessions – and uploaded it to a website titled “Teenage Confessions.” Her cheeks burned, and a cold sweat slicked her palms. She slammed the laptop shut with a resounding thud, the sound echoing in the sudden silence of her bedroom.

Her hands clenched into fists, nails digging crescents into her palms. The audacity of it! She grabbed her phone, her thumb hovering over her best friend Chloe’s contact. Should she call? Text? How could she even begin to explain the tsunami of humiliation threatening to drown her?

Later, she found herself staring into her reflection. Her eyes were wide, and the freckles she usually barely noticed seemed to pop out in bold relief. She looked like a complete fool, her most private thoughts splayed open for the world to scrutinize. She kicked the wastebasket across the room.