Gemotions

The cafe buzzed with Friday night chatter. Elias, hunched over his lukewarm coffee, felt a prickle crawl up his spine. The acoustic guitar chords that started were familiar, painfully so. Then came the melody. It was *his* song, "Crimson Rivers," but the voice singing it belonged to a girl with a saccharine smile, her rendition stripped of the grit he'd poured into it. His knuckles whitened around the ceramic mug. He wanted to leap to his feet, scream, stop the musical desecration. Instead, he gripped the table, his jaw clenched, and fixed his gaze on the sugar packets.