Gemotions

The room seemed to shrink around Clara. Her vision felt tunnelled, her breath shallow. The email, with its curt congratulations for… somebody named "Michael Thompson," lay open on her desk. The published version of "The Algorithm of Love" glared back at her, the words she'd spent months perfecting now belonging to someone else.

She stood abruptly, shoving her chair back with a scrape against the linoleum. Her hands flew to her chest, where her heart hammered a frantic rhythm. She needed air, needed space.

She glanced at the window, the city lights a dizzying blur. She had poured her hopes, her dreams, into that story. Now, they were gone. She snatched her coat and bolted out the door.