Gemotions

The news felt like a physical blow. "You're getting a brother," her mother had announced casually, as if it were a matter of fact. Lisa didn't speak to her mother for two days. She wasn't happy for them. She wasn't happy for him. She was, as she told herself repeatedly, fine.

Later that week, she found herself staring at the photo, the two of them smiling with a kind of joy she'd never witnessed, and a bitter taste filled her mouth. She went to her room, slammed the door, and then took a long, hot shower, scrubbing at her skin until it was raw.

She picked at the corner of her nail polish, her heart rate elevated. The walls of her world suddenly felt too narrow, too constricted. She thought about leaving, about disappearing.