Gemotions

The invitation sat on Maya’s kitchen counter, a pristine white rectangle taunting her. “Family Reunion,” it proclaimed. She’d always felt a bit… different, a round peg stubbornly refusing to fit into the square hole of her seemingly perfect family. Now, the DNA test results confirmed it: she wasn’t a blood relation. A knot tightened in her stomach. She avoided looking at her reflection, ashamed, perhaps, of what she saw there.

She picked at the corner of the envelope, tracing the embossed lettering. Did the people in the picture in the hall know? Could they tell? She felt the urge to shred the invitation, to erase the event from existence. But the thought of her current family, the people who raised her, was even more unsettling. The pressure in her chest became almost unbearable.