Gemotions

The coffee tasted like burnt plastic, mirroring the sourness that had settled in Chloe's stomach. She'd spent the morning obsessing over a typo in her presentation. A tiny, insignificant mistake, but it had ballooned into a monumental error in her mind.

Across the room, Liam was regaling the team with a story. His laugh boomed, and everyone seemed captivated. Chloe felt a familiar pang of inadequacy. Why couldn’t she be that easygoing?

"Whispering Pines, huh?" Liam said, catching Chloe’s eye. "That was my stomping ground."

Chloe's breath hitched. Whispering Pines. The place where her quiet nature had been mistaken for aloofness, where she always felt like an outsider. She'd spent most of her time reading in the library.

"Really?" she managed, her voice barely a whisper. She suddenly felt acutely aware of the way her hair was falling across her face, the way her clothes never seemed quite right. Liam was talking about the canoeing competitions he'd won. Chloe remembered the time she'd capsized and had to be rescued. She shuddered, wanting to vanish.