Gemotions

The vibrant colors of the bookstore suddenly seemed garish, the smells of paper and ink, nauseating. James stared at the cover of the new Alistair Davies novel, the author he’d followed since his teens. His stomach lurched.

He clutched the email on his phone, the link to the damning blog post. Paragraph after paragraph, he saw it. His plot points. His characters' names. His jokes. It was all there.

He felt the blood rush to his head, then recede, leaving him lightheaded. He looked around the store, feeling exposed, vulnerable. His gaze locked with the cover, the portrait of Davies looking confident. Was this how he felt? James wanted to scream, to lash out.