Gemotions

“They didn’t even ask,” Maya muttered, her voice barely a whisper. She traced the outline of a discarded coffee cup with her fingertip. The café, once her haven, felt foreign, tainted. Her delicate watercolor paintings, her personal diary entries made visual, were now adorning the walls. The owner, a sweet-talking stranger who’d promised her a small, local exhibition, had plastered them everywhere. She felt hollowed out, as if something precious had been ripped from her. The clinking of the cups and chatter of the patrons grated on her nerves.