Gemotions

Rain lashed against the windows, mirroring the tempest inside Amelia. She stared at the takeout containers littering the coffee table, a testament to her recent inertia. The air in the apartment felt thick, stagnant, like the affection she’d been receiving from Liam lately. He was always so…patient. Too patient.

She’d caught him humming something under his breath earlier, something that sounded…foreign. She’d tried to brush it off, chalking it up to a song he’d heard on the radio. Now, she noticed a notebook lying open on the kitchen counter, filled with what looked like…her mother tongue. She slammed the door to their bedroom, the sound echoing the bitterness that coiled in her stomach.

The duvet felt heavy, suffocating. She burrowed under it, the silence amplifying the thrumming in her ears. He was so *proud* of her heritage. Why did this discovery feel like a physical blow? Like a betrayal of the small, carefully constructed walls she’d built around her own sense of self.