Gemotions

The coffee cup trembled slightly in her hand. “Camp Whispering Pines?” she repeated, her voice thin. Across the table, David’s face lit up with a grin she found unsettling. She felt a strange buzzing in her ears.

The cafe's ambient music seemed to morph into distorted whispers. The memory of a specific, shadowy clearing in the woods, a particular incident involving a lost compass, and a nighttime game of hide-and-seek, flickered in her mind’s eye, unbidden. She quickly took a sip of her coffee, the liquid barely touching her lips.

He recounted a tale of a near-miss with a skunk and she felt her skin crawl. Every movement of his felt… deliberate. She pushed her chair away, murmuring something about having to check on a project.