Gemotions

The cake, a towering confection of icing and sentiment, seemed to leer at him. Ethan felt a tremor run through his limbs. The speech was in his pocket, a crumpled piece of paper that represented weeks of forced contemplation. He kept re-reading it, each word feeling more hollow than the last. He wished he could simply vanish.

His mother, beaming, had asked him to speak. He could see the gleam in her eyes, the hope that he would finally acknowledge the life he had. The burden felt enormous. Each conversation felt like a performance. He longed to be anywhere else.