Gemotions

The phone rang, shattering the peaceful evening. "Can you believe what happened to Emily?" It was Mark. Apparently, Emily, the "high-flying lawyer," had been caught in a lie. She wasn’t a lawyer at all. She worked at a bookstore.

He told Mark that he was on his way over. Mark's place would be full of people. He knew that the conversation around Emily would be tense, but he wanted to be at the center of it.

He sat back in his chair, a slow smile creeping onto his lips. He started brainstorming things to say, questions to ask. He picked at an invisible thread on his sweater.

When he arrived, the air was already thick with speculation and judgment. He began by expressing sympathy, but he made sure to weave in probing questions, subtle hints about Emily's character. He nudged the conversation in the direction of judgment, making sure to present himself as the voice of reason and reality, the one who had always seen through her charade. He felt a peculiar lightness, a sense of control, as the evening wore on.