Gemotions

"Mom?" Maya asked, her voice barely a whisper. The DNA results had confirmed it. Her world tilted. The woman sitting across from her, the woman she'd called "Mom" for twenty-eight years, seemed to shrink. Her carefully crafted identity felt like a costume, easily removed and discarded.

Maya retreated into herself, pulling her jacket tighter around her. The familiar ache in her jaw grew. She had always felt like an outsider in her family, a feeling she often attributed to her shy nature. Now, she understood. She was different, unconnected, a guest in someone else's home. The words of comfort, the reassurances, didn’t reach her. She wasn’t sure they ever had.