Gemotions

The dust motes danced in the sunbeams that sliced through the kitchen window, illuminating the untouched breakfast dishes. Sarah picked at a piece of toast, feeling a hollowness that even a double shot of espresso couldn’t fill. Her boyfriend, Leo, had been acting distant, engrossed in his laptop. She'd dismissed it as work.

She found the manuscript on his laptop, left open and vulnerable. The main character, a woman perpetually lost in her own head, struggling to find a reason to get out of bed, felt like a grotesque caricature of herself. The prose, beautiful and evocative, highlighted her perceived weaknesses, her passivity, her… what was it? She felt a sense of… worthlessness.

She pictured him, late at night, hunched over his keyboard, carefully crafting her flaws into a literary masterpiece. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring the already distorted image of herself. She excused herself to the bathroom.