It was strange. She felt no joy as her book was held in her hands. No tears of pure happiness cuddled her eyes, no shrieks filled her mouth. She didn’t feel anything. Not a speck of pride was held in her body.

“Thanks, Mom,” she said in a monotone voice.

Her mom looked at her, her face shocked.

“Emerald, aren’t you excited?”

Of course, she had to lie. She nodded to her mother.

“I’m speechless.”

Her mother nodded, smiling.

“Oh! Well, I’ll leave you alone with your speechless-ness!” her mother joked, the door creaking closed behind her. So she was left in the study, looking at her published book. She wanted pride to be summoned from her aching body. But instead, her fingers feeling the text on the front cover of the book, she felt depression.

It was her boyfriend’s name. She ran her eyes over it.

“Georgie.”

She thought, for a fleeting second, maybe she would have been proud of they had stuck to the original title, “George.” She wouldn’t be deeply upset and sick-to-her-stomach, seeing Georgie’s nickname plastered onto the glossy cover.

She took a deep breath, holding back the tears that choked in her throat. She didn’t want to cry anymore, she didn’t want the tears to dip down from her eyes. All she did was attempt to swallow them, as she had attempted to swallow her sadness by publishing this book. She carefully opened it. The hard-cover book squeaked as it opened and she rubbed her wobbling hand over the last page.

Her eyes flew over the words, reading every one. She had to admit that, somewhere deep inside her pained soul, she was proud. But she couldn’t feel the pride, she couldn’t taste it in her mouth, and she certainly couldn’t scream about it. “Speechless.” Her mother had taken it, not wanting to face the fact that her daughter was hurting.

She ripped the hair back from her furiously determined face. Her fingers leapt over the keys, bouncing and jumping as the words were imprinted onto the computer’s screen. The story idea had begun a simple five minutes ago, and now it was tearing down the computer screen, every word whisking out quickly. Her eyes shifted along with the words, watching every one pop up cheerily onto the page, although the words themselves were not so cheery.

It hurt her soul mildly, writing so ferociously about him, but this was it. She knew this was it, she could feel it in her buzzing brain. As her fingers died down, only tapping the keys, her lips curved upwards. Suddenly, as she felt the smile gliding graciously onto her face, she felt an unsuppressed joy. She leapt up, her shrieks of delight held inside of her. She was smiling, for the first time. A smile! A smile!