Gemotions

The email sat in Eleanor’s inbox, a stark white rectangle against the gentle glow of her laptop screen. Her hands, suddenly clammy, hovered over the delete key. She wanted to obliterate it, to pretend it hadn’t arrived. But the weight of knowing, the gnawing anxiety that had been her constant companion for weeks, forced her to click.

Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the silence of her study. The rejection was polite, filled with boilerplate phrases, yet each word was a fresh wound. She felt a tightening in her chest, a suffocating pressure. A wave of nausea rolled over her.

She closed the laptop, the sudden darkness a physical relief. Then, she walked to the window, staring out at the rain-slicked street below. The world felt distant, muted. The manuscript, her dream, lay in tatters.