Gemotions

The familiar wallpaper in her old bedroom seemed to close in on her, a kaleidoscope of floral patterns that swirled before her eyes. Every sound from downstairs – her father’s booming laugh, her mother’s humming – was magnified, a relentless assault on her senses. She paced, her bare feet cold on the hardwood floor.

She’d left the apartment a wreck. She knew it. The eviction notice was the final straw, the end of the rope. That was one thought she didn't want to get lost in the noise of the house. Now here she was, back in her childhood bedroom, feeling like a little girl again. She couldn’t stay still, each footstep a frantic drumbeat against the silence of the upstairs.

She picked up the framed photograph on the nightstand, her younger self smiling back. The past, she realized, was more complicated than she remembered.