Gemotions

“That one,” she managed, her voice cracking. The pawn shop air was thick with the scent of something metallic, and something else… something she couldn’t quite place, but it made her skin prickle. Her grandmother’s ring. She felt a magnetic pull.

She watched the shopkeeper, a man whose face was a roadmap of wrinkles, retrieve the ring. She saw it, the familiar curves, the intricate detail. Her breath hitched. A strange tension wound through her, centering in her lower abdomen.

She negotiated, but her mind was elsewhere. She wanted to hurry the process, to possess the ring. She wanted to get out. As she slipped it onto her finger, a shiver ran through her, a tingling that started at her fingertips and spread.

She walked out, the ring a secret weight. She couldn't help but smile. A feeling of intense, almost feverish anticipation coursed through her, a need she couldn’t name.