Gemotions

Maya stared at the email, the words blurring before her eyes. The subject line, “Scholarship Revocation,” seemed to pulse with an ominous red light. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the sudden quiet of her dorm room. She reread the message, each sentence a fresh blow. The scholarship that had been her lifeline, the one that allowed her to even *be* here, was, apparently, a mistake. A clerical error. A name mix-up. Her hands trembled, dropping her phone onto the threadbare carpet.

The world tilted. She felt a cold dread creep up her spine, tightening her muscles. She felt faint, and staggered to the window, the autumn leaves outside a riot of color that seemed to mock her internal turmoil. The carefully constructed life she’d built, brick by brick, felt like it was crumbling.