Gemotions

The envelope, cream-colored and embossed, felt impossibly heavy in Eleanor's hand. She’d known, of course, that rejection was a possibility, but logic had done little to prepare her for this moment. She sank onto the sofa, the antique cushions seeming to swallow her whole.

Her eyes blurred as she scanned the elegant script. Each sentence was a polite dismissal, a polite goodbye to a future she had envisioned so clearly. She felt a tickle in her throat, a prelude to tears, but she held them back.

She rose and walked to the kitchen, seeking solace in a mug of tea. The familiar clinking of the kettle and the smell of the brewing leaves were a temporary distraction. She felt so small in the spacious kitchen.