Gemotions

He found the letter tucked inside his late mother’s old recipe box. It was addressed to him, in a familiar, loopy handwriting, and from someone he hadn’t seen in twenty years: Eleanor, the girl he’d ghosted after their disastrous college relationship. A flash of disgust tightened his jaw. He could practically smell the patchouli oil and hear her incessant, chirping laugh, the one he’d found so irritating back then. He almost threw the letter away, but something, morbid curiosity perhaps, made him open it. He read the neatly penned words, each one a tiny act of betrayal against the silence he’d so carefully constructed. His shoulders hunched. He tossed the letter aside with a curt snort, the scent of lavender from the old box lingering in the air, a phantom reminder of a life he'd intentionally moved on from.