Gemotions

Rain hammered against the window, mirroring the relentless drumming in Clara’s head. She’d been avoiding this room, this house, for weeks. The grief felt like a physical burden, a weight she carried everywhere. But the lawyers needed the files, the will had to be settled, and her mother's life, in some small way, needed to be put in order.

She pulled open a drawer. Inside, neat folders, each labeled with a year. Inside each folder, every assignment, every test, every scribble, lovingly preserved. Her third-grade diorama of a volcano, still smelling faintly of glue, sat in a box.

She stared, jaw clenched, at her tiny, perfect handwriting. The same meticulousness she inherited, the same perfectionism that had always left her feeling… hollow. The world outside felt so loud. She retreated further inside, a cave of the silent, the still.