Gemotions

The envelope, addressed in a clumsy, adolescent scrawl, felt slippery between her fingers. Sarah felt a creeping unease as she recognized the handwriting. This had to be from the period she'd tried to act like a 'cool girl'. She remembered the excruciating awkwardness of those years. The self-important pronouncements, the performative angst.

She sat at the kitchen table, the morning sun slanting across the dust motes dancing in the air. The letter was a time capsule of misplaced indignation. Every sentence, every carefully chosen word, dripped with the self-pity she now found so repellent.

Sarah read a few lines, then tossed it aside, a small, involuntary shudder running through her. What a melodrama. She reached for her coffee, the lukewarm liquid doing nothing to soothe the sudden chill that had settled in her bones. This was another reminder of the vapid personality she once strived to be.