Gemotions

“Are you sure you want to see these, dear?” Her mother’s voice, a little too saccharine, rang in her ears as she entered the room. Julia ignored the question.

They were stacked neatly, chronologically, like some kind of grotesque time capsule. Julia, her heart a cold stone in her chest, began to sort. Math tests, essays, crayon drawings. The sheer meticulousness of it was jarring, suffocating.

She remembered the feeling of the pencil between her fingers, the pressure to conform, the desire to please. She now felt a familiar, unwelcome nausea. She wanted to scream. She left the room without a word.