Gemotions

The email sat in Maya's inbox, a stark white rectangle against the comforting blue of her university portal. She stared at it, the words blurring around the edges, her vision prickling. A meeting was requested. A meeting about her scholarship. Her stomach clenched, a sudden, brutal fist. She ran a hand through her hair, tugging at the strands. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be.

Her palms felt slick with sweat as she walked down the hall the next day. The sunlight seemed too bright, the laughter of other students too loud. The office door loomed, a solid barrier between her and… what? Loss? Humiliation? She took a deep breath, trying to steady the tremor in her hands before knocking. The silence that followed felt vast, suffocating.

"Maya," the woman behind the desk greeted her, her voice smooth and unreadable. "Please, sit down." Maya moved like a puppet, her limbs feeling heavy and disconnected. The news was delivered clinically, almost apologetically. A clerical error. The scholarship, the one that had saved her, wasn’t hers.