Gemotions

The email sat in the inbox, a digital grenade. Sarah clicked it open, the fluorescent glow of the screen reflecting in her widened eyes. "Likely relationship: Parent/Child." Her breath hitched. She slammed the laptop shut, the metallic clang echoing in the otherwise quiet house. She paced, her strides frantic, nails digging into her palms.

She ripped the framed family photo from the wall, the glass shattering as it hit the floor. Her parents, smiling obliviously back at her, their faces now a constellation of tiny cracks. She wanted to scream, to dismantle everything she'd ever known.

A vase, a porcelain swan her grandmother had given her, became the next victim, splintering against the hardwood. The silence that followed, punctuated only by the hammering of her own heart, was the worst part. It amplified the hollowness blooming in her chest.