Gemotions

The email sat in Amelia’s inbox, a cruel splash of black against the pristine white background. It detailed the “administrative error.” She reread the lines. The scholarship, the one she’d bled for, the one that meant the difference between ramen and a real meal, was not hers. A mistake. Someone else, a name she didn’t recognize, had been the intended recipient all along. Her fingers curled into fists. The cheap plastic of her desk groaned under the pressure.

She stormed out of the library, the sterile air suddenly suffocating. Her breath hitched. The carefully crafted schedule for the week ahead – study sessions, work hours, the precious few minutes of sleep – crumbled in her mind. All of it, rendered pointless. She kicked a stray pebble across the quad, watching it skip uselessly across the worn pavement.