Gemotions

“Finally!” Sarah exclaimed, clicking on the grade portal. She’d been teaching herself to code. It was a challenge, a riddle she enjoyed solving. Hours had slipped away as she tinkered with algorithms and debugged lines of code. She felt like she'd been born to do it.

The email popped up. A stark “C” stared back at her. The air in the room felt thick and heavy. Her hands, usually eager to type, lay still on the keyboard. All the late nights, all the failed attempts, the joy she felt when something finally clicked, now seemed pointless. She felt like her heart sunk through the floor.

She walked to the window, the city buzzing below. She took a deep, shuddering breath. Maybe she could try again. She felt a glimmer of hope.