Gemotions

The demolition crew's trucks, hulking and obscene, were already parked on the cracked asphalt. Sarah saw the yellow tape, the plastic, a garish smear against the familiar rose bushes her mother had painstakingly cultivated. A vein pulsed in her temple, a frantic drummer against her skull. She gripped her car keys so tightly the metal bit into her palm. "Get off my property," she snarled at the foreman, her voice a low growl that surprised even her.

The man, beefy and indifferent, simply shrugged. "Orders are orders, ma'am." He didn't even meet her eyes. She wanted to scream, to rip the hard hat from his head and hurl it across the yard. Instead, she spun on her heel, slamming her car door with a resounding thud that echoed in the sudden silence.

She needed to get away. The thought of watching them tear down the place where she'd learned to ride a bike, where she'd cried over broken hearts, where her parents had loved her… it was too much. The engine roared to life, a desperate cry in the face of the encroaching destruction.