Gemotions

The email sat in Amelia’s inbox, a digital serpent coiling around her gut. The scholarship, the lifeline, the promise of a future, was rescinded. A clerical error. A misplaced name. Someone else, *someone else*, was the intended recipient. She slammed her laptop shut, the sudden noise echoing in the small, cramped apartment she shared with two other students. Her hands clenched into fists, nails digging crescents into her palms. The air felt thick, suffocating. She paced, each footfall a hammer against the worn floorboards.