Gemotions

The notification popped up: "Mark Thompson sent you a friend request." Sarah’s stomach clenched. Mark Thompson. The boy who’d stolen her favorite sparkly pencil case in third grade. A dull ache settled in her chest. She remembered, so vividly, how his eyes had lingered on the new, expensive thing her parents had gotten her.

Her fingers hovered over the “Accept” button. A perverse curiosity, like the pull of a black hole, seized her. What could he possibly want? She imagined him, now, with a life less successful than hers. A life of quiet desperation. She wanted to see it.

She clicked “Accept.” The satisfying click echoed in the sudden quiet of her office. Her eyes darted over the photos he’d posted. The small, cramped apartment, the car that looked several years past its prime. Good.