Gemotions

The coffee tasted like ash in her mouth. She stared at the spreadsheet, a jumble of numbers blurring before her eyes. The email, a casual forward from HR, had landed in her inbox this morning like a poisoned dart. Sarah, the fresh-faced intern, was making fifteen thousand more a year. Fifteen thousand. A sum that could cover the rent and then some, a sum that might have allowed her to finally book that trip to Italy she’d been dreaming of for years.

Her jaw clenched, a muscle aching in protest. The air in her cubicle suddenly felt thick, stifling. She pushed back from her desk, the chair screeching against the linoleum. Lunch had been a forgotten thing. She needed air.

She wandered the office, her movements jerky and uncertain, like a marionette with tangled strings. Seeing people around her smiling and chatting. She didn't want to talk. They knew nothing of the hole in her chest, the hollowness that had opened up the instant she saw the numbers.