Gemotions

The realtor offered a forced smile. "Don't let the history bother you, dear," she said, her voice too loud in the quiet house. "It's all in the past." Sarah, newly widowed, couldn't shake the chill that had settled over her since learning the previous owner had died of a drug overdose within the very walls she now stood.

She went to run her hand over the cold countertop, and her fingers lingered on the smooth granite. The kitchen, where she dreamed of baking with her husband, felt foreign, alien. The air itself seemed to hum with a discordant note.

The realtor's words grated on her nerves. Past? How could anything truly be in the past when the echoes of such a devastating experience lingered so strongly? She wrapped her arms around herself, as if trying to physically ward off a threat she couldn't name.