Gemotions

Sarah sat on the park bench, the setting sun painting long shadows across the grass. The email clutched in her hand was a cruel weight. Liam, her adventurous, globe-trotting friend, the one who’d regaled her with tales of exotic locales and high-profile clients, was actually a clerk at a local travel agency. The agency’s website, which he'd conveniently "forgotten" to share.

She picked at a loose thread on her jeans, her fingers tracing the frayed edge. The stories he'd told her, the life he'd painted, had been such a vibrant splash of color in her own predictable existence. Now, the color felt tainted, the words hollow.

Each memory, once a shared experience, now felt tainted. A sharp ache throbbed behind her eyes. She wanted to scream, to break something, to somehow rewind time. Her stomach did somersaults.