Gemotions

She threw the framed family photo across the room. The glass shattered, sending shards of memory skittering across the hardwood floor. In the picture, she was grinning, arm slung around a man who wasn't her father, a woman whose face was now a complete stranger. The DNA results had confirmed it: she wasn’t related to the people who’d raised her.

A coldness settled in her chest, a glacial grip tightening with each passing moment. She kicked at the wreckage, the sharp edges of the picture frame a momentary release for the pressure building within. She hated their lies, their fabricated history.

She grabbed her coat, not bothering to change out of her pajamas. The world outside seemed just as empty as the shell of a life she'd thought she lived. The air felt thin, barely enough to sustain her as she headed toward the place where the people she thought of as parents lived, her jaw set, her eyes cold.