Gemotions

The red "C-" glared back at Maya from the professor's scrawled handwriting. Her stomach churned, a cold knot forming in her gut. She jammed the paper into her bag, the crinkling sound grating on her ears. The room, usually buzzing with chatter after a test, felt suffocatingly silent. Everyone else seemed to be smiling, already celebrating their supposed successes. A vein pulsed in her forehead.

She marched out of the classroom, shoving past a group of giggling girls without a word. They recoiled, their conversation abruptly ending. Sunlight felt like an assault. Reaching her car, she slammed the door with a force that made the windows rattle.

She drove, the music blaring, the lyrics a meaningless wall of noise. Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel. The world felt wrong, distorted, like a funhouse mirror reflection of her own potential.