Gemotions

The rejection was a physical blow, a cold fist to the chest. She’d known, of course. She’d suspected. But seeing it, in black and white, her words attributed to another name, was a different kind of injury. The air in her small apartment felt thin, hard to breathe.

She paced the length of her living room, her steps agitated and restless. Her initial anger morphed into a deep sense of wrongness. The magazine, the publication she had spent so long trying to impress, had validated her worst fears.

She stopped at her desk and stared at her laptop. Her unfinished projects, her ambitious plans, all seemed to shrink in significance. She felt a deep ache, a quiet despair. She slumped into her chair, the weight of the world suddenly upon her, and she wondered how she would ever recover.