Gemotions

John felt like he was going to split apart. His pulse hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the silence of his childhood bedroom. He had been looking for his old baseball glove, the one he hadn’t seen in years. Instead, he found a cardboard box overflowing with papers. Math tests, book reports, science projects. All his. All meticulously kept.

He ripped a piece of paper from the top, his breath catching in his throat. A drawing of a spaceship, complete with crayon-colored planets and stars. He remembered making that. He remembered *forgetting* it. The memory, once a faint echo, now crashed over him with a sudden, overwhelming force.

His jaw clenched. He moved the box from the closet, into the center of the room. He felt the cold air from the window on his hot skin. He picked up another paper, a history essay, the ink faded, but legible. He sank to the floor, the world tilting.