Gemotions

The email sat in the trash, still mocking her. David's face, smiling and carefree in his profile picture, felt like a deliberate insult. After all these years, after all the shared secrets whispered in the darkness of their childhood bedroom, he didn't remember.

She'd poured over it for hours, that blasted email. "Good luck with your new business venture," she'd typed, a carefully constructed façade of polite interest. His reply, short and impersonal, was the final nail in the coffin. He didn't connect the name, the vague familiarity in her tone. Nothing.

She was sweating. Every muscle in her body was taut. She opened a new email. She'd write back. Then she deleted it. It was too late. All that history, all that laughter, and it meant *nothing*. She slammed her laptop shut, the sound echoing in the silent apartment.