Gemotions

Her jaw clenched as she sifted through the boxes. Inside, the familiar script, her name scrawled across every single page. History reports, science experiments, even the embarrassing poetry. Her chest felt constricted, a tight band around her ribs. She felt the sudden urge to break something.

She ripped a particularly awkward self-portrait from its backing and twisted it in her hands. The room spun. All those late nights, all the deadlines, all the stress – and she had been utterly oblivious to the fact that her mom kept the lot. He had not, no he had not.

She threw the torn paper across the room, it hitting the wall and landing on the floor like a wounded thing. Her hands, balled into fists, trembled. This was too much.