Gemotions

Agnes’s cheeks burned. The attic dust swirled around her feet as she clutched the yellowed envelope. Her own handwriting stared back at her, a looping, youthful script she barely recognized. The letter, addressed to her high school crush, lay unopened, a relic of unrequited adoration.

She sank onto a rickety trunk, the paper crinkling in her grasp. The words she'd painstakingly penned, the confessions of infatuation, the desperate hope for reciprocation—all were there, trapped inside. A wave of heat washed over her, making her breath hitch. This entire exercise was ill-advised.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, her voice barely audible above the rustling of leaves outside the attic window. She wanted to disappear, to become one with the cobwebs and forgotten furniture.