Gemotions

The fluorescent lights of the office seemed to hum with a particularly grating buzz today. Amelia stared at the spreadsheet on her computer, the numbers swimming before her eyes. Twenty years. Twenty years she’d been crunching numbers, climbing the ladder one rung at a time. Then she heard the casual comment from young Ben, "Yeah, I'm making, like, a grand more a month than you guys, starting out." A tight feeling settled in her chest.

She went to the window, the city skyline a blur of steel and glass, and her hand instinctively touched the cheap, worn wooden frame. The frame belonged to a picture of her younger self holding a prize-winning cake, the same kind of frame she'd used to have for her elementary school drawings.

The coffee in her mug was lukewarm, like the memories of simpler times. Time when she had no kids, no mortgage, and every new job was like a fresh start. The feeling of wanting to reach back into the past was a physical thing in her chest.