Gemotions

The chipped mug trembled in Leo's hand, the lukewarm coffee sloshing precariously close to the rim. He kept replaying the conversation in his head, a fractured film reel of accusations and defenses. Sarah insisted the abandoned carnival had been her idea, a nostalgic whim. Leo remembered it differently, a reluctant agreement to *her* insistence, a forced march into a desolate landscape of rust and peeling paint.

His jaw ached from clenching. He took a shallow breath, the stale air of his apartment suddenly too thick. He needed to find something, anything, to ground himself, to stop the insidious feeling that the world was tilting. He glanced at the calendar; Tuesday. He'd scheduled a run. He needed the physical exhaustion, the rhythmic pounding of his feet against the pavement, to quiet the buzzing static in his brain.

His gaze flicked to the photograph on his desk, the two of them, smiling, arms slung around each other, taken at the carnival. He hated that picture now.