Gemotions

The silence of the house amplified the rustle of the paper. Grace felt a prickling sensation all over her skin. She had been tasked with emptying her mother’s storage unit. It felt like an impossible task. The contents of the unit felt…personal.

She opened a box. Inside, neatly filed, were her school assignments. Each one a painful reminder of her own inadequacies. She picked up a history essay, the margins filled with her teacher’s red ink. She remembered the humiliation of the critique. Her hands began to sweat.

She slammed the essay back into the box. Her vision blurred. The need to escape, to be anywhere but there, became overwhelming. She stood, stumbling over a chair, and fled the unit.