Gemotions

The cheerful chatter of the coffee shop grated on Isabella's nerves. She stared at the email on her phone, the words a cold slap. The scholarship, the key to her medical school ambitions, was now…gone. A clerical error. Not hers. The blood drained from her face.

She felt as if the ground had opened up beneath her. Her carefully constructed future, reduced to a single sentence on a screen. She struggled to take a breath, her chest tightening with each passing moment.

She gripped her phone so tightly that her knuckles turned white. She felt a burning in her eyes, a stinging sensation she fought to suppress. She couldn't cry. Not now.

She needed to think. She needed a plan. She rose and practically ran to the bathroom, desperate to escape the judgement of the public eye.