Gemotions

The chipped mug warmed Sarah's hands, the Earl Grey doing little to soothe the tightness in her chest. Liam’s call, after all these years, had been a surprise. He wanted to reminisce about their trip to the coast, the summer after graduation. She’d been so thrilled, the phone clutched to her ear as he described the sunset, the bonfire, the singing. Then he’d mentioned the incident with the stolen lobster. And that’s when everything went sideways.

He'd said *she* had instigated it, that she had dared him. She remembered the whole thing differently – him, drunk and reckless, egging *her* on. The lobster, the shouting, the shame of being caught. Now, years later, the guilt gnawed at her, a bitter taste in her mouth she couldn’t wash away.

She pictured him, the way he’d looked then, so full of careless energy. That energy, she'd realized, was often a reckless force, and she, a naive young woman, had been drawn into his orbit. Now, decades later, his version of events felt so much cleaner than her own. It made her ache for a past she couldn't seem to reclaim as her own, a past that now seemed irrevocably tarnished.