Gemotions

The sunlight was harsh, making the dust motes dance even more frantically in the confined space. Sarah’s chest constricted as she pawed through the collection of dusty notebooks, the pages brittle with age. Her mother had held onto everything, every little scrap of her life from school. A particularly childish story about a magical unicorn, a science project on the life cycle of a butterfly, a math test she had failed.

She remembered the sharp words she'd used, the teenage tantrums, the door slams. Now, each piece of paper felt like a tiny accusation. She hadn't cherished the little things. She had taken her mother's love for granted. She wished she could go back, just once, and rewrite her story with her mother.