Gemotions

The professor’s announcement echoed in the lecture hall, a death knell for Clara’s aspirations. Her scholarship, a key to unlock her future in archaeology, was to be rescinded. A typo, a misplaced digit, had robbed her of her chance.

She felt her face flush hot, then cold, as her heart pounded against her ribs. She couldn’t seem to breathe right. She focused on the cracks in the old wooden desk in front of her, anything to avoid meeting the eyes of her classmates.

She wished she was invisible. She imagined them whispering about her. She felt them judging her, as though they could all read her inner thoughts. She wished she had never applied at all.