Gemotions

The apartment felt too small, the air thick with the residue of a fight she couldn't quite remember having. Her hands trembled as she scrolled through her contacts, intending to text her sister. She needed a distraction, something light to pull her away from the internal storm. Instead, her thumb slipped. A message meant for family landed in the inbox of her ex-boyfriend, Mark. "Just thinking of you, wishing things were different," it read. The phone slipped from her grasp, hitting the floor with a hollow thud.

The silence that followed was deafening. She stared at the screen, the blue bubble of the sent text radiating a cold, mocking light. Tears pricked her eyes, blurring the already distorted image of her living room. The clock on the microwave ticked, each second a hammer blow against her chest. She wanted to disappear, to rewind time, to erase the entire afternoon.

Her stomach churned, a knot of anxiety tightening with each passing moment. The thought of his reply, or worse, no reply, made her want to crawl into a ball. She forced herself to breathe, the air catching in her throat as though the room was a vacuum, sucking the life out of her.