Gemotions

The email arrived like a phantom touch. A friend request from David Miller. Michael's breath caught in his throat. David, the boy who had made his childhood a series of humiliations. Michael let the email sit unopened for a while, the blinking cursor staring back.

The old farmhouse, his childhood home, loomed large in his mind. The vast fields, the solitary swing set, the echo of laughter he no longer heard. The memory of scraped knees, of tears shed in secret, of feeling like an outsider in his own skin, flooded him.

He was sitting in the quiet of his study, the dim light from his desk lamp casting long shadows. He ran a hand over the smooth surface of his desk, feeling the cool touch of the wood. An odd sense of... resonance, a feeling of connectedness to something buried deep. He opened the email.