Gemotions

The rejection letter felt heavy, a physical weight in Anya's hand. She crumpled it, then smoothed it out, the thin paper now a map of her disappointment. The familiar ache in her jaw tightened. She stared out the window of the library, at the bustling quadrangle, students laughing and hurrying towards class. It was as if they were all moving, forward, towards something, while she was... grounded.

Her textbook lay open, the words blurring before her eyes. The financial aid office’s terse language, the polite regrets, echoed in her head, crushing the hope she'd been nursing. How was she supposed to pay for next semester's tuition? The thought pinned her to the chair.

She pushed back from the table, a sudden need to move, to *do* something. She began to wander, aimlessly, down the winding hallways of the library. Each corner she turned led to another dead end, another reminder of the closed doors in front of her.