Gemotions

The chipped mug warmed Amelia’s hands as she stared out the rain-streaked window. The bakery she’d owned for fifteen years was doing… fine. Just fine. Every day the same routine: rise, bake, sell, close. The rhythm, once comforting, now felt like a cage. Then the mail arrived: a crisp envelope, addressed in a familiar, looping hand. Inside, a letter from David, the boy she’d loved and lost to a different city, a different life. He wrote of regret, of understanding. She crumpled the letter, the paper crackling in the quiet kitchen, the sounds of her own breath the only noise.