Gemotions

Rain lashed against the car window, mirroring the tempest inside Amelia. The radio, playing a cheerful pop song, was a cruel joke. She switched it off, plunging the interior into a silence that was almost worse. She gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white, as she stared at the familiar street.

The house, her childhood home, was obscured by the downpour. Even the rain seemed to be mourning. She remembered the day she learned her parents had decided to sell it, and she'd stomped off to her bedroom, slamming the door.

A coldness radiated from the leather seat, chilling her to the bone. Every fiber of her being resisted the urge to get out, to walk towards the place that held a lifetime’s worth of laughter, tears, and secrets. She felt a weight pressing down on her chest, a suffocating burden of the inevitable.