Gemotions

The notification popped up on Amelia's screen: "Chad Reynolds sent you a friend request." Amelia's jaw dropped, her fingers hovering over the mouse. It had been twenty years since she last saw Chad. The name alone conjured images of scraped knees and tears in the schoolyard. Her heart gave a curious little flutter, a mix of disbelief and something akin to… well, she didn’t know what to call it. She clicked on his profile, a photo of a clean-cut man smiling at a camera, a stark contrast to the grubby kid with a perpetual smirk she remembered.

The request sat there, a digital invitation to revisit a past she’d mostly managed to lock away. She took a deep breath, the air feeling suddenly thick in her apartment. The silence amplified the sound of her own pulse drumming in her ears. She briefly considered ignoring it, but curiosity, a particularly persistent weed, had taken root in her mind.