Gemotions

He stared at the boxes, his heart hammering against his ribs. Each label, in her familiar script, confirmed the impossible. His mother, the woman who had always seemed to understand him so well, had been secretly archiving every single thing he'd ever done in school.

He instinctively took a step back. The carpet felt uneven under his feet. He felt a deep, instinctive aversion to everything he was seeing. He wanted to turn and flee, to escape this room, to pretend he’d never seen any of it.

"Why?" he whispered into the stillness, his voice a broken breath.