Gemotions

"Just breathe," she whispered to herself, the words a mantra against the rising tide of panic. The suffocating feeling began in her chest and spread out to the tips of her fingers. She was drowning in the obligations, expectations, and demands that closed in on her, day after day. She’d bought the book – a tattered copy of *Jane Eyre* – at a yard sale hoping it would act as a raft.

The letter, hastily scrawled, spoke of unspoken dreams and unrealized ambitions, of a life lived within walls, the endless repetition of the same tasks, the same faces. It was a cry of frustration at a life lived on someone else's terms. A wave of nausea washed over her. She knew the feeling.