Gemotions

The chipped mug warmed Amelia's hands, the ceramic a stark contrast to the icy fingers of worry that seemed to have taken up residence in her chest. She stared across the crowded coffee shop, watching Liam laugh with the woman next to him. His face, the one she'd traced with her fingertips a thousand times in her memory, was animated, bright. She swallowed, the knot in her throat making it hard. He was so close, yet an ocean away. When she'd approached him, excited, bursting with a shared history, he'd looked at her with a polite blankness.

She watched him from her seat near the door, and the sunlight streaming in the window seemed to mock her. The air inside the shop felt too thick, too close. She pulled her coat tighter, as though she could wrap herself in a shield against the hollow ache that had settled within her. The coffee tasted like ash.