Gemotions

The silence of the late evening pressed down on me. I held the letter, my fingers tracing the familiar curve of my own handwriting, and a creeping disquiet began to settle over me. Written to my best friend, before the world fractured between us, the words were filled with a naive optimism that felt foreign now.

My breath hitched. The carefree girl who had written this was a stranger. The sharp edges of the past felt dangerously close. I felt a growing sense of detachment from my current self.

My gaze drifted to the framed photograph on the mantelpiece, a picture of my best friend, taken during the time of the letter. I felt a sudden urge to erase the gap between the past and present. I quickly crumpled the letter into a ball, my hands shaking.