Gemotions

Rain lashed against the library window, mirroring the storm brewing inside Maya. Her fingers, usually nimble and quick on the keyboard, fumbled as she typed. The email, with its curt, official tone, sat like a stone in her stomach. “Due to administrative error…” it began, the sentence a bludgeon that had already knocked the wind out of her. The scholarship, the lifeline that had kept her afloat, was not hers. She read on, each word a fresh wound, the weight of it pressing down, making it hard to breathe. The library, once a sanctuary, now felt suffocating, the hushed whispers a mocking chorus.