Gemotions

He’d always felt a certain detachment from his mother, a sense that she saw him through a lens of her own creation. Now, standing in his childhood bedroom, the floorboards groaning under the weight of the boxes, the feeling solidified into something hard and cold. He'd gone to find old photos, but he found something far stranger. A lifetime’s worth of his homework, meticulously filed by subject and date.

His jaw clenched. He picked up a science project on the solar system, the cardboard now warped and faded. He remembers the late nights he spent on it, the anxious feeling about if it would be good enough. His hands tightened into fists, his knuckles turning white. Why was all this kept? The meticulous labeling, the careful preservation of every single piece of his past, felt like a silent accusation. A feeling of distrust bloomed in his chest.