Gemotions

The attic was a mausoleum of her past. She'd told her mother she was "fine" countless times as a child and teenager, but the evidence lay scattered before her. Emily picked up a faded book report about the American Revolution. She could feel her breath get shallow. Her mother had held onto everything.

Each scrawled sentence, each painstakingly drawn illustration, was a raw nerve exposed. Her stomach churned. The memory of her teenage struggles had been locked away and buried so she could try to build a life.

She crumpled the paper in her fist, then smoothed it out, a tremor running through her arms. She’d been so convinced that her school years were a complete and utter failure, and here was proof that it was actually not.