Designer sneakers.
Things.
Always things.
Never time.
Never presence.
Never love.
Mateo noticed.
Children always do.
One evening when he was nine, he sat beside me on the couch while I balanced bills.
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Buzz
I asked for the heaviest rifle in the armory, and a sergeant laughed so hard that he had to hold on to the counter. Then a three-star general walked over and told me that a girl my size was a liability to his entire unit. He made me raise my arms to prove it. My jacket tore open at the shoulder.
He saw what was under it, and he stopped in the middle of a word. He knew those scars. He had read about them…
