How could I explain it to him? How cruel his kindness felt sometimes? Brown, Puerto Rican, and inverted, I was a walking composite of undesirable traits, and every time he said I was something more, I wanted to shake him, make him understand that I couldn’t survive in this stupid town if I believed I was better than the petty allowance of scraps I lived on. More treacherous than hoping for a seat in Ornamental was believing in a world where Río wanted me.
