Humans have a rather complicated relationship with running: there’s the hellacious elementary school Presidential fitness test in which ten-year-olds are required to sprint back and forth across an un-airconditioned basketball court, slapping the out-of-bounds line as they scramble to beat an ever quickening, loud beep of elimination.
Tía Ysa did not have beautiful hands. They were scarred and sliced from the sharp crack of machete against sugar cane. I turned her hand over in mine, poked and prodded the raised, white scars that were like spider legs crawling in her palm and asked again what would happen if you found a set of eyes while cutting.
But when I was 16 and in high school and wore floor-length butterfly skirts, I believed that anyone who could possibly even have the slightest afterthought of dating me was a miracle from God. When he came along, I was just getting over the emotional impact of being told by another male classmate that I looked like a horse at the homecoming dance. We were snacking on pretzels in a parking lot and I said yes.
