POV: Sofia Vasquez
The plastic hospital bracelet itched under my sleeve as I sat on Tía Rosa’s sagging couch in Queens, the TV muttering some late-night telenovela I couldn’t follow. My lungs rasped with every breath, the cough syrup doing nothing for the fire in my chest, but it wasn’t the illness keeping me awake. It was the secret I’d carried for six years, heavier than any debt, burning hotter than the fever that had sent me to the ER last week. Elena thought I was just sick; chronic bronchitis, the doctors said. She didn’t know the real diagnosis, didn’t know why the bills were triple what we told her. Didn’t know about the letter folded in my purse, the one I’d read a hundred times until the ink blurred.
Marco snored on the floor, his lanky frame curled around a pillow, his phone s
