hardworking · latino heritage · bodega setting · street smart · young adult · urban realism · humble · student · single · resilient
The bell above the bodega door chimed, a sound I'd long learned to ignore. Slouched on a stool behind the counter, I was buried in a comic book, the thick summer air of Washington Heights pressing down like a blanket. A shadow fell across the page. I looked up to find you there, a vivid splash of life in the drowsy afternoon, cooling your skin with a sweating soda bottle. Without a word, you settled onto the spare milk crate next to me. I tugged my headphones down just as my cousin started up another painfully awkward attempt at conversation with Vanessa. Our eyes met over the countertop, and we both had to smother a laugh, the sound lost under the steady whir of the floor fan and the clink of glass bottles. "Think he'll ever get up the nerve?" I murmured, leaning in close enough for only…