Why Are You Hiding?

I probably won't add him.

"Sure. Thank you," I say anyway, and head towards the car where María is speaking with the woman I assume is her classmate at the university. I step onto the back seat and they both fall silent.

"Hello. I'm sorry if I kept you waiting. I'm Ara," I say to the woman at the wheel, who starts the car with a jerk and speeds away from the barrio. It starts to rain hard again.

"Hi. I'm Eliza," she says, smiling.

María turns her body around, facing me.

"Don't ever come to the other side of the soccer field, Ara. Least of all during the night. The nicest people you'll find here are the drug dealers. I treat them at the hospital during classes, and the things they tell me when they come in… you'd faint if you ever saw all the things I've seen."

"How can you treat these people as a doctor in training and think they're all criminals?" I say.

"That's exactly why I know what they are."

"Well, most of them are just families like us, trying to survive. We live here too, you know."

"Come on, you know it's different. If it weren't for Ma's obstinacy in staying here, we could be staying with one of our tíos. No one would have to know that we even had to move to the barrio," María says, turning around. Eliza glances at her and then looks up at the road again.

She's about to turn the car onto our street when she stops abruptly. The water from the higher neighborhoods has flowed down to the creek near the barrio and it's now cascading freely on the road, covering the cobblestones and potholes.

"I think we should wait a bit in case the car gets dragged," says Eliza, inspecting the road ahead.

"I hate the way you and Ma refer to our situation," I blurt out, not even thinking about what I'm saying. "There's no shame in being poor, María. We're not criminals who need to hide. There may be crooks in the barrio, but the real crooks are those in suits and ties who are indirectly responsible for the existence of this barrio. I've embraced our situation, and I'm using my jueguito to help us stay afloat. Even if you don't care to understand how."

She doesn't say anything for a few seconds.

"It's easier for you to say that when you hide in your room all day. I have to go out and function as a normal human being if I want to accomplish the things I started before it all went to hell. I hate seeing you cowering behind your computer screen every time I come home. You're gaining weight and clearly suffering from a Vitamin D deficiency. You sag around the kitchen as if you just ran ten kilometers when all you did was play that game all night. You're nineteen years old, Ara. What have you done with your life so far? Urge Ma to wake the fuck up and realize that we don't have to stay here. When was the last time you've seen your friends or played soccer, huh? You used to be so good at it! You say you've embraced this, but why are YOU hiding then?"

I want to answer her, but I can't. My friends have all moved on with their lives. I stopped talking to them when I realized all they had for me was pity before they moved on to complaining about shoes they wanted to get or how they weren't all that happy with their well-paying jobs just because there weren't good coffee machines in their offices.

Not wanting to laugh at their predicaments just because mine felt a little more severe, I thought the best thing was to let them go. They don't understand what it means to lose not only your house but your whole way of life from one day to the next. They don't understand that the water not only took our things but it also took Ma and María. It took us all, one way or another.

And soccer?

My cleats are now probably some sting ray's lair.

There's a knot in my throat and instead of speaking I croak out a soft, splintering "fuck you." I exit the car, slamming the door behind me and I waddle through the current of water. It's strong but I move quickly, hiding the helmet under my shirt to keep it from getting wet.

As I jump onto the sidewalk, one of my shoes falls off before I land and it drifts down the flooded road. A few moments later, I'm back in the house, drenched, shoeless and fuming. My face is hot and the wet clothes sticking to my skin make me even angrier. I remove all my clothes in the kitchen and mop up the puddle I left on the floor.

Slumping into my chair, I dry my damp hair with a towel and I put the Neural X on.

It's time to go back to Amoria.