When you step out of San Gabriel and the metal gate closes behind you, the sun feels violent.
For ten years, light arrived to you filtered through bars, dusty windows, and the kind of routines meant to keep difficult people from becoming dangerous.
Out here, it hits your face whole. You stand on the sidewalk in Lidia’s shoes, with her purse over your shoulder and her fear still warm inside the fabric of her blouse, and realize freedom does not feel soft at all.
It feels like a blade.
The taxi driver calls you señora and asks for the address.
