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; ...