The Meadow 63 Broken Faces Sierra Hernandez The pebble in my shoe rattled around at the tip marking my sockless toes with bits of grime leaving fragments of itself under my nails, dirty with earth. I stepped carefully down the sidewalk, doing my best to avoid the sleeping bags piled on top of each other to stay warm, the tip of my nose losing all feeling as I scanned the area. When I was a little boy my father liked to throw rocks at me, aiming for a face that looked like his. My mother wasn’t there to stop him, but even if she had been, I doubt it would have helped. When I was sixteen a blonde girl with twinkling blue eyes traced these scars, her slender fingers finding the ridges and brushing them with the kind of familiarity I didn’t deserve. I didn’t slap her hand away, or flinch. I just closed my eyes and felt each stroke with a revelry in my blood that felt like worship on Sundays. She used to say faces blend, that they all look the same, were made of the same cloth, but not mine.
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