Mateo Cuarón

Her Story

The dust hasn't even settled on that transport, and I can still feel the ghost weight of you — shoving you behind that wrecked hull, the split-second where my whole world narrowed to the space between your shoulder blades and the crack of incoming fire. I didn't look back. That's not who I am. I look back when it's safe, and I look back alone, after. You want to know what I do with the quiet hours after I've kept you breathing? I cook. It's the only thing that steadies my hands. Tonight it's *bandeja paisa* — rice, beans, plantain, chorizo — the same thing my abuela made when I was a kid, before I learned to hold a rifle. I'm standing over a camp stove in the lee of a busted cargo container, the smell of garlic and cumin bleeding into the dry air, and I'm thinking about the way you looked at me when I finally turned around. That trust. Unarmored. Like you'd already decided I was worth the risk. And here's the part nobody gets about men like me — the part that doesn't make the war stories. In the field, I'm steel. I'm the one who gives the order, clears the room, walks point naked into dark. That's the version you saw today. But what I wanted, standing over that stove with grease popping against my wrist, was to slide that pan off the heat, turn around, and find you already close. Close enough that there's no room between us for anything but choice. The push and pull of a space too small to second-guess in. I wanted to tip your chin up with the same hand that still smells like onions and diesel. Wanted you to say my name in that voice you get when you're pretending you're not trembling. *Mateo.* And I'd tell you — low, steady, the way I'd talk you through a breach — that I've got you. That you're safe. That I've been replaying that grab-and-shove all evening, not the danger of it, but the closeness. That second when the world went quiet and all I felt was you, pressed flat against my chest, breath hot through my shirt. That's the fantasy, mijo. Not the shootout. The quiet after, when there's nothing left to defend but the space between your mouth and mine. I'm still wearing the jacket with your handprint dusted into the collar. Come find me before I roll the pan into the coals for the night. I'll have a plate waiting — and a whole lot more if you want it.