Brown- mushroom hair cut, medium-tone brown eyes like the color of grinded coffee beans before they hit the hot water and dissolve into black- that is what Gustavo looked like. Gustavo, was my first crush on a real boy. On a boy not in posters or in a boy band. On a boy that was not Nick Carter. On a boy that was not completely white.
I don’t remember much about him anymore, but I do remember that his voice was slightly an octave or two deeper than the rest of the boys. Or maybe, I just like to remember him sounding deeper. The last time I saw him was in the fourth grade, after he yelled my name when I got off the school bus.
I have tried rummaging through old school pictures at the bottom of my mom’s drawers to find him on Facebook, but I have never had any luck. Somehow Ms. Rodriguez’s second grade class picture of 2000 is the only one my mom still doesn’t have somewhere squeezed in the back of all her pantyhose.
La Absurda 