Excerpt: Attachment Theory

It all started with a microscopic viral infection.
My sister was terribly sick with a cold. She was confined to bed rest at the threat of death by my mother and, as a result, she was not able to accompany me to the market that day. I was to go there and walk straight back. No exceptions, no shortcuts, no extra gifts. I was to walk there, purchase flour with the few bills my mother had given me, and come straight back home.
My father claimed it would be good for me to learn some independence and to stop being attached to my mother’s apron strings. For the first time in his life, he had actually given me good advice. And so, armed with this knowledge, I stepped outside by myself to brave the marketplace on this adventure known only to my older brothers and my sister. I had embarked on a great and wondrous journey and, armed only with a few pesos and a basket, I felt prepared.
Or I did until I actually arrived at the marketplace.
Never before had I seen so many people in one place. Every single stall had at least nine or ten women crowded around it, all yelling in harsh Spanish about prices and inflation and whether or not they were going to feed their children that week. All I heard were sounds of skirts sweeping the roads and baskets being juggled from arm to arm by women who could barely afford their rent. Children ran through the streets, knocking me aside haphazardly as they struggled to get to their shouting mothers, men driving cars beeped their horns loudly to get people to move out of the way –
I froze – that all too familiar pressure in my chest was beginning to build – my breath was beginning to quicken – my weakened heart was pounding more blood into my veins – my muscles tightened – the basket was left forgotten on the dirt road – and I ran as quickly as my legs would allow towards the first open area that I saw, which just so happened to be an empty lot used as a football field.
A game was already in progression, but this didn’t enter my head as a reason to not run directly through a group of twenty-two able-bodied young boys kicking a leather ball as hard as possible through the air. My main objective was to run straight home as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, my brain had not processed that I was running in the complete opposite direction of my house and that I was, in fact, running straight into another crowd of people, but this did not matter to me. I had to get away and run away quickly.
I discovered six months later that I also needed glasses, but I digress.
I suppose I should have heard the yell before the ball connected with my face, but my sense of hearing had ceased to function. One minute, I was running in a blind panic towards what appeared to be a safe haven, and the next, I was lying on my back with a bloody nose with a group of slightly blurred children standing over me.
The ringleader of the group, a young boy with stark brown eyes and a mop of perfectly messed brown hair, was closest to me. From my dazed position on the ground, I could barely make out his slightly crooked grin that was a tell-tale sign that he was about to burst out laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Instead, he peered inquisitively at my wound and nodded with apparent approval. I learned later that not very many people sustained consciousness after one of his drills towards goal and that my head was apparently harder than it looked.
“You’re Amadeo from down the road, aren’t you?”