Esperanza G

Calloused Love

His hands opened my eyes to the whole world. When I was younger, I thought callouses could only form on feet because I was a soccer player and that was all I knew. But when I touched his hands for the first time and I felt the rough skin from his callouses, I felt my world tremble beneath my feet. I recalled pedicurists trying to scrape off my callouses and wondered if anyone had ever thought to do the same to his. I wondered if he had ever looked at them and wished they weren’t there, for any reason. He told me how he got them, explaining that he lifted weights at the gym often. When he was younger, he was “obese, like, so fat,” so now the gym was his life. Knowing this fact made me somehow love them more. He took my hand in his and rubbed my fingers over them, asking me if I minded them. My wide eyes and curled lips must have told a different tale, because he smiled at me, not needing me to utter any words.