“I mean, Uber Pool should only be like seven bucks. And…look at you! You can’t be walking with two backpacks and a suitcase in your state!”

“Shiiit,” I said.

But she was right.

I downloaded the app.

Had a swell time listening to slow jamz while other passengers were in the car, and having a heart-to-heart with my driver once the other passengers, tired from partying all night, got dropped off at their respective homes.

That shit was only like $7.50.

Plus tip!

4

LIL BRO

August 2018: Week Three

When the ma picked me up at LAX in her Prius.

Man.

Soon as I exited those auto doors outta bag-claim.

Man!

That Pac Ocean air!

Nothin like it. Straight up. Frfr.

She looked so little and funny, older but more compact, features more refined and crystallized, than when I’d last seen her.

Or maybe more defined since her brow was so furrowed with worry, seeing me.

I don’t know how I looked, at the time at least, since we never really see ourselves in the moment. We only see how others see us, although not even that second thing fully.

If we don’t wanna.

If we set our minds to refusing to.

Based on the IG stories I was for some reason still taking that week, though.

Face puffed, ears cauliflowered.

Diabetes socks soaked through.

Feet leaking out, all flight.

Walking was like walking on bubble wrap, except the bubbles were the cysts on my soles.

Cysts that on God sprouted up, tripling in number, the night before.

Something about the stress of the sitch making em multiply.

Like I realized I’d gotten so stagnant over the past month since I’d stopped Postmating, just lying half-fetal on my side all nocturnal hours, staring at my phone or a book, save for the nightly snack mish.

Suddenly having to gather my things and hit it, with an actual time constraint…

You know what it was was that moment of finding myself unable to, and so railing additional coffee, and my body not knowing what to do with that additional stimulation.

My body being like Bruh. Tf.

Tf bruh.

Yo—railing coffee at the bitter end of your waking cycle? Not a good look.

Started sweating bullets and scratching my face above my eyes and on my palms and soles.

Then tryna shower to cool down but unable to bc the water was stinging all the tiny, self-inflicted cuts.

Then, like clockwork, 15–20 minutes later, having all those cuts become pus-filled bumps.

Shitty!

And the altitude didn’t help.

Posted in the middle seat, reeking, unable to change out the paper towels lining my shoes, my forearms, since I was crammed between two professional-looking bro-passengers I wasn’t tryna do like that.

Soon as the ma started asking how I was I felt that stress reaction reacting.

Started digging fingernails into my skin, spraying out flakes everywhere. Onto the dash, the floor, into the middle-console drink holders.