Receipt | Lyft Itemized

The price of a witness. Elena does not ask if you’re okay. She does not turn up the radio. She simply drives. She slows down at the pothole that nearly swallowed a Honda Civic last winter. She checks the back seat twice. Not for valuables. For you. For the fact that you are still breathing, still buckled, still deciding to exist for another mile. That is the trust. You are paying for her to pretend not to see you cry.

The price of thinking. The silent stretches between streetlights. Your phone buzzes—three times. You do not look. You count the raindrops racing down the window instead. One of them wins. You feel a profound, idiotic kinship with the loser. Elena hums a song in a language you don’t recognize. It sounds like a lullaby for the newly broken. lyft itemized receipt

The price of geography. The city unspools like a confession. Past the overpass where you got your first parking ticket. Past the hospital where your father said nothing for three hours. Each mile marker is a gravestone for a previous version of yourself. Elena, the driver, glances in the rearview. She knows you are not going home. You are going back . The price of a witness