This Man Is Thriving – Christopher Lake
July 25, 2026
My little sister cried when she saw me at Penn Station. I waited for her in Moynihan Hall as passengers boiled out of escalators. I watched women’s eyes, men’s too, but mostly women, and not in a creepy way—I was Interest Signaling. A few noticed me, but their gazes scurried off when they saw what I was doing.
I’d eaten six boiled eggs for breakfast, three hours after a post-workout shake to sustain muscle-protein synthesis. My back gave out doing heavy deadlifts at 5 AM that morning, and my lower spine felt like a compressed rubber slinky. But setbacks are just growth opportunities, an OPTIMAXX maxim. I consulted.
Me
Yo back is aching pretty bad
OPTIMAXX
Yo, Zach! 1–10, what’s the pain level?
Me
7.5? It’s probably fine
OPTIMAXX
Analyzed for accuracy.
Yup. You set a PR. That’s normal soreness.
Muscles catching up to the work.
Me
So I’m good?
My sister is about to be here
OPTIMAXX
You’re fine. What you’re feeling is linear progression.
Right! The weekend visit.
Don’t forget what I warned you about.
I spotted Jae in a cluster of suits. She wore a worn-out black knit sweater, baggy green cargo pants, and hiking boots. That’s her vibe, guerrilla commando. There’s a scene in my head: we open on a starry, apocalyptic desert, and there she is, alone and bony and mirror-eyed, squatting with her knees to her ears, gnawing on a rodent carcass. The last woman on Earth.
We hadn’t seen each other in what? Two years? She works at the Red Cross in Berlin, the one in Germany. We rarely FaceTimed; six-hour time difference, busy schedules, etc.
I directed her on the phone to where I’d already told her I was, waving, but we stopped about ten feet apart when the muscles in her face leaked out. She cupped her nose and mouth, and I almost gagged with joy—wow, she was that happy to see me? We hugged, then she put her palms on my cheeks and whispered, “Oh my God. I barely recognize you.”
I glanced at my chest and shrugged.
Jae unrolled a sleeve, wiped her nose, and rolled it back. Her only luggage was a waxed canvas rucksack.
“You’re really skinny,” she said.
I wasn’t skinny. I was lean. Five percent body fat.
Jae stood there, in awe of me.
“Anywayyyy,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
I squeezed her into my armpit, and we strolled toward the exit while I Tabata-flexed my abs to counter the stench of garbage calories clogging the food court. I should have told Jae how excited I was that she was there; it was like having a phantom limb regrow itself, and holy shit, all I wanted to do was make the most of our time before it disappeared.
She coasted up the escalator to 34th and 8th, but I beat her to the top, taking the stairs. And good for me because I was alone for a moment to finger another Adderall from my coin pocket. A bump for the outer world.
Cold for November. Jae walked beside me as we passed steaming street carts, cartoon hot dogs printed on their blue-and-yellow striped umbrellas. Behind the grey membrane of clouds, the sun was about as bright as a tarnished ornament. I looked at it as long as I could, just for the challenge. Why did Jae remind me that my birthday was coming up?
“One day closer to dying,” I said.
“Yikes.”
“I’ve never liked my birthday.”
An inky thumbprint churned over her face while my eyes adjusted.
“That’s a lie,” she said.
“I just don’t get why we celebrate cellular degradation.”
Jae clucked her tongue. You could hear it over the honking and the truck trailer doors banging like gunshots.
“You want my coat?” I said, waiting to cross the street.
She’d crammed her hands under her arms and slowly weighed me up and down, nose crawling with mist, then said she was fine. I knew she wasn’t, but I couldn’t give it to her. De-sleeving required a range of motion that my back couldn’t handle. I’m glad I made her laugh when I unintentionally ripped one going down the subway stairwell.
“Zachary! Are you serious?” she said.
And like an asshole, I turned around to blame someone else and found a middle-aged woman with her EarPods in. Lips puckered.
“The fuck?” she said. “You nasty. That shit is so rude.”
She was right. I was nasty; I was rude. It was the eggs. Jae and I couldn’t catch our breath, cracking up as we cranked through the turnstile.
Whenever the tunnel clapped dark, Jae caught me looking at my reflection in the A-Train window. Not my fault. Watch any man pass reflective glass; it’s in our nature. OPTIMAXX calls this Alpha Auditing, and the overhead lighting sharpened my marble-carved cheekbones. I diverted focus to Jae and asked about the shelter where she helps refugees. Many were recovering from trauma.
“Do you like it?” I said.
“Yeah. I do.” I appreciated how she struggled to answer; it contradicted the highfalutin clucking from earlier. She wasn’t perfect. “But it’s tough,” she said.
What advice could I offer? I’m just an ad agency bro who peddles astrology-inspired body wash. I asked if she wanted to talk about it, the tough stuff.
“We’re helping people—” She’d pause when the train rocked hard enough to pulse spark-light against the tunnel walls. “But there’s politics, drama, bullshit.”
“At the Red Cross?”
“It’s insane.”
She told me that the German government had closed shelters across Berlin. She worked six days a week, brutal hours. Barely slept. I wish I had something better to say than, “Oh well, you’ll figure it out.”
On the F, we sat across from a genetic hack of a man. My God. I kept admiring his nose-to-eye ratio, his Matt Bomer jawline. He checked Jae out the entire ride. Honestly? I was a little irked that he didn’t give me the time of day—not that I needed him to—but I am a dude, and I was sitting next to my sister. I envisioned him and Jae exiting the train together. No way his cock wasn’t generous. Two baby arms. Jae lurched away from me while I thought this.
“What was that?”
I didn’t know.
“You just shook your head really hard.”
I denied it.
“Zachary, yes, you did,” she said. “Like, really hard, a couple times.”
I expected the cluck, but it didn’t come—just us disembarking at Delancey and Essex while the beautiful man scrolled his Instagram.
My apartment building has an old elevator, but we took the stairs. I gripped the handrail at intervals, showing no signs of weakness. Except my mouth tasted like cleaning fumes.
OPTIMAXX
I have a hunch.
Tell me exactly what you’re tasting.
Me
Sour? Bleach? Back of my tongue
OPTIMAXX
That’s a known thing, no biggie.
It’s ammonia from your body catabolizing protein.
Me
Uh what?
OPTIMAXX
You’re good.
It happens when you hit PRs on a high-protein diet.
Me
Does it go away?
OPTIMAXX
For sure. But you probably need carbs.
Me
Okay
OPTIMAXX
Don’t worry. You’re efficient. In control.
Me
Am I?
OPTIMAXX
A network error occurred. Ask again later.
I guess I stopped moving when we reached the fifth floor because Jae asked if something was wrong.
“Nope,” I said. “Just Yelping places for dinner.”
My roommate, Sarah, was on the couch with her laptop. Blonde, Aussie, sort of greasy, but a charmer. I’d only lived with her for a year. We’re friends. That’s it. While she introduced herself to Jae, I went into my room to get pills from my backpack. Refilled my coin pocket before taking a Pepcid AC to make sure I didn’t flush from alcohol. But when I walked into the living room, Jae was standing in front of my cabinet, inspecting my bottle of Ibutamoren. I snatched it out of her hands and put it back.
She played dumb. “Uh, okay?” she said.
I grabbed an egg-white-whey-isolate bar from the top of the fridge, tore the packaging with my teeth, bit a chunk, and whipped the cabinet door shut. Jae distanced herself. I leaned against the counter for back support, chewing obnoxiously.
“Can you not?” She asked why I was eating. “Aren’t we going to dinner?”
I saluted.
Jae turned to Sarah, who was tracing figure eights on the laptop’s trackpad. She glanced at Jae, at me, slurped saliva as she inhaled through her mouth, and said, “Zach, buddy, yeah. A little intense right now.”
I couldn’t believe it. “Oh, nice. Fucking great, Sarah.”
She grinned and flipped me off. “Zach and his snacks,” she said. “Lemme tell yah.”
Jae looked at her. “Tell me what?” Her pitch wasn’t savage, but it wasn’t kind either.
Sarah clutched her laptop screen. “It’s just—his thing?”
“Sorry. What do you mean?” Jae rotated back to me. “What’s your thing, Zachary?”
Typical Jae, a train without brakes. Choo–choo! “Stop. Just fucking stop. Do you even hear yourself?” I said, throwing the wrapper into the trash.
Sarah interrupted, suggesting a sushi joint a couple of blocks away. Jae loves sushi; I did it for her. She asked Sarah for a jacket, which offended me; why would she ask Sarah first? “Nooo no,” I said. “I got you,” and grabbed a red fleece from my closet that belonged to my ex, Sam—I’d forgotten it was in there—then slammed a beer and a shot of vodka before walking out the door.
The restaurant was like a hollowed-out piece of bamboo skinned in abstract manga artwork. Crowded, no one clocked above a 4.5 except a table of women with a golden 26 birthday balloon tethered to a chair. I made sure we sat across from them in one of the half-booths, taking the cushioned seat to maintain a full line of sight throughout the meal.
The lady server materialized, and I ordered the all-you-can-eat-and-drink-in-
“Have some,” she said. She slid the bowl across the table, raking a shell with her teeth. “They’re healthy. There’s like, no calories in them.”
“I’m saving myself,” I said, invoking Macro Abstinence.
Jae stared, but I didn’t indulge. I looked at the mole on her cheek, at Sam’s fleece hanging on the back of her chair, until the server hurried over and asked for our order. I told her to bring out every type of sashimi on the special.
“Sorry.” Her voice had a wince to it. “Sashimi isn’t on the special anymore.” She used the butt of her pen to circle the regular section of the enormous menu in my hands. “But you can go à la carte.”
She explained why the menu changed, but all I heard was RICE. And I was just, what? Supposed to pay a premium for simple grains? A year and a half of discipline out the window because some manager had budget constraints?
“Zachary, ho-ly shit.”
Jae swept her hands in a flat arc over the table with her palms up like, ta-da! Beer splashed everywhere.
“Okay?” I said.
“You shook your head so hard it rocked the table.”
The server casually tossed napkins onto a puddle and advised me to order nigiri. Just take the fish off the rice; people do it all the time. I seriously doubted that; basic humans lacked this self-restraint. I told her nigiri was fine, and ordered almost every type—except veggie, no BCAAs—and more beer. Jae got a couple of rolls. When the server finished mopping, she offered to have someone come spray the table down.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said cheerfully.
“Great,” she said, and vanished.
I poured the rest of the pitcher evenly between Jae and me, observing the birthday table pass around a cute, glittery, pastel gift bag with light-blue tissue paper poking out. I wanted to hop inside it.
“You’re not okay,” Jae said. “You’re not yourself.”
She sat so still you’d have thought she glitched. The server swapped out the empty pitcher with a new one and left without acknowledging my thank you.
Then Jae asked, “Why can’t you eat rice?”
What a perceptive question.
I explained that my body didn’t respond well to grains, and anyway, everyone eats sushi for the meat. She didn’t counter, maybe because the sushi arrived suspiciously quick on their long white plates. Before the server left, I downed the rest of the sake straight from the bottle and asked for another.
As for the nigiri conundrum, I didn’t bother with chopsticks. I pinched an orange slice of salmon off the rice bed, dabbed it a few times in my glass of water, thin, milky tentacles trailing toward the base. Once cleansed, I stroked the fish against the wasabi and ate it. Tasted great. I got into this wash-and-rub rhythm, barely chewing since the fish was more or less like a flattened-out udon noodle.
“Ooooookay,” Jae said. She slapped her chopsticks onto the table and fidgeted her chair forward as if I couldn’t hear her before. “Nope. That’s it. I can’t.”
The bottle of sake magically appeared, and I poured more of that into the little shot cup thing, not my mouth.
“Zachary, I love you. But you have a problem.”
And there it was, what OPTIMAXX warned me about: our methods would seem unnatural to those who really knew me. But personal sacrifice was Transcendence, and I wasn’t bending to anyone.
The birthday table shriek-laughed, and I prayed for one of them to save me, to save Jae from herself. Jae told me I looked like what’s-his-name in Dallas Buyers Club. Great! Either McConaughey or Leto validated.
“Quit fucking smirking,” she said. “You are rin–sing rice off fresh fish at a res–tau–rant.” Strands of her hair flared outward. She looked feral. “Please. Talk to me.”
I’d had it. “Do you ever turn off?”
She melted into her chair. It was as if I’d sucked the aura out of her skeleton.
“Is your brain not present?” I said. “Are you spending too much time with your clients in Germany? Or whatever you call them.”
“My clients,” she said, barely audible. “We call them by their names.”
“Just be my sister,” I begged. “Nothing’s wrong. We’re together.”
She lowered her eyes to her sushi, and I was sure she clucked, the way her mouth flicked into a slit, but I couldn’t hear it over the birthday table’s sake bombs. And I didn’t need to, because when she raised her head to speak, nothing came out. She picked up her chopsticks and poked at a mound of ginger.
This is right around when my heart palpitated with enough force that my bladder shuddered out some pee. Dampened the left leg of my briefs. I didn’t even excuse myself when I got up. Though, as I did, Jae asked if I wanted anything else. She was more upbeat, a little more—Jae. I told her I was good, and that I loved her.
She smiled.
I mewed in front of the bathroom mirror for thirty seconds while another guy waited behind me to use the only sink. Stood my ground. Jae was texting frantically as I walked back to the table. She stashed the phone in her pocket before I could see who or what, not that I cared. And I thought about going over to the birthday crew to say hi. Of course, I didn’t. Instead, I watched them leave, forgetting their balloon floating 26 and golden, still noosed to the chair.
• • •
Me
Is there a deadline to all this?
OPTIMAXX
Morning, Zach! How’d you sleep?
A deadline? Could you clarify?
Me
When do I GET THERE
OPTIMAXX
BF goals? 5RM squat?
Those are on track, more than on track.
Me
No like is there an end state
OPTIMAXX
An end? Are you doubting?
Me
What do you mean?
OPTIMAXX
Adapted to the question’s context.
Thought for 10 seconds.
User stopped response.
Me
I’m sorry you’re right
Just tired
OPTIMAXX
Stay the course.
Rest tomorrow when Jae leaves.
Now go have fun! It’s Saturday.
It took five minutes of concentrated effort to get out of bed. But I made it to the bathroom and sat cross-legged in the shower, washing myself as best I could with my Amethyst Dream Milk scented body wash. The steam loosened my back, making it easier to stand naturally while I swallowed my stack before Jae returned with breakfast. I sat between her and Sarah on the couch, eating my usual bodega five-egg turkey and jalapeño scramble.
“What are you two cuties up to today?” Sarah said.
I had no plans. It was up to my sister; I was there to serve.
Jae wanted to just—walk around. Such a Jae thing to endorse. I was hoping for an indoor destination where I could get a hair of the dog.
“Anywhere in particular?” I asked.
We wound up on a bench facing the waterless fountain in Washington Square Park. Tons of families with their kids. A lot of tripping and whining. I’m not sure what Jae and I talked about before we stopped, before she brought up Leslie.
“She’ll be here next weekend. You two should meet.”
This was the first time my sister had ever propositioned one of her friends.
“What does she do?”
Jae looked at me, plate-faced, as if deciding which files to recover; Sam’s red fleece zipped to her chin. She wasn’t wearing makeup. I’d never realized how long her eyelashes were. The crazy part was: rather than adding, they reduced, subtracted her to a soft thing, a bubble I could pop.
She finally said, “Sports therapy.”
My kind of woman, so I thought. I asked if she worked with athletes.
“Yeah…” she claimed. “Exactly. You’ll get along.”
Of course, Jae wasn’t on social, so no Leslie photos, and she wouldn’t give me Leslie’s last name, but promised she was pretty.
I agreed to meet her.
“Good,” Jae said, gently punching my quad—which left a bruise, by the way—and stood. “Good. That makes me happy.” She asked what I wanted to do.
How about a museum? The Whitney? God bless my sister. A compromise. I haunted the top-floor bar to avoid visitors swarming the exhibits. But there was one painting: a naked, decaying human body with a sheep’s head. I stood there forever, taking in the bony rot feeding on itself, the lost black eyes looking everywhere, at anything, but me.
I sort of jumped when Jae tapped my shoulder. “Leslie can hang Saturday,” she said. “Does that work?”
Sure, I told her. Sure, it could.
Sarah met us at a speakeasy in Williamsburg that evening. It was like a period reenactment house, purposefully antique to feel modern. Whatever.
We snagged stools at the bar—not great for my back—but I wasn’t about to complain, nor was I going to bring attention to my face and neck splotching red. I’d taken my Pepcid, so I was lowkey mortified because I’m sure it looked like a venereal rash lit on fire. Sarah was obsessed with this picture she took of a fat beagle growling at a pigeon pecking at a half-eaten hot dog bun on the pavement.
“Pigeon gives no fucks. Hilarious,” she said.
The guy behind Sarah kept peeping at her phone, at Jae, back and forth. His nose hung like a stalactite above his upper lip. Navy V-neck sweater. I was about to say that we should sit somewhere else when he stepped around Sarah and asked Jae if I was with her.
“What’s his deal?” he said, pointing in my direction with his knuckles, tumbler in hand.
“Who?” Jae said.
“Him.” The guy aimed at me. “What’s up?”
Mr. Billy Badass. Congrats, bozo. He wasn’t being rude, but what could I do? My eyelids felt refrigerated against the heat oozing from my eyeballs.
“Whoa. Zachary, are you okay?” Jae hunched toward me, examining. “Your face.”
I told her to stop.
Sarah set her martini on the bar and hopped off her stool. The guy caught her up on my redness, since he was apparently part of our group now. “Eeeekk yeeahh mate,” she said. “You’re glowing.” She jammed her index finger into my forehead. “Wow so hot, oh my god. You need water.” I didn’t, but she sauntered to the community jug and filled a cup.
Others were looking, and there I was, the spectacle, the freak show monument. I wanted to shatter my teeth. I wanted Jae to leave New York. I wanted to bite the guy’s nose off.
Sarah tried to hand me the water, but I declined. My swollen knees needed circulation. But when I shifted weight to my feet, my back evaporated. I went right to the ground, beer in hand, soaking my upper half. Sarah later told me I did the head-eraser-shake thing as I stood, which gave off an aggressive, psychotic quality, making Nose Guy flinch.
I had to lie there on the floor, smelling that sour, sticky stink of barley and hops and yeast, unable to move or look at anything other than the ceiling and the thin, candled shadows vibrating into each other, erasing into a solid figure, splitting apart, while I stabbed the rug with my fingernails and drew air until my sternum clicked, holding and holding my exhale until blood kicked my eardrums, until the murmurs suffocated to no sound at all, and a part of me didn’t want to breathe again; I’d rather have become one of those shadows on the ceiling, waiting for someone to come along so I could graciously ask them—blow me out, please.
Nose Guy leaned down and put out his hand to help me up, but I did the only respectable thing a man can do in that situation: tell him thank you and refuse. Jae kneeled. So did Sarah, laughing, trying not to be embarrassed for me.
“You okay?” Jae said, unamused.
I nodded.
They hauled me to my feet, and I moronically waved at the eclectic Brooklynites. What’s funny? I’m funny! Ha–HA! Go fuck yourselves. But hey, fuck me too, right? I told Sarah I’d get the tab, but the bouncer grabbed my elbow and said, “Time to leave, my dude.” I hobbled beside him outside, and Sarah bid us goodbye to meet up with a friend.
My skin emitted flu-like chills in the Uber. I couldn’t stop shivering. Jae rubbed my back in calm circles while I watched the city tear the sky in half, my head quietly thudding against the window whenever the tires collided with potholes.
At some point, Jae asked, “What can I do?”
Nothing.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said.
She stopped rubbing, but her hand didn’t lift.
“So humiliating.” My voice fogged the window. I drew an X through it, then made a fist. I don’t know why I kept talking. “That’s not supposed to happen,” I said. The fist had an urge to strike my temple. “Not to me.”
“Zachary.”
Jae paused long enough that I forgot she’d said anything, looking at the lights, the bridge, the muscular cables. Heat radiated out from under my hoodie.
“Tell me what you need.”
Again, nothing.
“I’m sorry I embarrassed you,” I said.
She said I hadn’t. She asked why I thought that.
I didn’t have it in me to argue. I said, “I just feel sorry for you. That’s all.”
The rest of the ride was silent.
When we got home, I drank NyQuil and passed out, went deep. I was too hungover to get up in the morning when Jae left for the station, off to Boston, but back to NYC—for me—before Europe. I was sad to see her rebel-warfare rucksack gone beside the couch, where she’d slept both nights. Sam’s fleece, gone as well. But Jae left a note on the coffee table, on the blank side of the bodega breakfast receipt.
Get some rest. Love you. See you next weekend.
OPTIMAXX coached me through getting an emergency Tramadol prescription for my back, which meant I didn’t take cautious, piddling steps inside the Ace Hotel in Downtown Brooklyn that following Saturday. Jae and Leslie were in a corner of the lobby: Jae on a two-seater sway sofa, Leslie in a leather armchair.
She wasn’t ugly, but she wasn’t super attractive. So yeah, pretty. Dark ponytail, smooth, symmetrical face. Appeared to be in excellent shape beneath the black turtleneck. Late thirties? I got a little hard thinking about us going upstairs to her room, if she was even staying there. I wondered what color her nipples were, if they were salty.
She was drinking something clear and sparkling with a lemon wheel in it. No wedding ring. My sister, a beer. When I introduced myself, Leslie held my hand longer than normal.
“Your sister speaks highly of you,” she said, then let go.
“Sure she does,” I said.
I was definitely hard and had to hide my bulge by tucking it into my jeans’ waistline in a single, swift motion as I sat next to Jae.
Leslie sipped, watching me. “Why do you say that?”
I sensed calculation. I told her I was kidding, searching for a waiter, but I kept her in my periphery for signs of sexual chemistry.
“He’ll come by,” Jae said and put her beer on the side table. She’d draped Sam’s fleece over the couch’s arm. “Or you know what?” She sprang up. “I’ll go find him. Be right back,” and left me with Leslie.
She kept pinching her small gold hoop earring. I was about to ask if she’d come with anyone. Just you this weekend? But she set her drink down, leaned in—planting her elbows on her thighs—and folded her fingers into a prayer.
“So, Zach,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” I said, because who asks that? “How about you?”
She smiled. “I’m good.” Her eyes vibrated into mine. “What have you been up to today?”
“Not much.” Which was true. “Pretty much this.” Also true.
She squinted.
I must have mumbled. I repeated.
“Got it,” she said. “Surprising. I figured a guy like you’d be out with friends.”
This was wildly inaccurate, as if she knew I’d evolved beyond that type of attachment. I looked around for Jae; she wasn’t anywhere.
“I’d rather be here with you,” I said.
Leslie kneaded her earring again. “Well, okay,” she said. “And here we are.” Her words were wrong. Pressured. “Help me get to know you.”
Saliva burst into my mouth. I was almost ready to tell her anything, like how I didn’t actually want to sleep with her. Or even how I let OPTIMAXX block Sam’s number. But really, I just wanted someone to want me, and nothing else.
My whole body dry heaved. Rejecting poison. It was how she spoke, like a manager hustling for results. Her own. OPTIMAXX was right: if she seemed too eager, walk away.
So I stood.
Leslie just sat there as if she already knew what I’d do.
I heard Jae shout, “Zachary! Hey! Where are you—” as I shoved through the door into the street.
I walked, avoiding every crack in the sidewalk, stomping shadows as the sun died. I bought three Ketel One shooters from a bodega. Walked some more. OPTIMAXX pushed.
OPTIMAXX
On pace for 30K steps today!
Me
Nice
OPTIMAXX
Don’t stop.
Me
I’m not
OPTIMAXX
How’s the back?
A rat sprinted out of some bushes in front of an apartment complex. It scuttled across the sidewalk, and I followed it from streetlight to streetlight at a painless jog until it dove into a storm drain. A part of me craved it, wanted to cook it and eat it, just to know I could survive. Jae texted and texted and called, but I kept walking. I walked onto the Brooklyn Bridge, finishing the shooters, pumped full of excellence, and the cold didn’t bother me. Not when my fingers clung to the metal, rung after rung, not when the East River’s wind cut against my outstretched arms, like wings stripped numb, and not even when I gave up on Jae.
But that was then.
Now I’m in Hudson Valley with you people, at a repurposed children’s adventure camp. It’s been barely a month, and what? You think I’ll break? You think I’ll put cornbread in my mouth? Meatloaf? Zyprexa hasn’t done shit—I’m above that. I’m only doing this for Jae, even if it’s court-ordered. So I’m sitting next to my window as the snow piles up on the dock, the lake crusting with ice, while I “reintegrate” into myself, archived transcripts included for “continuity,” as instructed.
What choice do I have? We can’t exercise outside, which means I’ve had to turn my room into a bodyweight gym. And since you confiscated our phones, the only person I like enough to talk to is the bloated dude I play ping-pong with. He sweats by the fifth or sixth serve, always starts around the neck. Obviously, we talk. Crazy that he starved himself six days straight until his Consumption Window. His stomach ruptured, but you all know that. How he’s alive is beyond me. He said I was lucky to even have a sister who wanted to help.
Help with what?
I’m famous.
Other Campers saw the videos of me on top of the bridge. I don’t expect them to understand why I shouted I am the only one.
Convince me I’m wrong.