Lara
There are three nights in my life where I didn’t get a single wink of sleep. Not even late-night shifts or being overworked came close.
The first? The night I ran from my pack.
I couldn’t sleep—partly because I had nowhere to sleep, and partly because I’d just learned the hard way that you don’t squat anywhere in a human city. That earned me a $20 fine. I only had $40 to begin with, so losing half over a patch of concrete felt like punishment on top of punishment. And then I heard how common theft was in Newark, so I spent the rest of the night guarding my last twenty bucks like it was sacred. That night, I didn’t even blink.
The second was the day after. I met a nice girl who offered me a spot to sleep in a café, in exchange for guarding the place from break-ins. Becky. She was p
