21
Coming Clean
Ho‘ohuli
To cause or induce change.
I washed the last of the mud off my body, sending it swirling down the drain with the soap bubbles and shampoo.
I was warm clear to my core, the heat from the shower seeping through my pores to stoke an internal flame I didn’t know needed fuel. I’d never been this warm before, not even sitting on the beach in the sun.
Is this what it’s like to have a fever?
I watched my skin turn pink and red in the hot water, the steam rising like smoke from a campfire or Pele’s breath from a lava vent.
The skin on my shoulders, back, and chest felt tight and swollen. My body felt plump, like a too-ripe mango falling from the tree. The buzzing in my blood and brain was low and steady, a low-voltage echo of the electricity that had snapped along m
