Stories that
become technology.

Confessions

If I could bottle up the quintessence of life, I would have a plastic cup of matcha. They say in Japan, the people who drink it die at one-hundred nineteen. But it's more than an elixir of life. I'd swear I wasn't an addict, but my eyes are bloodshot, saturated with emerald green, not red. Matcha runs in my veins. It tastes like the vegetables I despised eating as a child. It reminds me of the grass I tore from the earth with my tiny toddler hands. Matcha resembles the moss that climbs up the pebbles and pine tree roots in the forest. It's a drug, but I'm less captivated by its taste. I'm utterly intoxicated by the side-effects.

In June, in the midst of bustling crowds, canary yellow taxis, and the towering skyscrapers of New York City, a small café sits tucked into the corner of 1158 Broadway Street. Cha Cha Matcha is painted on the glass windows, in big, green letters. Square tiles and pink menus decorate the walls like art. My friend, Natalie, and I sit at a circular, marble table, cradling matching matcha iced chais. Between sips, she tells me her parents had an arranged marriage, then divorced eleven years later. She admits to wishing she could stay with her brother in his apartment in San Francisco. She says her dad hits her.

In August, my friend Isabelle and I sit in Ceremony, a cozy café on Thayer Street, a seven minute walk from Brown University. Rays of sunlight spill from the windows behind me, illuminating her golden hair. While drinking an iced matcha latte, she tells me that on the fourth of July, she climbed a tree with Liam to watch the fireworks, colorful gunshots that tore holes into the night's black canvas. She laughs, says he was kind but strange, obsessed with flashlights. The song Come a Little Closer by Cage the Elephant played on his JBL speaker when they kissed. She whispers that he hid weed in his flashlights.

Later, my dad watches the highway as we drive back to Boston for a three day weekend in September, the seat heaters cranked all the way up. I grip my Starbucks Grande Iced Matcha Latte with less ice in my hand. The sticker reads, "Oliva." The windows are rolled down and the wind ruffles my hair. My dad suddenly turns to me, like he's about to share a secret. "Olivia," he says, "I'm proud of you." I hear him over the noise of ice clinking in my cup and the hum of tires on the highway. His eyes are misty, much like the condensation fogging my cup. His words carry a colossal weight—a whole history of him watching, worrying, and silently supporting me.