Across Lagos, Los Angeles, Texas, Miami, and the uneasy territories in between, nine lives collide with the promises and distortions of becoming someone new. Artificially Flavored Layers is an intimate collection of diaspora stories about longing and reinvention, the masks we wear, and the stubborn pieces of ourselves that refuse to be left behind. A wife follows a misdirected text to another woman's home. An immigrant discovers that accents and credentials do not cross borders as easily as people. Lovers test old rules against new freedoms, while those in the diaspora confront the selves they have carried, questioned, and rebuilt. Artificially Flavored Layers is about what we bear - and what refuses, stubbornly, to be covered. We explore stories of Nigerians in Los Angeles, Miami, and Texas building new lives in America - new names, new hurts, new dreams. How much of oneself can you trade before you disappear? When did growing up stop feeling like an adventure and start feeling like a series of small amputations? In America, everything comes flavored - the food, the names, the accents, the smiles, even love. In these nine stories, Nigerians remake their lives layer by layer: careers rebuilt, marriages renegotiated, hopes translated into a new language. Yet beneath every borrowed layer, the original self keeps asking to be heard. What do we keep, what do we cover, and who are we when the flavors wear off? The answers are explored inside these pages.