Turn 5 of 19

Curves kept blooming—ass higher, waist smaller, thighs thicker. Makeup I never wore stayed perfect. At dinner he reached across the table. “You’re different lately.” I pulled my hand back. “I’m just tired.” Inside I was screaming. The bag rested against my hip like a secret I couldn’t stop carrying.

The restaurant is one of Marcus's picks — a pasta place on Clark Street with checkered tablecloths and a wine list printed on a chalkboard that hasn't been updated since June. Six months ago this was exactly my speed. Now the overhead lighting feels too bright, the portions too large, the couples at surrounding tables too young and earnest in a way that makes my teeth ache. I sit across from Marcus with the bag on the empty chair beside me, its chain strap coiled like a sleeping snake, and I feel the warm press of it against my hip even through the table's edge.

My thighs touch under the tablecloth. They didn't used to — there was always a gap, a small triangle of empty space I never thought about until it disappeared. Now they press together, fuller, softer, the fabric of my jeans stretching across them in a way that makes me hyperaware of every movement. My ass sits higher in the chair, lifted and round, and when I shifted to cross my legs a few minutes ago the whole balance of my body felt wrong. Different. Like I'm piloting someone else's frame. The makeup I applied at 6 PM — mascara, a tinted balm, a sweep of something shimmery across my eyelids that I don't remember buying — hasn't faded. Not at all. It looks freshly applied, as if my skin is somehow maintaining it, feeding it.

"You're different lately," Marcus says, and his hand crosses the table toward mine. His fingers brush my knuckles. I pull away before I can stop myself — a reflex, fast and sharp, and the hurt on his face is immediate. He's twenty-six and earnest and he loves me in a way that feels like a hand around my ankle. I watch him try to recover, try to rearrange his expression into something casual.

"I'm just tired," I say, and the smoky register of my voice makes the lie sound elegant. Practiced. Like something Vivian would have said to a man she was finished with.

Inside I am screaming. The voice in my head is thin and high and twenty-four years old and it is banging on the walls of a body that no longer belongs to it. But underneath that voice there's another one — quieter, calmer, absurdly rational — and it says: *You look incredible. You've never looked like this. Why would you stop?* I hate that voice. I hate that it sounds like me. I hate that it sounds like her.

The bag rests against my hip like a secret I can't stop carrying. When the waiter comes to clear our plates I catch him looking — not at my face, not at the bag, but at the line of my waist where my shirt pulls in and the flare of my hips where the chair can't hide them. He looks away quickly. Marcus doesn't notice. Marcus is talking about his sister's wedding colors. I nod and sip wine I didn't order and feel the leather grow warmer against my side, as if the bag is digesting something, as if it is well fed.

My phone buzzes in the bag's interior pocket. I don't check it. I already know.