Turn 7 of 19

Physical change nearly complete: mature face, heavy breasts, thick hips, glossy blonde waves. Even in flats I moved differently. My boyfriend watched me walk across the apartment. “Seriously, what’s going on with you?” I swallowed hard. “Nothing. I swear.” The lie tasted bitter.

Marcus is sitting on the couch when I come out of the bathroom, and I feel his eyes on me before I see him. I'm wearing flats — the only shoes that still fit — and still I move differently. My hips swing with a logic I didn't program, each step landing with a confidence that starts in my lower back and rolls forward. I feel the weight of my body redistributing with every stride, the fullness of my thighs brushing together, the bounce of my chest against the ivory top I slept in. My hair falls in glossy dark-blonde waves past my shoulders, and even unwashed it looks styled, looks expensive, looks like it belongs to a woman who pays someone to maintain it.

"Seriously, what's going on with you?" His voice has an edge I haven't heard before. Not anger — something more fragile. He's sitting forward with his elbows on his knees, his phone forgotten in his hand, and he's watching me cross the apartment like I'm a stranger who broke in through his window. I realize with a sick lurch that this is the first time he's seen me in full light since the face changed. The cheekbones. The fuller lips. The polished skin and the sharpened jaw. I watch him catalog each difference and I watch him fail to reconcile any of it with the girl he started dating a year ago.

"Nothing. I swear." The lie tastes like copper on my tongue. It tastes like the inside of the bag, leather and gold and something older than both. I swallow and feel my throat move differently — longer, more elegant, the swallow itself a motion Vivian used to make when she was holding something back. Marcus stares at me for a long beat, and I can see the argument building behind his eyes, the case he's assembling: the clothes, the body, the face, the voice, all of it evidence, all of it wrong. But he doesn't push. He picks up his phone again and scrolls with his thumb, and the silence between us fills with something worse than fighting. It fills with the sound of him giving up on asking.

I make it to the bookstore by nine. Dana is already at the register, and when I walk in she stops mid-sentence. Her mouth stays open for a full two seconds. Then she closes it, opens it again, and says, "New haircut?" It's not a haircut. We both know it's not a haircut. But I nod, and she nods, and we let the lie stand between us like a bridge neither of us wants to test. I hang the cardigan on the hook behind the counter and don't put it back on. The strapless top is visible now, the black skirt, the whole dramatic truth of this body on display. A man browsing the philosophy section looks up when I pass and keeps looking, his book lowered, his eyes tracking me the way eyes track a flame.

My phone buzzes at 11:14. The unknown number. I stare at the screen for a long time before I open it. The message reads: *You're wearing the ivory today. She always loved that one on a Thursday.* Below it, a second text: *Marcus doesn't see it yet. But he will. They always do, eventually. Tonight — Bistro Margot. 7:30. I've taken care of everything.* The bag pulses warm against my hip, and my reflection in the darkened computer screen shows a woman who is smiling.