Turn 8 of 233
Wake up and weigh myself again. My weigh increases to 167 and I am still 6'3". Get ready for work the same way as yesterday. If anything, i put on something even tighter. At work, HR calls me in for my behaviour yesterday. Its unacceptable to them
Lena wakes to the smell of herself and the stale sweetness of sticky rice on the sheets. She lies still for a moment, feeling her body against the mattress — the full heaviness of her belly pressing into the sheets, the warmth of her thighs stacked together, the slight ache in her muscles from last night's exercises still humming beneath the softness. She stretches and her back pops twice, and something in the movement feels bigger than it used to, her arms reaching farther from her center than they should. She smiles at the ceiling without thinking about it.
She pads to the bathroom barefoot, stepping over the jeans still crumpled on the floor from two days ago, and steps on the scale. The numbers blink and settle: 167. Two pounds since yesterday. She stares at the readout and the warmth blooms in her stomach, quiet and certain. Fifteen pounds, then two more, climbing steadily toward something she can't see the end of and doesn't want to. She is six feet three inches tall and she weighs one hundred and sixty-seven pounds and her body is softer and rounder and stronger than it has ever been. She steps off the scale and doesn't look back.
The kitchen is quick today — four eggs scrambled with cheese, three slices of toast with butter and peanut butter, a glass of whole milk. She eats standing at the counter in nothing but her skin, letting out a long burp halfway through that bounces off the tile and makes her laugh. She doesn't shower. She doesn't brush her teeth. She runs her fingers through her tangled hair, gives up, and leaves it. The drawer she emptied yesterday is still empty. She goes to the closet and finds the one shirt she has been saving — a fitted crew-neck she bought years ago that was always too snug even then, back when she was lean and trying to look smaller. She pulls it over her head and it grips her breasts like a fist, the fabric stretched so thin across them that the outline of her nipples is visible through the cotton. The hem doesn't reach her waistband. It stops short, exposing the full soft curve of her lower belly. She finds her second pair of jeans — the tighter ones, the ones she kept at the back of the closet — and works them up her thighs with both hands, hopping and pulling, the denim screaming over her hips. She buttons them on the third try, sucking in, and the waistband cuts so deep into her midsection that her belly spills over the top in a soft, rounded crease. She looks in the mirror and the shirt looks painted on, every curve and swell of her body visible through the strained fabric, and she runs her palms over her sides and feels the tightness like a reward.
The walk to work is shorter today. She doesn't take the long route — not because she doesn't want to, but because something in her body is moving faster, her stride longer, her legs carrying their new weight with an ease that surprises her. Her bare feet slap the sidewalk with a rhythm that feels like confidence. People glance. A man in a suit does a double-take at her feet, then at the strip of belly between her shirt and jeans, then quickly away. Lena doesn't care. She pushes through the office doors twenty minutes early for the first time in months.
She is at her desk for less than an hour when the email arrives. From Priya. Subject line: Meeting Request — Conduct Review. The body of the email is brief and formal: Please report to HR Conference Room 3 at 10:30 AM today. No explanation. No context. Lena reads it twice and feels something tighten in her chest that isn't the wish's warmth — it's older, sharper, the familiar clench of being called to the principal's office. She knows what this is about. She felt the eyes yesterday — Derek's double-take, Priya's unreadable look in the lobby, the creak of a chair when she burped at her desk. She closes the email and looks at the clock. 10:14. She has sixteen minutes.
The walk to Conference Room 3 is long. The carpet is rough under her bare feet and she can feel every fiber, every seam, and she is suddenly aware of how she must look — unwashed hair, dirty feet, a shirt that outlines every inch of her changed body, jeans unbuttoned at the top because she couldn't keep them fastened while sitting. Priya is already inside, seated at the narrow table with a manila folder in front of her. She looks up as Lena enters and her expression is carefully neutral, the kind of neutral that has been practiced.
"Close the door, Lena. Have a seat."