Turn 10 of 28
Priya replies she is available Friday. Continue the same cycle until then. On Friday, meet Priya in a very small crop top and a tiny low rise booty shorts, showing off her fat, hairy, disgusting body that is even bigger. Don't bother to shower or clean up, Priya deserves to see the real her.
The days fold into each other. Tuesday is dimpled thighs and a pizza box balanced on her belly, Wednesday is a pasta delivery and two bottles of wine and a fart so long it makes her laugh out loud alone in the apartment. She eats on the couch, sleeps on the couch, wakes and eats again. Her body expands in increments she can feel — the way her hips press harder against the armrests, the way her belly rests heavier on her thighs when she sits forward, the way her breasts have spread wider across her chest. She doesn't shower. She doesn't shave. The hair under her arms has grown thick and dark, curling slightly, and the hair on her legs is visible from across the room. Her body odor has deepened into something dense and layered — sweat, old food, the sharp ammoniac note of the soaked blanket she hasn't replaced. She breathes it in and feels the warmth pulse. Thursday she orders Thai food and a cheesecake and drinks an entire bottle of whiskey, and when she passes out her body releases a symphony of farts and belches into the empty apartment that lasts until morning.
Friday morning she wakes to Priya's message: "friday!! perfect. that coffee place on elm st, 2pm? i haven't seen you in forever i'm so excited." Lena reads it with sleep still crusted in her eyes and something old and nervous stirs in her chest. She types back: "see you there." She stares at the screen for a long time after sending it.
She stands in front of the full-length mirror and the reflection is unrecognizable from the woman who made the wish. Her belly hangs low and round, spilling over her pubic bone, stretch marks visible along the sides where the skin has stretched to accommodate the growth. Her thighs are thick and soft, pressing together from hip to knee. Her arms are heavy, her back broad, her face round and full. The hair on her body is everywhere — legs, arms, underarms, the dark trail below her navel. She smells herself and the warmth pulses. She pulls open her dresser and digs past the clothes that haven't fit in weeks, looking for something. At the very bottom she finds a crop top she bought on a whim two summers ago and never had the confidence to wear. It was tight then. Now it barely covers her breasts, the fabric stretched so thin across her chest that the shape of her nipples is visible, the hem riding up over the upper curve of her belly. She finds a pair of low-rise shorts that sit below the round of her stomach, the waistband cutting into the soft flesh of her hips, the legs riding up between her thighs. Everything spills out — belly, sides, the soft lower curve of her back, the hair on her legs and under her arms fully visible.
She takes the bus to Elm Street smelling like a week of accumulated sweat and food and bodily release, the crop top stretched to its limit, her belly hanging bare and round beneath the hem. People glance and look away. She doesn't flinch. The warmth carries her forward. She walks into the coffee shop at 1:56 and Priya is already at a corner table, and Priya's face when she looks up moves through surprise and something else — something warm and curious — before it settles into a smile.
"Lena? Oh my god." Priya stands, and Lena can see her taking it all in — the body, the hair, the smell that arrives before Lena even reaches the table — and Priya doesn't step back.
"You look — wow. You look really good." And she says it like she means it.