Turn 12 of 28

Tell Priya about the lottery money

Lena sets down her fork, a smear of chocolate frosting on her lower lip, and looks at Priya across the table. The coffee shop noise fills the pause between them — cups clinking, the grinder whirring behind the counter, someone laughing near the window. Priya is leaning forward slightly, elbows on the table, her dark eyes still holding that careful, curious intensity.

"There's something else," Lena says. She picks up the fork again, pushes it through the remaining cake, and takes another bite before continuing.

"Something that happened Monday morning."

She tells her about the lottery ticket bought on a whim three weeks ago, forgotten in her wallet. The emails from the state lottery commission. The number that was so large it stopped feeling like money. Ten billion dollars. She says it plainly, the way she said everything else, without performance or embellishment. She tells Priya she quit her job by email from the couch, naked, covered in crumbs. She tells her the money doesn't feel real yet, that she's been spending it on food deliveries and alcohol without looking at the totals because looking at the totals would mean engaging with a reality she hasn't fully processed.

Priya stares at her. Her latte sits forgotten, cooling between her palms. For the first time since Lena sat down, something breaks through Priya's careful composure — not shock exactly, but a kind of stunned recalibration, her mouth slightly open, her eyes moving across Lena's face as though searching for the punchline.

"Ten billion," Priya repeats. The number sounds different in her voice — heavier, more absurd, more real.

"Ten billion," Lena confirms. She takes the last bite of cake and licks the fork clean.

"I haven't told anyone. You're the first person I've said it to out loud." She sets the fork down on the empty plate and leans back in her chair, which protests softly beneath her. Her belly pushes forward, round and bare, the crop top stretched to its limit across her chest. She can feel Priya processing — the wish, the transformation, and now this, the impossible financial freedom that means Lena never has to answer to anyone again, never has to fit into a workplace or a dress code or an expectation.

Priya exhales slowly and sits back in her own chair. She looks at Lena — really looks, taking in the unwashed hair and the visible body hair and the smell and the belly and the stained crop top and the shorts cutting into her hips — and her expression settles into something complicated and unguarded.

"So you have unlimited money, your body is transforming because of a magic wish, and you just... decided to show up here looking like this." She gestures at Lena with one hand, a small, almost helpless motion.

"You deserved to see the real me," Lena says. She means it. The warmth pulses beneath her skin, steady and approving, and she catches Priya's eyes lingering on the round slope of her belly for a moment longer than politeness would normally allow.