Turn 22 of 228

Ask her what she really wants to say. Really listen to response. After contemplating, tell her this is who I am now, all of it. No changes. Frankly I will be even more of slob the next time you see me.

Lena leans back in the booth, the wood pressing into her bare back, her belly spreading across her thighs. She can feel the seat beneath her — warm from her body, sticky where her skin has been pressed against it — and she watches Diane's face cycle through something she can't quite map. The barista hasn't moved. The woman with the laptop has closed it and is watching them openly. Lena doesn't care. She looks at Diane across the small table and says, "What do you really want to say, Diane? Not the version you'd say in the building. Not the manager version. The real one."

Diane's hands are flat on the table. Her fingers press into the wood and her jaw works once, twice, and then she exhales through her nose.

"I've been watching you for two weeks," she says. "I've watched you walk into the office in less and less. I've watched you — I can smell you from across the room, Lena. I've watched you fart in meetings and burp at your desk and not acknowledge any of it. I've watched your body change. You were — you were a different person two weeks ago. And I keep telling myself it's none of my business. I keep telling myself that your work is good and that's what matters. But I can't stop thinking about it."

She pauses. Her eyes drop to the table and then come back up.

"I'm not here as your manager. I could have written you up ten times by now. I didn't, because — " She stops. Her throat moves.

"Because I don't think you're falling apart. I think you're doing something deliberate. And I want to understand what it is. I want to understand why you walked out of that building naked today and why you're sitting in this coffee shop naked right now and why you look like you haven't showered since last week and why you seem — calm. You seem calm in a way you never were before."

Lena listens. She doesn't interrupt. She feels the words land one at a time, each one pressing into her like a thumb into soft dough. She watches Diane's face and sees the effort it's taking — the way her composure is holding but barely, the way her eyes are too bright, the way her hands haven't moved from the table because she doesn't know what else to do with them. The booth is quiet around them. The barista has turned away. The woman with the laptop is gone. Lena feels the silence stretch and fill the space between them and she lets it.

"This is who I am now," Lena says. Her voice is steady. She doesn't soften it.

"All of it. The weight. The hair. The smell. The — all of it. I'm not falling apart. You're right about that. I'm the most together I've ever been. I made a wish, Diane. I wished to feel comfortable in my body for once in my life, and this is what comfortable looks like on me." She pauses and feels the truth of it in her chest, solid and warm.

"I'm not going to change. I'm not going to shower more. I'm not going to dress differently. Frankly, the next time you see me I'm going to be worse. Fatter. Lazier. More of everything you're looking at right now and trying to understand. This isn't a phase. This isn't a breakdown. This is just me."

Diane stares at her. Her lips part and close and part again. She doesn't speak for a long time. The espresso machine hisses behind the counter and the afternoon light slants through the window and catches Lena's body — every curve, every fold, every crumb — and Diane looks at all of it and doesn't look away.