Turn 48 of 228

Post about the movie night on OnlyFans and weigh myself before I start gaming. The friendship with Diane is still platonic. The next movie is a comedy. Both of you love it.

Lena sets the bags on the kitchen counter and opens the phone and the screen is bright in the dark apartment and she opens OnlyFans and types. The words come fast tonight — faster than the text to Diane, faster than the work emails, faster than anything she's typed in weeks. *Went to the movies again tonight. Second Saturday. Same theater, same back row, same me — 274 pounds, naked, twelve days unwashed. My manager brought me popcorn and I ate it and the butter ran down my belly and I didn't wipe it off. We watched an action film and she told me she picked a documentary last week on purpose. She said she wanted something slow for our first time. She said she has layers. We walked to the bodega after and she walked me home. Not because I needed help with the bags.* She stops typing. Reads it. Adds: *I have a friend. I think that's what this is. I've never had one who didn't want something from me. She doesn't want anything. She just shows up.* She attaches a photo — the bathroom mirror, full body, butter streaked across her belly and thighs, the stubble dark on her jaw and legs, the yellow teeth, the mess — and posts it. The comments arrive in minutes. *the way you describe her is making me emotional*, *you said friend like you just discovered the word*, *274 and going to the movies naked with your manager i genuinely don't know if you're the freest person alive or the most unmoored.* The subscriber count reads 238.

She carries the phone to the bathroom and steps on the scale and the display flickers and the number settles: 274. Same as Monday. She steps off and steps on again. 274. The wish hums beneath her ribs but the number holds. She looks at herself in the mirror — the butter, the mess, the body that hasn't changed in six days — and for the first time in weeks the number isn't climbing and she feels something she doesn't expect: impatience. A flicker, small and hot, somewhere below her sternum. *More.* She hears it and doesn't argue with it and doesn't feed it either. She just stands there and the scale reads 274 and the wish hums and the night is long.

The week passes the way the weeks pass now — fast, clean, the work done before anyone else has finished their coffee. Monday she clears her queue by nine-thirty and the quality is exceptional and she spends the afternoon naked on the office carpet eating and recording and the subscriber count climbs to 247. Tuesday she finishes by ten and reads the office-locker message again — *I keep watching your video and thinking about staying* — and doesn't reply. Wednesday she finishes by nine-forty-five and the Henderson account sends a third request for direct consultation and Diane denies it again and forwards the denial to Lena with a note: *They're getting persistent. I'll handle it.* Thursday she finishes by ten and texts Diane: *Coffee?* and Diane says *Marlow's. Noon.* and they sit in the coffee shop and Diane says, "I picked the film for next Saturday. It's a comedy." Lena says, "A comedy." Diane says, "You don't like comedies?" Lena says, "I don't know if I like anything. I haven't tried liking things in a while." Diane looks at her and says, "Then this will be an experiment." And Lena almost smiles and doesn't and picks up her coffee and it's gone cold and she drinks it anyway.

Saturday comes and Lena walks to the Charleswood the same way — barefoot, naked, 274 pounds, twelve days unwashed, butter long since absorbed into the mess on her skin — and Diane is at the entrance in her leather jacket and she hands Lena a ticket and they walk in and the back row is empty and the aisle seat waits and Lena sits and the seat holds her. The comedy starts and it's loud and stupid and the jokes are broad and the physical humor is enormous and Lena watches it the way she watches everything now — still, quiet, her belly in her lap, her thighs spread across the seat — and then something happens. A scene where a man falls down a staircase and keeps falling and the music cuts and it's just the sound of him tumbling and grunting and Lena feels something move through her that starts in her chest and reaches her face and her mouth opens and she laughs. Not a big laugh — a short, surprised sound, almost a bark — and Diane hears it and turns and looks at her and Lena is laughing and she can't stop it and the man keeps falling and the sound keeps coming out of her and Diane starts laughing too, not at the screen but at Lena, at the sound Lena is making, at the fact that Lena is surprised by it.

They laugh through the rest of the film. Not constantly — the comedy is uneven, some bits flat, some obviously scripted — but when it lands it lands and Lena laughs and every time she laughs her belly shakes and the seat creaks and the sound fills the dark theater and Diane laughs beside her and their laughter doesn't match — Lena's is low and rough from the vodka and the smoke and Diane's is quick and clean — and it doesn't matter. The film ends and the lights come up and they walk out and the lobby is full of people and Lena is naked and 274 pounds and her face is still warm from laughing and Diane says, "You laughed." Lena says, "I laughed." Diane says, "When's the last time that happened?" Lena thinks about it. She thinks hard. She says, "I don't know. Before the wish." Diane says, "Before the wish." They stand on the sidewalk outside the Charleswood and the night is cool and Lena says, "You picked a comedy because you wanted to hear me laugh." Diane puts her hands in her jacket pockets and looks at the marquee and says, "I picked a comedy because I wanted to see what your face does when you're not thinking about it." Lena looks at her and the streetlight catches them both and the marquee glows behind them and the word sits between them again — *now* — and it means the same thing it meant last week and it means more.