Turn 49 of 228

While walking to the bodega together, ask Diane what her face does when she's not thinking about it. Weight myself at home before settling in to game. It reads 288

They walk east on Garfield and the night is cool and the streetlights catch Lena's body — the belly, the breasts, the mess layered twelve days deep, the stubble grown soft and dark on her legs and jaw — and she doesn't think about the people in the cars or the couple on the bench who watch her the full length of the block. She thinks about Diane's face in the theater, the quick clean laugh, the way her mouth moved when she said *what your face does when you're not thinking about it.* Three blocks from the Charleswood Lena says, "What does your face do when you're not thinking about it?"

Diane keeps walking. Her boots are steady on the concrete and her hands stay in her jacket pockets and she doesn't look at Lena. The silence stretches for half a block — past the laundromat, past the closed barbershop, past the fire hydrant with the chipped yellow paint. Then she says, "I don't know. I haven't not thought about it in years." Lena says, "That's not an answer." Diane says, "It's the honest one. I think about my face the way you used to think about your body. What it's doing, what it's telling people, whether it's saying the right thing. I manage my face the way I manage quarterly reports. I didn't realize that until you asked."

They walk another block. The bodega's fluorescent glow is visible a block ahead, spilling out onto the sidewalk like a headlight. Lena says, "So you picked a comedy because you wanted to see my face when I wasn't managing it. But you've never seen your own face when you weren't managing it." Diane is quiet for a long moment. A bus passes and its brakes hiss and the wind moves across them both and Lena feels it on the mess on her skin — the butter from last week gone, replaced by twelve days of sweat and grease and the faint sour edge of unwashed hair. Diane says, "No. I haven't. I think I was hoping that watching you might show me what it looks like. Like borrowing it for a second."

They reach the bodega and Lena pushes the door open and the bell rings and the clerk looks up and looks down and Diane follows her in and stands near the door the way she always stands — hands in pockets, watching Lena move through the aisles. Lena fills a basket. Chips, cookies, vodka, soda, jerky, donuts. She sets it on the counter and the clerk scans everything and says, "Have a good night," and Lena says, "You too," and they walk back outside. Diane walks her the four blocks home and doesn't speak and doesn't need to and at the apartment building Lena turns and says, "Next Saturday." Diane says, "Next Saturday. I'll pick something." Lena says, "You always pick something." Diane nods once and walks east and the leather jacket catches the streetlight and then she's gone.

Lena goes inside and the elevator takes her up and the apartment is dark and the console is waiting and the bags are heavy in her arms and she sets them on the counter and goes to the bathroom and steps on the scale. The display flickers. The number climbs — 270, 278, 282 — and keeps climbing and Lena watches it and the wish surges beneath her ribs, hot and sudden, a thing that has been patient for six days and is patient no longer. The number settles: 288. Fourteen pounds in a week. She steps off and looks at herself in the mirror and her body is different — fuller, wider, the belly hanging heavier, the breasts larger, the thighs pressing together past the knee, the face rounder, the chin softer — and the impatience from Monday is gone, replaced by something deep and warm and settled. *More,* the voice says, and Lena hears it and agrees and the agreement is effortless. She picks up the phone and takes a photo — the scale, the mirror, the new body — and opens OnlyFans and posts it with no caption. Just the number. 288.