Turn 95 of 228

Wake up and weigh myself. Increased to 440. Then check OnlyFans and text Diane about the salary quadrupling and how the night went.

Morning comes through the window like a fact. The light is gray and honest and it finds Lena on the carpet beside Marcus — 411 pounds of unwashed skin and dried sweat and dried wine and dried grease, the body stiff where it pressed against the floor, the belly rising slow with each breath. Marcus is out — the beard open, the mouth wide, the controller wedged under his hip, the snoring deep and rhythmic. Lena sits up. The carpet peels. The stiffness in her lower back protests and then settles and the body adjusts and the belly settles on the thighs and the breasts settle on the belly and the apartment is cold except where the two bodies were.

The bathroom scale is in the corner where it's always been — under a pile of ruined clothes, the ones from week one, the jeans and the leggings that split, the bikini that never had a chance. Lena kicks the pile aside and steps on. The numbers blink. The numbers settle. 440. The number is bigger than last week and bigger than last month and bigger than any number the scale has ever shown her and the body is bigger and the body is hers and the number is hers and the wish hums and the hum is warm.

She picks up the phone. The screen is smudged with grease and wine and the night. The OnlyFans app loads. The office post — the email, the destroyed carpet, the belly, the corner — has 891 likes and the subscriber count is 703 and climbing. New comments stack under the last post: "the carpet will never recover," "you look like you own that building," "what branch is this and can I apply." A $10 tip arrived overnight with the message "the numbers and the body." Lena likes the tip. The notification count is deep — 47 new subscribers since the office post, the numbers climbing like the branch numbers, like the scale numbers, like everything in Lena's life that moves in one direction.

She opens the text thread with Diane. The thumbs move slow — the yellow nails tapping the glass, the letters appearing one by one.

"Woke up at 440. Marcus's salary quadrupled too. We got drunker than the office night. The carpet is ruined. The wine is gone. I think the gummies are gone. How are you."

The message sends. The phone falls on the belly. The belly holds it. Marcus shifts on the carpet — the snoring stops, restarts, stops again — and the apartment is quiet and the light is gray and the body is warm and the morning is Thursday and the wish hums and the hum is everything. The phone buzzes. Diane. The reply is fast.

"440. The office still smells like us. Carl's salary quadrupled too. I told him on the carpet. He laughed for ten minutes. Come to work tomorrow. We have numbers to beat."

Lena reads it twice. The beard is in the text — she can hear Diane's voice in the words, the quiet certainty, the management tone that isn't management anymore. The phone falls on the belly again. The apartment is warm. Marcus is warm. The carpet is warm. Thursday is here and Friday is coming and the numbers are real and the bodies are real and the wish hums and the hum is everything.