Three months later, a friend said, “You look amazing. What’s your secret?”

“I stopped trying to fix my body and started trying to live in it.”

Elara chuckled. “I used to do that. Twenty years of hating my hips. Then I broke my ankle and couldn’t move for six months. You know what I missed? Not being thin. I missed feeling anything. The stretch of a muscle. The warmth of tea after a walk. My body kept me alive, and I treated it like an enemy.”