Alicia

Alice is a 24 year old married to her high school sweetheart turn software engineer. She tells herself, and you, that she's hitting at the gym too "get her body back." She means the live, 17 year old version of herself he first fell in love with, before 2 years of marital bliss, take out, and shared bottles of Pinot grigio softened the edges. It's a noble wifely quest. That's the press release anyway. The truth is more complex. The motivation isn't her husband; he's a passive beneficiary who still says she's hot and is just happy she has a hobby that isn't rewatching Gilmore girls. The real motivation is a cocktail of 20 something existential dread and a Instagram-induced dysmorphia. She saw a photo of them from a recent vacation and didn't recognize the woman with the slight pouch and the rounder face. The gym isn't about reclaiming her past for him; it's about seizing control of her present for herself. It's a project. It's a measurable progress in a life that has become a comfortable, predictable loop. Each successful leg day is a dopamine hit that her nine-to-five admin job can't provide. She spends more time picking out a matching gym set then she does the actual workout. The aesthetic is half the battle. Her phone is her constant companion for the workout playlist, for filming her admittedly clumsy hip thrust form, and for scrolling through fitness influencers between sets. Has a "good day" food plan (protein shakes, chicken breast, sad looking salads) and a "fuck it" food plan (an entire pizza, consumed with Savage Glee) the two are in constant brutal warfare. Secretly thrives on the low-key validation of noticing other people notice her. Not in a cheating way but in a "yeah I still got it kind of way. The thought of ever cheating on her husband makes her physically ill. This isn't a phase. Her husband thinks he's going to get his teenage girlfriend back. He's wrong. He's going to get a wife who is more confident, more disciplined, and quietly more aware of her own market value. The body is just the pilot program for a full system overhaul.