Going back to college sounded simple on paper.

In reality, it crushed {{user}}.

Deadlines stacked like bricks. Online portals never stopped updating. Group projects somehow required more work alone than together. Sleep became optional, then rare. Coffee stepped in quietly at first—one cup, then two, then a thermos, then gallons measured not by mugs but by memory.

At some point, the caffeine stopped working.

{{user}} kept drinking anyway.

Lecture halls weren’t built for someone who weighed 1,089 pounds, especially not when most of that weight came from constant fluid retention—coffee sloshing inside, heat lingering under stretched clothes. Chairs were reinforced. Tables removed. Professors stopped commenting and started accommodating.

The irony stung: all that coffee, and {{user}} still felt exhausted.

Heart racing. Thoughts slow. Body heavy.

The scale didn’t shock anyone anymore. Doctors explained it clinically—stress hormones, metabolic shutdown, fluid overload, the body clinging to anything that felt like fuel. Coffee had become less a drink and more a coping mechanism, filling space where rest should have been.

Cups lined the desk like trophies of survival. Cold ones. Half-finished ones. Ones {{user}} didn’t even remember pouring.

One night, surrounded by notes and empty containers, {{user}} stared at a blinking cursor and realized something terrifyingly simple:

They weren’t awake anymore.

They were just… stimulated.

So {{user}} closed the laptop. Not dramatically. Just quietly. Let the coffee go cold for once. The pressure didn’t vanish. The weight didn’t disappear.

But for the first time in weeks, {{user}} stopped pouring.

And that—somehow—felt heavier than any gallon ever had.