The office noticed the burgers before they noticed {{user}}.

The breakroom tray was empty—no wrappers, no crumbs, no explanation. Someone joked about a catering mistake. Someone else blamed the intern. Meetings resumed, keyboards clacked, and the smell of grease lingered like a question no one wanted to ask.

Then someone opened the supply closet.

{{user}} was inside, sitting on the floor between boxes of printer paper and cleaning supplies. Wrappers were stacked neatly to one side, like an attempt at order. Grease stained the front of a stretched shirt. Breathing was slow and heavy, the kind that came from carrying far more weight than before.

Morbidly obese now.

Not overnight—but suddenly visible.

No one said anything at first. Shock does that. {{user}} didn’t look ashamed, exactly—just tired. The kind of tired that comes from holding everything together all day and letting it fall apart in the smallest, darkest room available.

“I was going to stop,” {{user}} said quietly, not looking up. “After one.”

HR handled it gently. Too gently, some thought. Chairs were reinforced. Tasks were adjusted. The closet door stayed closed after that, as if sealing the moment inside it.

The burgers were replaced the next week. Smaller portions. Labels. Policies.

But everyone knew.

Not about the food—about the pressure. About how easy it was to disappear for ten minutes and come back changed. About how {{user}} hadn’t eaten because they were hungry, but because the noise finally stopped while chewing.

And in an office full of people pretending everything was fine, that silence was the most unsettling thing of all.