chapter 1

OK, so let me set the scene: I'm 20 years old, fat, gay and in denial about pretty much everything. And that's really all there is to say about me. In fact, if this story was about me then it would be completely boring and you might as well stop reading now. But it's not about me, not really. It's about Alex.

Our story begins during the summer of my first year at university. It had all passed rather uneventfully and I couldn't help but feel that I wasn't making the most of what I was repeatedly told would be "the best years of my life". It wasn't like i was some friendless, reclusive shut-in: I went to parties in cramped student halls, drank questionable things in sticky floored unions and caught the same Freshers Flu as everyone else but somehow I always seemed to find myself on the periphery of life. It felt like all around me was a Flight of the Bumblebee a-buzz with alcohol fuelled sexual experimentation while for me things were... just... stagnant.

So far so boring, right? And it was about to get worse. I hadn't worked so much as a part-time for my entire first year - some bullshit excuse that I wanted to focus entirely on my studies or something like that but really I was just lazy - and had somehow managed to max out my overdraft. Suddenly my biggest concern was not whether or not my body was beach and bikini ready (it wasn't) or which European city my friends and I would pretend to be cultured in but rather how the hell I was going to manage another year on my student loan and the small allowance my parents could afford. None of my friends could understand how i had ended up so broke - after all, I wasn't exactly one for hard drinking and fast living - but then regularly ordering enough take-out to feed a family of four can wreak havoc with your finances.

So I got a summer job at a supermarket and that's how Alex enters our story. I knew Alex Park from high school. Or knew of her at least. She was the kind of girl who excelled at sports and academics and was pretty and popular too. I guess you could say that we moved in different circles.

I was surprised to see Alex's familiar face amongst all the other bored looking summer temps when I showed up to the induction on my first day. I had always noticed her in high school but I wouldn't exactly call it a crush. Yet somewhere between high school and university she had shed all trace of puppy softness and teenage awkwardness and graduated from cute jock girl to full blown heartthrob.

I tried to catch her eye to roll my eyes at the cheesy health and safety videos and hoped to be partnered with her during the cringe-y customer service role plays but she didn't seem to notice me and so it continued like that for weeks. It wasn't so much that she ignored me, but worse seemed to look straight through me. And then it happened:

"Mind if I sit here?" she asked, gesturing to a chair opposite me in the otherwise empty staff room.

I shook my head. Mind? I was fucking ecstatic.

"It's Maria, right?"

"Marina."

Six years. We went to the same high school for six years and she didn't even know my name.

We sat in silence while she ate a lunch of chicken, brown rice and green vegetables. She ate quickly, hoovering up the food without savouring the flavour as if it was little more than fuel for the athletic, highly efficient machine that was her body. Once she was finished her lunch, to my surprise she brought out a bag of doughnuts.

She took a big bite of a doughnut, her lips glistening with a dusting of sugar and leaned back a little in her chair. Her shirt rode up slightly to reveal a sliver of tanned skin. It was hard to believe that we were both wearing the same uniform, while hardly designed to be flattering on anyone, her's skimmed over the curves of her lean but shapely figure while I was bulging out of mine in all directions from my love handles souffle-ing over the top of my trousers to my rolls of fat that peaked out of the gaps between the straining buttons if I didn't constantly self-consciously pull my shirt down.

"You know," she said, licking sugar from her lips. "I think if I ever stopped working out I would blow up and get really, really fat."

She emphasised the word "fat" with an odd sort of glee. I didn't know what to say and focused on trying not to stare too obviously at her fingers tracing the outline of her defined abs on her slightly exposed midriff. I was a life-long fat girl and had endured tactless skinny friends complaining that they looked fat or fretting that they might gain weight before but this felt different and altogether stranger.

She didn't seem to want or expect a response from me anyway, it was almost as if she was only thinking out loud. It was only when she finished the last bite of her doughnut that she glanced in my direction but it was just to check the clock on the wall behind me.

"Damn. I was only supposed to take 15 minutes so I can leave early to get to training. I better get back on the shop floor," she said.

She got up hurriedly, scrunching the bag of doughnuts closed and then she tossed them into the centre of the table. "You can have the rest if you want."

Oh great, she thought I was such a fata** that I would eat the remaining five. Piggies love their doughnuts, after all.

I still don't know what possessed me but the second she was out of the room I grabbed a doughnut and stuffed as much of it into my mouth as quickly as I could, barely swallowing the first bite before I shoved the rest into my greedy mouth. It was like I just wanted the food inside me as fast as possible. And that's how she found me when she returned a few minutes later: my round cheeks bulging with food and my fat fist already clutching a second doughnut. Her eyes met mine for a moment, wide with surprise, her lip curled slightly in disgust.

"Uh, sorry, I forgot my locker key," Alex said, her eyes dipped down as she grabbed her keys from the table. I suppose she felt embarrassed for me.

I hung back a little after work and watched Alex leave, hurrying off as if she had somewhere urgent to be, before I headed for my car - well, my dad's car really. I settled my cushy backside into the seat, shifting a little to get comfortable in the tight space sent ripples through my fat.

At the exit of the parking lot I took a left. The quickest route home was right but this was a familiar little detour that took me past McDonalds. I didn't hesitate to agree when the voice at the drive-thru asked if I wanted to make it a large meal.

I sat in the parking lot doublefisting my greasy, sauce dripping burger and salty, mayonnaise smothered fries before washing it all down with big slurps of chocolate milkshake like a real fatty. The whole thing was gone in just a few minutes and soon my straw was gurgling emptily against the bottom of the cup as I still sucked on it for more creamy milkshake. My hand grazed the soft squish of my belly as I put my seat belt back on and prepared to drive home, knowing I was nowhere near full, knowing that I would soon be hungry again.