chapter 1

I was in the last fifteen minutes of a ten hour drive to visit my best friend Evan in Arizona. About four years ago, Evan got married, and he and his wife Angela had moved their because of Angela's job. Now that we lived ten hours apart, we obviously didn't see each other as much, and it had been about six months since we had. I was visiting him for a couple weeks of best friend time while Angela was out of town.
I stopped at a gas station to clean up my car a bit after the long drive. I grabbed a plastic bag and filled it with an array of empty candy wrappers, chip bags, and soda bottles left over from constantly snacking on the long ride. I got out of the car to throw away the bag, brushed off the crumbs that had collected on my shirt, and adjusted the fly of my blue jeans, which had been digging into my waist. I went into the store and grabbed one more mountain dew and a snickers bar and headed back on the road.
As I pulled up to Evan's house ten minutes later, I finished the last gulp of the soda, and threw the bottle and the Snickers wrapper into my back seat. Evan was waiting outside on the porch, and jumped up the second he saw me. He ran over and we hugged, and we started to catch up. while we talked I saw his eyes go down to my midsection, and then back up, pretending he noticed nothing. We talked for a bit outside, Evan never bringing up the elephant in the room.
The elephant, a 25 pound gut I had grown in the last five months or so, was completely new to Evan. The last time he had seen me I was a trim 155 pounds, about the same as him. Now here I was, sporting a rounded stomach that proudly pushed at my T shirt, a T shirt that was relatively snug before my gain, and now was being pushed out from behind, stretched by my expanded middle.
I was well aware of the gain, and waited for him to mention it, but he never did. We got my bags and went into the house.

When we got inside I sat down , and was certain Evan would say something, as sitting squished the chub forward, making my little gut much more noticeable. He definitely noticed, as his eyes kept peaking down and then back up to my face. He sat across from me, and that's when I noticed that Evan had a tiny little roll of his own. Nothing much, maybe five or so extra pounds, but it was a new development as Evan was always very thin with no body fat, but then again so was I. I wondered if he was aware of that little belly roll in his own lap.