Chapter 5 - stress eating

Six months pass for the newlyweds, as they painfully transition back from a long vacation to the daily grind of work. Gene had found a good position with a lot of room for growth with his consulting firm, and had even managed to swing a promotion after helping to bring in a rather large and highly visible contract with an important client. Hailey was a registered nurse and was having a really difficult time adjusting back to the difficult hours her job required. She had convinced herself she was putting her gym and diet plans on hold until she finally got back into the swing of things with late shifts and odd hours. She found that rhythm was hard to find. With the honeymoon phase over, the adjustment back to work, lack of a social life, she had been living out of scrubs and sweat pants for the past few months.

Gene had been acutely aware of the transformation Hailey was undergoing. In fact, he was baffled as to how she seemed so unaware of it herself. He figured she must understand that her lack of exercise, and some of the eating habits she had carried home with her from the cruise were starting to really show on her body. The scrubs she had been issued were looking pretty tight for a while, and then one day looked to be fitting again. He never questioned her about it, but he was pretty sure she had requested a size up from the store room at work. He noticed she had complained about needing new bras and underwear under the guise of flimsy excuses such as "my old ones are just getting pretty old that's all..."

Hailey had been dreading this moment. She stood once again completely naked in the bathroom. She had been working up the courage for the past 10 minutes to step on the scale and face what it told her. She checked herself in the full length mirror. Her thighs had lost their gap, and were now firmly squishing up against each other, one jiggling the other as they bushed past whenever she walked. Her belly stuck out prominently, like a fluffy marshmallow hanging from her torso. Her breasts had gone up a few cup sizes, and her measurement around had added multiple inches - of that she was sure, and the new ones she had gotten were starting to dig in a bit as well. Her hand, and the chubby arms connected to them, worked their way up to her face, and she flattened out her hand and pushed up against the slight double chin she had noticed was forming in the past couple of weeks. Her cheeks looked rounder too. She drew in a deep breath, let out a long sigh, closed her eyes, and hopped on the scale.

Looking down after a moment, instead of the loud shrieking shock of months prior she just stood there in stunned silence. The number flashed as if it were mocking her, telling her "see? Bigger. Fatter. I told you this would happen you fat little piglet. You're becoming your mother." She had the compulsion to gulp, but her mouth was dry. The number stared back at her: 174.9
"Jesus christ" she whispered under her breath. She did the math in her head. Six months...a little over 52 pounds. She had been packing on the pounds at a breakneck average of almost 9 pounds per month. Hailey walked back into the bedroom and took a seat on the edge of the mattress, which gave an unexpectedly strained creak as if to add insult to injury.

She stared into the carpet deep in thought. If she keeps putting weight on at this rate, she'll be over 200 pounds in just three months. What would Gene say when his wife of just six months revealed to him that she was a 174 pound chubby girl who felt she was hopelessly spiraling out of control?

She remembered back to that night after their engagement party, when he told her he would love her until the day he died. A brief wave of relief gave her a reprieve from the nervous thoughts, and she decided that if she couldn't depend on her husband for help with this, she couldn't depend on anyone.