Someone to blame

chapter 3

The first week was not hard for Heather, she ordered all the salads and light meal options, but those went by fast. After ordering the last salad she realized maybe she should have mixed the healthy items in during the challenge, but it was too late. So, the next couple weeks was eating all greasy fatty foods. McDonalds introduced the double big mac, Heather liked it but shuddered at the calorie count. Just like with Zoe, the added grease took her ambition away, she stopped working out as much and grew lazier with the girls. Her hair became greasy and lost its shine, being more a mousy brown now. As she began to break out, she wore less makeup and her freckles were more noticeable on her face. She also took to wearing her glasses more often, the lack of energy also added a sense of who cares to how she looks if she looks like this anyways. By the end of the challenge Heather had put on 40 pounds, leaving her at around 180 pounds. Carly wasn’t doing the challenge but wound just over 200 pounds now.

The first part of Zoe’s challenge was over, Heather ate every menu item at McDonalds, but now she needed to prove that she needed self-control to lose the weight. Zoe didn’t remind Heather of this, she wanted to see what would happen without reminding her. Heather continued to eat just like Zoe did, she would see her body and become depressed, go and get food, eat and feel happy, then realize the calories she ate and get sad again and it became a cycle. Heather hit rock bottom after about a month of this went by, she had gained another 30 pounds and was heavier than Carly now. Looking in the mirror she didn’t recognize herself. 215 pounds, greasy and frizzy hair, glasses, freckles, she was not the sex intern she was a year ago. She was angry for letting this happen to herself, and she needed someone to blame. While she was staring at her reflection, Zoe walked up, standing next to her she grabbed Heather’s love handle, “Bet you blame McDonalds for this now huh” and with that, Heather quit the firm and joined Kimberly’s suit.

The suit finally came, and Frank sat in the office with the girls. “McDonalds wants to settle this outside of court, we are willing to pay you each $2 million, as long as you agree to never blame McDonalds publicly for this again. In fact, they are willing to go to $3 million if you go on record publicly accepting blame yourself” All three girls agreed, they made a post on Facebook all saying they were fat because of themselves. The months between joining the suit, and accepting the settlement, Heather had grown to 250 pounds, Cary stayed around just 200, and Zoe had gotten back down to just under 300, Kimberly remained where she was weight wise. This admission hit Heather the most, saying it out loud made it feel so much more permanent. Sure, if she worked hard, she could lose the weight, but she just admitted to everyone she’s not strong enough to not do it. Eventually, Heather would grow to be as big as Kimberly, and Carly would get her weight down to Heather’s old size, even wearing Heather’s old outfits. She had fun teasing her about how big she was, in a friendly way of course. Heather had learned to like being a big girl and thought it was funny her fat friend Carly is now her skinny friend. Zoe also accepted her size but was down to 220 pounds, she hadn’t lost more than that but was fine being chubby. Kimberly had always accepted being big, but liked that Heather was almost bigger than her, she liked to try and make Heather bigger even just so she could be thinner than someone.