Chapter 2 - cheer full

After strolling over to a treadmill away from the few other girls occupying her part of the gym, Addison got on and set the speed to something manageable and listened to some music while she began her jog. After about ten minutes Addison had broken a sweat and her flawless skin glimmered while another girl approached. Addison heard her step onto the treadmill next to her. After a quick glance she observed a frumpy girl begin to gallop on the treadmill. The loud steps were quite distracting, and Addison couldn’t seem to tune it out with her music. To make it worse when she shot this stranger an annoyed glare the girl had the nerve to speak to her.

“Hello. I’m Aria.” Aria smiled. She was pretty short, maybe about 5 feet tall. Her lack of height certainly didn’t help with her weight problem. The girl’s body appeared plump around her bulging middle and thick around her fat butt. Her olive skin seemed puffy around her face. She had all the signs of a slob.

“Umm. Hi.” Addison replied dismissively. She hoped to ignore this pip-squeak until she left.

“Lovely day, huh?” Aria smiled, as Addison turned up the volume of her music.

“Yeah, I guess.” Addison muttered far too loud.

“You know I see you come in her pretty often and all you ever do is jump on the treadmill for twenty minutes. If you worked in some other exercises I think you’d notice an improvement in your conditioning.” Aria explained, while Addison lowered her music and gave Aria a look of disgust.

“Umm. I don’t remember asking your opinion.” Addison snobbishly punctuated with a flip of her hair over her shoulder.

“Sorry, I was just..” Aria stuttered, as Addison lost patience for this gross loser.

“And what would you know about it anyway meatball?” Addison teased, as her vain side began to take over.

“Excuse me?” Aria weakly replied, hoping that she was hearing things. She stopped her treadmill as Addison did and the two stepped off to look at each other face to face. Addison towered over her porky peer and grinned. She couldn’t help, but feel superior to this wanna-be.

“You heard me chubs! Take a look at me and then take a look at you. I’m thin, sexy, and beautiful and you’re a short, fat meatball! What makes you think you can give me advice on how I exercise?!” Addison barked, placing her hands on her hips and shaking her head disapprovingly as she eyed Aria’s body up and down.

“I.. I..” Aria stuttered, while she put her head down in defeat.

“I thought so. Talk to me when you lose 40 pounds.” Addison spat, as she punctuated her argument with a firm poke to Aria’s fat belly. “Gross.”

Aria didn’t say a word in response. She just turned and walked away with her hand covering her face. Addison thought she might have made the girl cry, but the thought didn’t bother her one bit. Maybe the girl would thank her one day for the wake-up call. Someone couldn’t be that short and fat and actually expect to be happy.

Just to spite Aria’s observations Addison more than doubled her daily run and lasted a full 40 minutes on the treadmill. Addison was proud of her efforts, but completely exhausted. Most of the people in the gym who were watching her had left and, as they left, her motivation waned. She couldn’t help it. She was always more motivated in front of a crowd. Not wanting to ruin the seat of her car with sweat, Addison grabbed her sports bag and headed over to the girls locker room to dry off and change her clothes.