chapter 3: a little help

Oh shit. She saw me.

Why do I have to be so stupid? Why do my eyes have to deceive my mind’s intentions? She probably thinks I’m a pervert now, and I’ll never get to know if her plus roughly one thousand more of those burgers would equal a happy and respectable whale of a woman. No, David, not in public! She’ll see you blush and it’ll all be over!

I looked back over at her to see how disgusted she looked. She was already back to eating that burger she was holding, and before I knew it, my eyes were back on her abdomen. Of course, she was pretty thin but not unhealthily so, maybe a result of strict parenting, with a decent amount of muscle, but her midriff was giving more away to me than what most people would see. How she was eating her food plus the small amount of softness her belly now had compared to the rest of her body showed that she was eating more than she usually does, and any lack of puffiness of the eyes pointed to her doing this of her own free will. Aaaaaand I’m staring again. I look back up at her face to see her gaze lock with mine, and I’m immediately murdered, my sense of self melting away into pure embarrassment.

But then she reached down and squished the small amount of soft flesh on her stomach, and suddenly, I’ve planned our whole life together. New house, giant bed, fully stocked fridge and pantry, ceiling-mounted funnels… She smirks at me slightly, and all I can manage back is a weak smile, my brain melting from too much self-imposed stimulus. Oh my god, is she walking over now? Can I even speak anymore without saying something smooth-brained like ‘Crush me between your soon-to-be obese thighs?’ Okay, okay, moment of truth.

“Hi,” she says, holding her food tray with the mostly eaten burger on it, “do you mind if I sit he-“

“O-of course!” I reply, like a complete idiot.

“Haha, alright then,” she smiles and she sets her tray down, sitting down in the chair opposite me with a bit more force than someone of her build would. A scare tactic, or foreshadowing to when she weighs 200 plus pounds more? Stop it, focus.

I try to compose myself a bit more. “I’m David, what’s your name?”

“Anna, nice to meet you.”

“So, uh, what brought you over to my humble little table?” God, that sounded a lot cooler in my head.

“Oh, nothing much, really. Just noticed you were looking my way.” The way she stressed that last word, did she mean that as a pun, or am I just too eager…?

“Sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable, by the way.” I try to be as subtle as possible with my pun-response, but if I learned anything from Speech, it’s that anything you say will be 10 times more obvious when you’re nervous.

She laughed a little while taking a bite of her burger. It was taking all of my willpower to keep eye contact and not run away. “No, no, you’re fine. I wore these clothes specifically to show off today, honestly.”

I let out a laugh that doesn’t make it sound like I’m internally screaming. “Better safe than sorry, I guess.”

“Do you want to… hang out later?” She asked suddenly, killing me instantly once again. I gathered up my brain goop before even trying to answer.

“Y-yeah, sure, you, uh, have a time that’ll work?”