Chapter 6 - problems begin

The pool wasn’t ready for swimming until the middle of the month, and Jenna’s feasting didn’t slow. If anything, she became more gluttonous the warmer it got. Why? Maybe it was the carefree nature of the warmer weather, and maybe it was the fact that her summer clothes were less tight on her belly, but either way, she ate, and she ate well.
 
Others noticed, but no one said anything. It was rude to comment on someone’s weight after all. By the end of the month her bellybutton deepened, and the faintest of stretch marks, invisible unless you looked very closely, appeared on her thighs and love handles. It became difficult to spot her without a snack- even out on the pool deck, watching the kids splash and shriek, she’d have an ice cream cone or bag of chips.
 
At the beginning of June, playing on the lawn one day, the little girl she babysat came up to her and hugged her. Jenna noticed just how much her little head squished into her enlarged belly but thought nothing of it. That’s the funny thing about seeing yourself every day. Even a dramatic gain can look like nothing without a point of reference. Jenna entered June 143 pounds, really 142 if you weighed her on an empty stomach. She left June 150. Delivery people within 10 miles of the home started to recognize the home as the “chubby girl who tips well’s house” and were incredibly polite and prompt with her orders. When she wasn’t working, Jenna was shopping, getting her nails done, and found increasingly sedentary hobbies to engage in. Moving around with all this extra weight wasn’t any harder, but her body was not used to it having put it on so quickly. Plus, her thighs rubbed together a LOT now, causing irritation after a while.
 
High as a kite one evening watching Bake Off, Jenna noticed a discomfort that she hadn’t felt before. Her belly was absolutely rock hard and was hurting quite a bit. Pausing to look around, she saw candy wrappers, an empty pizza box, an empty ice cream carton, and other previously food-filled containers strewn about. She could barely move and felt so full, the fullest she’s ever felt before in her life. Holding her belly in her arms, she limped to the bathroom, expecting to be sick. Catching herself in the mirror, she looked near ready to have a baby her belly was so engorged. She sat on the bathroom floor for a while while she digested, realizing at that moment just how much food she ate. Unluckily for her, she felt good enough a few hours later to fall asleep, and in her state of mind, completely forgot about just how difficult it was to feel so full.