Chapter 4

Exhausted, we’d both fallen asleep soon after. The morning came, and Rylee was up and out before I was, her morning class getting her up way before me.

While making my ever-so-necessary cup of coffee, I took a quick look around the kitchen. Half a rind of avocado and an empty sleeve of whole grain toast. She was sticking to her healthy habits, because of course she was. One night wasn’t going to change that, no matter how badly my subconscious might want it to.

I poured a small bowl of oatmeal, placing blueberries and almonds atop it, sitting down to attempt to wake up. I pulled out my phone and shot her a text.

“Good morning Ry, hope you slept well”

Her reply was quick. “I did. I know you did, Ms. 4-time”

I laughed, typing back, “Did I weird you out last night?”

“NO! Nonono, Princess, I really appreciate you opening up to me, ik that couldn’t have been easy”

I breathed a sigh of relief, one I didn’t know I was holding. “If you wanna talk more, we can whenever”

“Of course, C.”

There was a moment before the three dots popped up again. Then they disappeared.

It’s the hope that kills you, about what those three dots could have been.

I let those three dots carry me for far too long. Months passed as I kept an eye out for any changes, any differences in her or any of her habits.

We still played with the same intramural soccer team from first year, and she still carried our team to victory. She starred in the school’s production of Twelfth Night, drank tons, smoked some, and did cardio three times a week at the gym.

I’d kind of slacked off of cardio at the gym myself, Rylee and I’s schedules not aligning this quarter, but didn’t gain any. I never really let myself think about those kinds of things, and I’m not really sure why.

Life was so good between us, and through our ups and downs, we were inseparable. Stress and setbacks and worries had nothing on our date nights, our home alone time, our cuddles on the couch over another rewatch of Stranger Things or whatever movie we’d scavenge. It was too perfect to even consider bringing up something as tumultuous as feedism again. The half dozen donuts I’d bought as a test sat untouched for a week until staled and I threw them out.

She’d brought out parts of me I didn’t know existed. I was still introverted, sure, but being at a party was no longer terrifying, as long as she was there. I met so many wonderful people, got the chance to explore so much of what college has to offer.

In all that time, there was not a single hidden stash of candy wrappers, no cheat days from the gym, no “just one treat a day” kind of things I’d only read about. She was her own person, her own force and exuberance, and she didn’t need anything ‘feedee’ in her life. She never explicitly told me she wasn’t into it, but her actions were plenty clear: it wasn’t something she even remotely considered.

Then I started to notice.

It’s the kind of noticing that you only get when you lay next to another soul every night for years, the one you shower with and eat out and go out with.

She wore her bra, her sexy, ember-red red bra that she loved so much, one clasp looser one night. That was the first thing I noticed, and I only noticed it because she’d made it a point to talk about how she liked the way it felt when it was tighter, it pressed her chest up when we were alone. One clasp looser, that’s all it was. I noticed it and discounted it as

She owned three pairs of spandex, I’m not weird, I just love looking at her ass, and they’re all different colors. The black one’s the tightest, the green one the second tightest, the silver one the loosest, and by loosest, I mean there can sometimes be a wrinkle because the elastic is old and worn.

When she arrived to our weekly hot yoga session, it looked the tightest it had ever had around the upper reaches of her thigh, and I knew it wasn’t a squats kind of day.

I know weight fluctuations are quite normal, I’d been experiencing them for most of my adult life, they come with being a woman. Even though I was an inch or two shorter than she, I’d always weighed between 135 and 140 while she was in the high 120s, most of that difference carried in the hips I’d gotten from my mother.

But this felt different, somehow. My curiosity spiked, but I didn’t say anything, not letting my hopes get up again, not the way they had that night. It had only led to disappointment and the only lasting tension in our relationship, no matter how small it seemed at times.

Then a week later, I noticed a small fullness to her shorts when she was getting dressed. I didn’t get a good look at it, the weather was cold outside and hid anything underneath, but the image of the first bit of pudge she’d ever exhibited––well, it was codified into my memory. It was totally possible they’d shrunk in the wash, but these things kept adding up.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep my attention. What was going on?

Nothing had changed, at all, that I could tell. She was still working out, we were still playing soccer, we shared most of our meals, there was no evidence of anything changing, but the change, it was quick. I found no secret tubs of ice cream, nor did she appear to be stressed or worried or anxious about school, or the winter musical, or us, or anything, really. She insisted she was fine when I asked, too.

Then it was her favorite pair of jeans, one that fit her like a glove––they were genuinely the best fit of any article of clothing I’d ever seen. This miracle find at a thrift store fit her legs perfectly––skinny, tight, perfectly framing her butt and waist. I couldn’t take my hands off her when she wore them, tracing the overhang of her butt, then the gap between her thighs.

Before a night out, she’d struggled to put them on, discarding them when she couldn’t button them. A second item shrunk in the wash?

Or was my perfect girlfriend suddenly 5 pounds heavier?

I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Every morning, the same fruit smoothie and avocado toast, the same vegetarian pasta dishes, brussel sprouts, and other small dishes, just like she always did. She was always up a bit before me, but there was no time for anything else.

I even saw her at the gym, obliterating the stair master, just like she always did. She gave me a friendly wave as I went back to the squat racks. I accidentally squatted a personal record, my mind so lost in the weight my roommate had gained. Was it all just wishful thinking? Was I seeing things? And how the hell was the most active and healthy person I knew gaining weight?

About two weeks after I’d noticed the first change, the bra strap, I woke up, a wild dream still racing through my veins. It had something to do with a funnel and donut cream and a Curvage model, in an order that didn’t make sense.

I pulled myself from the bed to find Rylee’s spot empty. It was 3:13 in the morning, she should’ve been home. I’d fallen asleep next to her just a few hours ago. Maybe she was in the bathroom? I pulled open the door to our bedroom, but the bathroom lights were off, the door open. My heartrate quickened, but then I heard it.

It filled the house, a moan unable to be stifled, a hedonistic, carnal moan of the most intense pleasure.

I leaned my head into the kitchen, and what I saw I could not in a million years comprehend.