Chapter 1 - The Cheater

Emily came strolling over the moment she saw Meg’s car pulling up on the driveway. Had she tried to talk to her yesterday, Meg didn’t think she would have been able to manage it. Today, however, she felt a little stronger.

“Do you want to come over for a coffee?” Emily simply asked; her face filled with that kind sweetness Meg knew so well.

Emily knew. Of course she did. Joe’s truck hadn’t been there for three nights now.

Heading over to the house next door, Meg took a seat in Emily’s kitchen and poured her heart out. Even now, she couldn’t wrap her head around it. They’d been together since they were eighteen. They’d gone to prom together! Yet Joe had been cheating on her with a girl from his gym; dramatically unravelling after a friend of theirs had caught them kissing in the changing rooms.

“He says it was a mistake,” Meg explained. “Just some casual thing that meant nothing to him.”

Emily raised a skeptical eyebrow, keeping quiet.

“I don’t want this to be the end. I love him so much,” Meg admitted. “But how can I compete? We were so young when we got together! And if some sexy girls are paying him attention at the gym… well, he is a man after all. I just feel like I’m not enough for him.”

“Whether you got together when you were young or not, he made a commitment to you,” Emily snapped. “It’s no different to any other marriage,” she stated firmly. “You can’t blame yourself. Some men are just…” she began, turning away and shutting herself down to avoid showing how angry she was on Meg’s behalf.

“He’s not a bad man,” Meg shrugged. “I do believe him when he says it won’t happen again.”

Emily sighed. “He’s handsome though, isn’t he? He’s got that pretty face, the confidence and the big shoulders. Women go for that. Believe me, I should know. I saw the way all the girls were looking at him at Laura and Steve's wedding last month. Some men just have that thing that women want. If Joe thinks he’s never going to be tempted by anyone else again, he’s kidding himself.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do?” Meg asked, genuinely lost. “We overpaid so much for the house. We can’t sell it now. I wouldn’t want to!”

Emily stood up and quietly closed the kitchen door so that her husband wouldn’t overhear them in the next room. “I was in your shoes once,” she whispered, sitting down at the table again. “Chris had a fling with one of the girls in his office about a year after we were married.”

Meg’s jaw dropped. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea!” she cried. The thought seemed utterly bizarre. Emily and Chris were an odd couple as it was. Emily was so effortlessly graceful, slender, beautiful and elegant in her early forties. Whereas her husband, at easily 450lbs, was a large, spherical, ball-bellied, washed-up college football player who now worked from his home office upstairs. And this guy had cheated on her?

Emily waved her hand and sighed. “It was a long time ago now. But it still took a lot to get over it. I had to be absolutely certain that nothing like it would ever happen again. Thankfully, there’s only a certain type of niche lady who would lust after my Chris these days,” she chuckled, clearly referencing the man’s great size.

“So Chris wasn’t always so big?” Meg asked, having always been quietly curious as to how the odd pair had come to be together.

“Well, of course not,” Emily frowned, pointing to the picture of a couple on their wedding day on the wall.

“That’s you and Chris?” Meg gasped. She’d lost count of how many times she’d seen the portrait each time she had been over. “I always assumed it was your sister’s wedding or something,” Meg scrambled to explain. Emily’s long, dark hair in the picture had thrown her, but the man beside her was completely unrecgnisable as Chris: tall, strong and athletic-looking, it was inconceivable that he was the same guy as the giant, rotund man who had grown in his place.

“I started putting weight on him after the affair and I've not had any trouble since,” she stated bluntly. “Trust me, you get very skilled at baking when you have a husband with a wandering eye…”

“You did it on purpose?” Meg asked, astonished.

“It’s how we women have kept men like this in check for generations,” Emily shrugged. “My mother did it with her second husband, and my cousin had to do the same with the waste of space she saddled herself with. Thankfully, Chris is nothing like them, though. He’s a good husband; caring, kind, considerate. I don’t regret marrying him. And now that I've sorted that little problem, we have a lovely life together.”

“And you think I need to do something similar with Joe?” Meg asked, confused as to what advice Emily was actually trying to give.

“Well, you clearly can’t send him off to the gym unattended, can you?” she replied. “If you’re with him for the long-haul, it’s a no-brainer in my eyes.” She held a cookie in her hand and snapped it in two. “Grow a little belly on him and, trust me, all these types of man-problems just disappear….”