Giving It Back to Him

Chapter 1

Maria and I had become something of a spectacle.

I never asked for it. Neither of us had.

One day we were just another married couple living in a beautiful home, building successful careers, and trying to find enough time in our schedules to eat dinner together. The next, every magazine, entertainment blog, and daytime talk show seemed fascinated by us.

"Fat and Skinny."

That was the nickname.

At first I hated it.

Then I learned to laugh about it.

If strangers wanted to reduce the complexity of our marriage to three simple words, there wasn't much I could do about it anyway.

The truth was that Maria and I were happier than we had ever been.

The woman sitting beside me on the couch barely resembled the athletic psychologist she'd been when we first met. Back then she had spent every spare minute jogging, lifting weights, or preparing for another marathon.

Now she was softer.

Rounder.

Comfortable.

Comfortable in a way I don't think she'd ever been before.

As for me, I was the exact opposite.

I'd spent most of my youth carrying extra weight.

Nothing dramatic, but enough that I'd always been self-conscious.

I remembered sucking in my stomach for photographs.

I remembered avoiding swimming pools.

I remembered pretending I wasn't out of breath.

Then I met Maria.

Nobody knew it at the time, but she'd practically become my personal trainer, nutritionist, and behavioral coach all rolled into one.

Within two years I'd transformed myself.

The old me disappeared.

The new me stared back from magazine covers and internet articles.

People constantly asked how I'd done it.

Discipline.

Routine.

Consistency.

That was the answer I always gave.

It wasn't wrong.

But it also wasn't the entire truth.

The truth was that Maria believed in me long before I believed in myself.

I glanced across the living room.

My wife occupied nearly an entire loveseat by herself.

A thick manuscript rested on her lap.

Another book deal.

Another bestseller.

Another interview request.

The success never seemed to stop.

"You're staring again," she said without looking up.

I smiled.

"You've got a crumb on your shirt."

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"You're lying."

"Maybe."

A laugh escaped her.

Even after everything-the fame, the money, the attention-she still laughed exactly the same way.

That hadn't changed.

I walked over and sat beside her.

The loveseat creaked dramatically.

"Poor furniture," I said.

"Poor furniture?" she asked.

"These chairs didn't sign up for this."

She rolled her eyes.

"You're impossible."

"That's what you married."

"That's exactly what I married."

For a few moments we sat quietly together.

Outside our enormous living room windows, the afternoon sun reflected off the pool.

The house itself was ridiculous.

Far larger than either of us needed.

But when your startup sold for more money than you'd ever imagined and your wife became the most famous behavioral psychologist in America, ridiculous became normal surprisingly fast.

Sometimes I wondered how long it would last.

The fame.

The success.

The attention.

Every celebrity eventually faded.

Every trend eventually ended.

But Maria didn't seem worried.

Maybe because she understood people better than anyone I'd ever met.

She understood motivations.

Habits.

Desires.

The invisible forces that guided behavior.

That was why Celebrity Chubbs had hired her in the first place.

Everybody else saw weight.

Maria saw patterns.

And once she identified a pattern, she could usually change it.

The irony, of course, was that she never seemed particularly interested in changing her own.

A camera crew had followed us around a few weeks earlier.

Some documentary about celebrity marriages.

The interviewer had eventually asked the question every interviewer asked.

"Why don't you use your own methods on yourself?"

I remember watching Maria smile.

Not nervously.

Not defensively.

Just calmly.

"You assume my goal is to be thinner," she'd replied.

The interviewer hadn't known what to say after that.

Neither did most people.

The world seemed determined to view body size as a problem requiring a solution.

Maria viewed it differently.

She viewed it as a choice.

Not always an easy choice.

Not always a simple choice.

But a choice nonetheless.

I admired that confidence.

Especially because I knew how much criticism she received.

Millions of people adored her.

Millions more criticized her.

The internet practically ran on opinions.

Fortunately, Maria had never cared much about strangers' opinions.

She closed her manuscript.

"What are you thinking about?"

"You."

She smiled.

"Good answer."

"It's the truth."

She leaned her head against my shoulder.

For a moment neither of us spoke.

The silence felt comfortable.

Familiar.

The kind that only exists after years together.

Five years earlier we had been complete opposites.

Now we were still complete opposites.

Only in different ways.

Life had a strange sense of humor.

The phone buzzed on the coffee table.

Another interview request.

Another producer.

Another opportunity.

Maria ignored it.

"So what's the plan tonight?" she asked.

I considered the question.

"We could go out."

"We did that yesterday."

"We could stay in."

"We did that yesterday too."

I nodded thoughtfully.

"Excellent point."

She laughed again.

Then she wrapped an arm around mine.

For all the headlines, all the magazine covers, all the photographs and television appearances, moments like this were the reality of our lives.

Not the publicity.

Not the rumors.

Not the endless speculation.

Just us.

Two people who had somehow found each other.

Two people whose lives had changed in ways neither could have predicted.

The world saw a celebrity psychologist and an internet billionaire.

The world saw Fat and Skinny.

But when I looked at Maria, I didn't see any of that.

I saw the woman who had approached an awkward, overweight guy after a workout and asked him to dinner.

The woman who believed in me.

The woman who still laughed at my terrible jokes.

And as she rested her head against my shoulder while the Arizona sun dipped lower outside, I found myself thinking the same thing I'd thought on our wedding day.

No amount of fame, money, or success could possibly make me luckier than I already was.