What if I Ate a Bit...?

Chapter 1

Emma was skinny, so skinny she had almost forgotten what hungry was was supposed to feel like.

Not completely forgotten. More like she'd translated it into another language. A headache meant she'd had a productive morning.

Her coworkers thought she was one of those people who was "never hungry."
She encouraged the misunderstanding.
At lunch she'd peel a clementine with ridiculous concentration, arranging the slices ina little circle on a paper towel. Half a yogurt if someone was watching. Coffee that always went cold because she'd forget about it while pretending to answer emails.

She just didn't like to eat. For Emma, food was disgusting.

Saturday mornings belonged to her grandmother.

Every other week she'd drive across town because her grandmother's knees were getting bad and someone had to carry groceries upstairs.

"You look pale," her grandmother said almost every visit.
"I'm fine."
"You always say that."
"I always am."
The lie had become so ordinary she barely heard it anymore.
Her grandmother sniffed.
"I made soup."
Emma smiled the practiced smile she'd perfected over years.
"I already ate."
"You always already ate."
"I did."
Another lie.
Her grandmother looked at her for a second longer than usual, then "You are going to waste away girl."

"Whatever..." Emma replied, an image of her blowing away like a leaf played in her mind's eye.

The soup stayed on the stove.
Chicken, carrots, onion, thyme.
The apartment smelled like a childhood cold.

An hour later Emma was standing in the kitchen rinsing dishes while her grandmother searched for her glasses for the third time.
The pot was still warm.
She lifted the lid.
Steam rolled out, fogging her face.
The broth shimmered with little gold circles of fat. Carrots had gone soft enough to surrender to a spoon. The noodles were swollen andcrooked.
Without really deciding to, she dipped the spoon in.
Just to taste it.

It was too hot.
She hissed through her teeth, The broth tasted of pepper and slow afternoons. The chicken had fallen apart into tiny strands. There was more salt than she would've added herself.

She took another spoonful. Then another.

Maybe Grandma was right. Maybe a little extra wouldn't hurt.

By the time her grandmother wandered back in, glasses found.
"There your appetite," her grandmother said.
Emma almost replied Don't get excited.
Instead she looked down at the bowl.
"I guess."
Her grandmother didn't smile.
She just reached into a drawer, found the crackers, and set the box on the table without saying a word.

Emma thought about the soup all week.
Not because she'd broken some invisible rule. She'd done that before. But because she'd liked it.

That felt...less forgivable.

She found herself noticing food in ways she hadn't for years. Butter melting into toast in the office kitchen. Someone microwaving leftover curry, the whole hallway filling with cumin and ginger. The bakery she'd walked past every morning suddenly smelling impossible to ignore.
It irritated her.

She caught herself slowing down outsiderestaurant windows.

One evening she stood staring at a bakery display for nearly five minutes before realizing she'd stopped walking altogether.

The woman inside caught her eye.
Emma entered and got a dozen donuts, almost ashamed.

The first of many concessions to the newfound fascination, it wasn't a decision so much as a series of tiny moments where curiosity beat fear by half an inch.
Some days fear won again.

Some days she bought a muffin and threw it away before taking a bite.

Some days she ate the muffin in her car with the engine off, crying because blueberries had no business tasting that good.

She started eating breakfast on purpose.
Real breakfast.

Scrambled eggs with too much black pepper, toast slathered with butter that soaked into the bread before she could set it down, strawberries that stained her fingertips pink. She discovered she liked coffee better with enough cream to make it the color of caramel.

Her body responded quietly.

She wasn't freezing all the time anymore.
Walking up the stairs to her apartment no longer left her thighs trembling.
She slept through the night instead of waking at three in the morning.

One afternoon she walked home carrying groceries and realized she wasn't exhausted.

That almost felt stranger than the weight itself.

She still checked the mirror all the time.

The angles she'd once chased were fading. Her knees looked less knobby.

When she crossed her legs on the couch there was actual weight to them, a pleasant pressure of soft flesh.

She caught herself thinking,
I kind of like this.
The thought arrived so casually she nearly missed it.

A season ago it would've sounded impossible.

She bought a pair of shorts she'd never have worn the previous summer.

To her delight they fit.

She spent an embarrassing amount of time looking at herself from different angles before finally admitting she looked healthier.

She could be even bigger though... the weight kept going to the right places.

She'd worn the same pair of jeans for years because they hung the way she liked: loose through the hips, loose through the thighs, loose everywhere.

Now they weren't quite.

She caught herself staring in the bedroom mirror while pulling them on.
There was...something there.

Just enough that the denim actually curved instead of falling straight.
She turned sideways. Turned back.

She pulled the fabric flat against her leg.
"No kidding."

She grinned despite herself.

For a while she told herself it was a fluke.
Maybe the jeans had shrunk. Maybe she'd washed them wrong. Maybe mirrors were liars.

Then she caught her reflection in the grocery store freezer doors.
Then in the office bathroom.
Then in the window of a coffee shop.
Same legs.

Same little curve at her hips. But somehow a little softer and more fun. Everywhere she looked, her body seemed to be quietly introducing itself.

It was intoxicating... "I need more" she told herself.