Chapter 1

Chelsea stepped out of the shower and grabbed the towel that hung nearby. As she did, she felt the familiar jiggle in her belly and butt. She bent down to dry her legs, causing her breasts and belly to hang down and shake about with her movements. Even though she could feel these sensations, she had gotten very good at ignoring them and pretending nothing was wrong. She was in denial about all the weight she had put on. During the rare instances when she did allow herself to recognize the changes in her body, she felt so big. She felt so… trapped.

She began getting dressed, pulling on her clearly-too-tight clothes. She didn’t seem to grasp the fact that she was drawing more attention to her weight by squeezing into such undersized clothing. She was too scared to admit that she needed a bigger size. In her head she still believed she was going to get a back down to her old weight, so she didn’t see the need to get bigger clothes.

Chelsea looked at the clock. She was supposed to meet an old friend for lunch and she needed to hurry if she was going to make it on time. She rushed through her make-up, but managed not to mess it up. She looked over her face to make sure she looked okay. Her face had gotten a lot rounder in the last few years. But she didn’t linger on that, she just touched up her lipstick and headed out the door. She didn’t look down at her body once during her time in front of the mirror. She never did that anymore.

When she arrived at the restaurant, Gabby was already there waiting for her. Wow, Gabby got really big, she thought to herself. Of course, she didn’t realize the irony in her pointing out how big somebody else had gotten. It didn’t matter, though, she was happy to see her friend after so long. Gabby had gotten married to a guy named Marc and moved to California a few years earlier. The two hadn’t seen each other since then, though they would talk on the phone often. They had a lot to talk about - during her time away Gabby had acted as a surrogate mother for Marc’s sister. Guess she was having trouble losing the baby weight…

The two settled into the booth and chatted away, just like old times. Gabby ordered a plate of chicken fingers as an appetizer and ate almost all of it herself as Chelsea only took one, even though she wanted more. While she ate a lot at home, she would never finish her meals around others, another feeble attempt to somehow trick people into thinking she wasn’t gaining weight. The two happily chatted away, never bringing up the issue of weight, until Gabby finished her meal and noticed Chelsea had only eaten about half of what was on her plate.

“Come on,” laughed Gabby, pointing to Chelsea’s plate. “There’s no way you’re full.”

Chelsea played it off with a laugh. “No, I’m good. I’ll get the rest to go.”

“Really? You look like a girl who enjoys a big meal,” Gabby said, not realizing that her friend wasn’t nearly as comfortable with her weight as she was. Chelsea’s face turned bright red.

“Yeah, well, looks like you do, too.” She was smiling and chuckling as she said it, but underneath she was mortified that someone had noticed her weight gain.

“Tell me about it” Gabby laughed, grabbing hold of her round belly. “Marc calls me his ‘flabby Gabby’ now.” She was laughing about it.

Chelsea was confused. “Aw, that’s mean.”

“No, no, I kind of like it,” said Gabby. “It’s just a little pet name. Besides, it’s not like it isn’t true. Gosh, isn’t it so freeing being fat and being able to eat whatever you want and not having to worry about all that skinny girl bullshit?”

Chelsea’s face somehow managed to get even redder. Gabby realized that she might have crossed a line.