Chapter 1 - the engagement

“I actually wanted to meet up with you for a reason tonight,” Rachel explained to her sister. It was the first time they had seen each other in months and all Emma had talked about so far was her girlfriend. “I have some big news!” Rachel hinted.

“Oh yeah?” Emma asked a little disinterestedly. Her wife had only gone to the bathroom less than a minute ago and she was already looking over for her to return.

“Daniel asked me to marry him! And I said yes!” Rachel blasted, her smile bursting out at long last. She waited patiently for her sister's shocked expression to dissolve from her face and the congratulations to start flowing.

“You… and Daniel?” Emma stuttered. “You’re getting married?”

“Why are you surprised?” Rachel asked, trying not to feel bitter that her sister didn’t look pleased for her. “We’ve been together for four years!”

“Yes, but…” Emma tried. “Are you sure about him though?” she asked, still looking up for her wife every five seconds. “You know, you’re still very young and your tastes may change.”

Rachel shook her head. Trust her sister to try and put a downer on it. They had both been so close once upon a time. That was, until ‘she’ turned up.

Emma’s wife waddled back to the table and her doting, idiot partner stood up immediately with a besotted smile plastered across her face. Three minutes she had been gone. If Emma had been a dog, her tail would have been wagging and she would have licked her wife’s face clean. She pulled out the large woman’s chair for her and made sure she was comfortable. “Don’t forget to check out the desserts,” she smiled, her hand resting on the woman’s large, thick leg.

Rachel stared with hatred at her sister’s wife. As soon as she had turned up two years, things had changed beyond repair. Emma’s old girlfriend had been stunning and incredibly down to earth. They had ambitions to start a business together and were already living together when Emma suddenly declared that she didn’t want to be with her anymore. Instead, she had moved straight in with Tracey; an enormous fat girl she had met at a nightclub and fallen desperately in love with. She was one of the biggest girls Rachel had ever seen and was still seemingly expanding. She ate like a pig, stuffing food into her fat face with those thick, chubby fingers of hers. Even her personality didn’t seem to make up for anything either. The girl was boring and not the type that Emma would have looked twice at before; and yet, Emma had married her within a year of their first meeting.

“Mmm, I can’t decide between these two…” the greedy girl declared, pointing at two of the different dessert options.

“Then have both!” Emma jumped in enthusiastically, rubbing the girl’s massive thigh under the table.

“Hello!” Rachel called, waving her arms and trying to bring her sister back down to Earth. “We were having a conversation here!”

Seemingly oblivious to Rachel’s annoyance, Emma lifted her hand and called the waitress over so that her wife could order her desserts. “I’ll have the chocolate Sundae as well,” Emma explained to her. “Rachel, what about you? Are you having dessert?” she asked.

Rachel sighed, shaking her head. Why did things have to be so hard now? She had been so close with her sister before. She had practically lived at her place before Tracey came along; the two of them usually doing something sporty or fun each night. Now Emma didn’t want to know. She’d spent every minute with Tracey, even developing a chubby little beer belly on herself that just showed she had given up on everything else. “This is from the love of a good woman!” Emma laughed, patting her thicker middle every time someone brought it up. She really didn’t seem to care that her flat stomach had gone and her thighs were spreading out. But then, why would she when she still looked positively skinny next to such a huge wife?

“So what were you two talking about whilst I was away?” Tracey asked, a smile on her face from the anticipation of her two desserts on the way.

“Nothing much,” Emma dismissed.

Rachel’s anger began to boil up. “Yes we were!” she snapped. “You really don’t think that me getting married to Daniel is important?”

Emma looked around, a little embarrassed that Rachel had raised her voice. “No…” she whispered, as if to compensate for the noise that Rachel had made. “I’m not saying that. All I mean is… you’re still young. You don’t want to get married and regret it later. Your tastes haven’t matured yet.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rachel argued, making Tracey uncomfortable enough to pretend to suddenly need to make a phone call outside, leaving the sisters to it.

“Look,” Emma began, finally settling down to it at long last. “Mom explained things to me when I was your age. You remember how in love she used to be with Dad?”

“No, I don’t!” Rachel growled back. “And what’s that got to do with anything anyway? I was too young before she left us all for that fat oaf in Phoenix!” She didn’t really understand why Emma was bringing this up now. Neither of them had had the best relationship with their mother after she left them with their father to grow up so that she could be with her hideously obese new husband four hundred miles away.

“Well, she told me, right before it happened to me. About how the people in our family. How their tastes change when they get to a certain age,” she tried to explain. “You may think that Daniel is the one for you now - much like how Mom thought Dad was the one for her. But she was wrong.”

Rachel huffed, rising from her seat. “Whatever…” she sighed, realising the futility of their conversation. “Why couldn’t you just say ‘congratulations’ like everyone else?”

Then, throwing thirty bucks onto the table, Rachel whipped on her jacket and left without another word.