Chapter 1

OK, so let me set the scene: I’m 20 years old, fat, gay, and in denial about pretty much everything. And that’s really all there is to say about me. In fact, if this story was about me, it would be completely boring and you might as well stop reading now. But it isn’t about me, not really. It’s about Alex.

It was the summer after my first year at university. I remember that summer because it was so hot that wildfires erupted all over the city. I also remember it because it was the summer I fell for Alex.

My friends were busy posting bikini clad pictures on boat trips in Zante or blissed out on MDMA in seedy nightclubs in Berlin while I suffered the heat working checkout nine in a sweat-sticky polyester uniform under an A/C unit that perpetually blew hot air.

It was under the spotlight of the unforgiving fluorescent supermarket lights that Alex enters our story. I knew Alex Park from high school. Or knew of her, at least. She was the kind of girl who excelled at sports and academics and was pretty and popular too. I guess you could say we moved in different circles.

I was surprised to see Alex's familiar face amongst all the other bored looking summer temps when I showed up to the induction on my first day. I tried to catch her eye to roll my eyes at the cheesy health and safety videos and hoped to be partnered with her during the cringe-y customer service role plays, but she didn’t seem to notice me. And so it continued like that for weeks. It wasn’t so much that she ignored me, but worse - she seemed to look straight through me.

If it's true that misery loves company, Alex was the exception. While the rest of us bonded over giving The Stare to rude customers or complaining about how annoying Moira on checkout four was, Alex kept herself apart as if the place couldn't touch her. The truth is all the other girls thought she was stuck up. To be honest, kind of a bitch. But while I might pretend to be interested in whatever totally legit, totally not an MLM side hustle Eilidh had involved herself in that week or Isla’s latest boy drama, I was always thinking of Alex.

Then one day it finally happened.

"Mind if I sit here?" she asked, gesturing to a chair opposite me in the otherwise empty staff room.

I shook my head.

Mind? I had been mentally rehearsing this moment for weeks.

"It's Maria, right?"

"Marina."

Six years. We went to the same high school for six years and she didn't even know my name.

Suddenly all the sparkling conversation and witty remarks I had hoped to dazzle her with deserted me. My mind filled with white noise. The low hum of the vending machine. The flickering fluorescent light. The buzz of a fly trapped against the window.

To my surprise she produced a box of doughnuts. She took a big bite of the first doughnut, her lips glistening with the sugar glaze. I tried not to stare, but they were glossy and pink and… distracting.

She leaned back and her shirt slid up slightly, my eyes drawn to the golden strip of skin that it revealed, following the faint trail of downy blonde hair below her navel.

It was hard to believe we were both wearing the same uniform. The cheap polyester was hardly designed to be flattering but on her, it skimmed over the curves of a slim, athletic figure. On me, it clung in all the wrong places - my love handles spilling over my waistband, fat rolls threatening to burst through the gaps between the straining buttons unless I kept tugging my shirt down.

"You know," she said, licking sugar from her lips. "I think if I ever stopped working out I would just... blow up. Like, really balloon."

She said it with an odd sort of glee. I had no idea what to say. I was a life-long fat girl and had endured tactless skinny friends complaining that they looked fat or stressing that they might gain weight before but this felt... different. And stranger.

But as I watched her fingers tracing the outline of her slightly exposed midriff, I wondered if it was my imagination or if there was a layer of pudge where there had once been defined abs. Was her waistband digging into the tiniest roll of chub? Was the golden girl... softer? Or was it just the harsh lighting playing tricks on me.

She didn't seem to want or expect a response from me anyway, it was almost as if she was only thinking out loud. It was only when she finished the last bite of her doughnut that she glanced in my direction but it was just to check the clock on the wall behind me.

"Damn. I was only supposed to take 10 minutes so I can leave early to get to training. I better get back on the shop floor," she said.

She got up hurriedly, sliding the box of doughnuts across the table. "You can have the rest if you want. I probably shouldn't be eating that sort of thing anyway."

I heard the unspoken words: but it was OK for someone like me.

"I'm good, thanks," I said.

She shrugged. "Suit yourself."

I was still thinking about the hint of softness at her waistband when I grabbed the first doughnut and sank my teeth into its pillowy dough, the sweet filling bursting in my mouth. And that’s how she found me - cheeks bulging, mid-bite, caught in the act.

Her eyes met mine for a moment, wide with surprise. My face burned with embarrassment, my mouth too full to say a word.

“Uh, sorry, I forgot my locker key,” Alex said. She turned to leave and then paused at the door. A smile tugged at her lips.

“You should try the Boston Cream by the way,” she said. “It’ll change your life.”

My mouth fell open in surprise. All I could do was stare as she walked away, the lingering sweetness still on my lips.