Chapter 1 - Home sweet home

Natalie stepped out the driver’s side of her baby blue Mini Cooper. The smell of freshly baked apple pie hit the tip of her nose as she took in a deep breath of crisp mountain air. Something she hasn’t had the luxury of doing since leaving for college in the big city four months ago. From a distance, Natalie heard someone shout “oh my gosh, look how much you’ve grown!” She looked up to see her mother eagerly awaiting in the front doorway of her childhood home. All Natalie could think to herself was that her mom was right. She had grown quite a bit over the course of her first semester, and clearly it was starting to show.

She had prepared herself for all sorts of comments regarding her weight gain over the next three weeks. Between her ‘Cross Fit crazed’ brother, Brett, her ‘organic only’, cousin Trinity, and her parents, who can’t help but worry too much, she knew eventually her recent transformation was going to come up. But what was she going to say?

She grabbed her bag and started to quickly walk towards her mom, only to have to stop after getting winded just a few steps in. She then waddled the rest of the distance over to her mom, who immediately threw her arms around Natalie’s chunky self, squeezing her as tight as she could. “Well come on now, where's my hug?” her dad jokingly said as he descended down the wooden staircase into the foyer. Her dad has always been a health freak for as long as she could remember. He actually had been a big influence on Natalie’s determination to stay so committed to leading a healthy lifestyle prior to leaving for college. She kept telling herself that maybe three weeks with him would encourage her to try and get back into her old healthy routine, but for the first time in her life, Natalie secretly hoped she’d fail.

Throughout her whole childhood whether it was sports, school or just life in general, Natalie was always very committed to reaching her goals. The word lazy wasn’t in her vocabulary. Her real passion though, was dance. It was also the reason why Natalie made sure to attend a school in the big city, and not the one close to home which her parents had hoped she would go to. If you know Natalie, you know one thing, that she never gives up. In fact, on her 18th birthday, just a few weeks before school started, she got a tattoo on her wrist that reads “go big or go home” in cursive writing. Ironically enough, Natalie was currently doing both. She had gone home, and she had gone home BIG!

Natalie was so looking forward to this time off from school. Her newly found pudgy physique made every walk around campus feel like a reenactment of the 26 mile marathon she completed just 6 months prior. You see, when Natalie left for school at the end of summer, she was only a mere 125 pounds. Everyone has heard of the freshman 15, Natalie being no exception. But the truth is, nothing could have prepared her for the changes she has already faced, nor for the ones she is about to.

After she said her hellos to her mom and dad she decided it was time to unpack and give her old bedroom a visit. As Natalie approached the first step on the staircase, she realized that she hasn’t climbed this many stairs since she’d been home last. It was almost as if she was nervous to try and accomplish this once extremely simple task. One by one she slowly but surely made her way up the staircase, listening as the wood underneath her creaked in places she never heard creak before.

Once she made it to the top she had to stop and take a few deep breaths before she continued on down the hallway to her bedroom. She walked into her room and was immediately greeted by her fluffy orange tabby cat Lily. She was so excited to see Lily she dropped all her belongings at her sides and bent down to give her a big kiss. As Natalie squatted she could feel the band of her high waisted jeans dig deep into her soft belly. The denim surrounding her now oversized behind became tighter and tighter the lower she bent down. As she slowly stood up, Natalie caught a glimpse of herself in the full length mirror propped up in the corner of her bedroom. She walked over to the mirror and couldn’t believe how much more the outfit she was wearing hugged her curves than she had realized when getting dressed in her dorm room. As she observed herself in the mirror, she noticed just how much skinnier she looked in a photograph from 18th birthday party hanging right next to it. Her eyes darted left and right, back and forth between her reflection and the photo for almost a full uninterrupted minute. She knew she had grown, but to see her growth via comparison like that was literally eye opening. She still had her silky, long, bleach blonde hair, and those piercing brown eyes which made you melt like Hershey kisses if you stared into them long enough. She had the same fair complexion and the same rosy red cheeks. Although her once distinguished jawline had become noticeably softer and more round. And if you really looked closely, her cheekbones were starting to disappear as well under her newly acquired blubber.

Eager to change into something more comfortable, she grabbed the first pair of sweats she saw in her closet. The ones she chose were bright pink with the word “LOVE” written across the butt in bold white letters. She laughed to herself and remembered how back in high school she used to wear these very same pants to try and draw attention to her perky little butt without showing too much skin. She crossed her fingers and hoped that she’d be able to squeeze her now very big ass into them. As Natalie went to pull the pants past her thighs, the struggling began. “Uh-oh” she quietly whispered to herself. You see, when packing for this trip, Natalie decided there was no reason to lug a bunch of suitcases full of clothing, when she had plenty of cute stuff in her closet at home. Worst comes to worst her clothes are maybe a little tight, she thought. No big deal! Wrong. What Natalie failed to realize was that she had gone up quite a few more sizes than she imagined, and all of her clothing at home was WAY too small! Panic mode immediately set in. “How could I possibly do something so stupid” she muttered under her breath.

After fighting with the sweats for what felt like an eternity, she was finally able to stuff her fat into these pants that were at least 3 sizes too small. By this point she had literally worked up a sweat, and thankfully the one thing she did remember to pack was her Coca-Cola. She cracked open a can and chugged the whole thing so quickly, it was as if her life depended on it. After she finished the coke her belly started to gurgle. Natalie put her hand on her now ever so slightly bloated stomach. Her pants, now even tighter than before. The string she’d normally use to adjust them to be smaller had disappeared into the waistline from being so stretched out. This feeling of being bloated while confined to such tight clothing was distracting Natalie from the fact that she had family coming over in just a few hours, and NOTHING to wear that properly fit. But before she knew it, she was swinging back another coke, and another one; sending her tight belly into a world of carbonated bliss. Her previously just *slightly* bloated gut had become so full, she felt as if she were going to pop. She had never drank this much liquid solely in order to become bloated like this before. Natalie was letting out burps like she had never before too. She joked to herself “sheesh, I sound like Homer Simpson” followed by, “I have to do this again some time”.

As she sorted through the rest of her clothing trying to figure out what can actually pass as fitting still and what she can’t even button up anymore, she realized that she didn’t have many options. She was going to have to go to the store eventually if she wanted to survive the next three weeks. But for this evening, she was just going to have to suck it up!