The Reunion [part Two]

Chapter 5

“Damn, Maureen!” Julia said to me with a critical looking smirk and a raised brow. “What’s going on with you? You’ve been putting away pizza slices like it’s your job or something!”

I nestled deep into the sofa cushions, feeling the familiar comfort of a belly stuffed with pizza and wine, and the good company of my two very best girlfriends. The aroma of Italian cheeses and savory herbs filled the room, mixing with the low murmur of the random movie playing in the background. Julia and Alexis were sitting across from me, laughing and chatting about all the latest gossip from our old hometown where we grew up, and all the crazy characters we had known back in the day.

It had been a long time since we’d had a proper girls’ night. No work, no drama, just pizza, wine, and some old romantic comedy we’d all seen a thousand times. Reaching for slice after slice of pizza, indulging in the warmth of the melted cheese and greasy crust, I really felt like I was at home, like I was being my most authentic self. It felt so good to let go and pig out like I used to in my fatter days.

Of course, far be it from my best friends not to take the opportunity to give me a hard time about my eating habits.

“So I guess all diets are off tonight. Eh, Maureen?” Alexis cackled in her signature nasal sounding voice.

I laughed, though I could feel a bit of heat rising in my cheeks. “What, a girl can’t enjoy some pizza?”

Alexis chimed in from the floor, where she was sprawled out with a glass of wine in hand. “Yeah, but seriously, Maureen, you’re going in tonight. You’ve had like, what, ten slices already?”

“Oh, who’s counting?” I chuckled playfully. Indeed I was eating much more than usual that night, more than I had allowed myself to in a very long time. Since my dinner with Marcus a week earlier, my mind had been going through so many changes, and I was starting to seriously question the direction that my life had been going in up to that point.

“What? Are you like stressed-out or something?” Julia asked. “Why are you eating like such a chow hound tonight?”

“Maybe she’s pregnant,” Alexis said jokingly, the two of them laughing like a couple of demented hyenas.

“Well,” I began, trying to find the right words, “there’s something I haven’t told you guys.”

“Ooooh, here we go!” Julia said as her eyes widened, looking immediately intrigued. Spill it, girl!”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” I said, but my heart was pounding. I glanced at both of them, knowing this wasn’t going to be easy to explain. “I reconnected with someone recently. Someone from college.”

Alexis sat up a little, her interest clearly piqued. “An old boyfriend?”

I nodded, feeling that little smile tug at the corner of my mouth again. “Well, he wasn’t really a boyfriend. You know I was still with Raul all through college.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Julia chimed in, “I forgot how long you and Raul were together.”

“Yeah,” I said, “Marcus was more like just a good friend who I always kind of wished I could have had something more with. We were really close for a while back in school, but we lost touch for a while.”

“So, what’s happening?” Julia said as she leaned forward, grinning ear to ear. “You two hooking up now?”

I shook my head, laughing a little. “Kind of,” I said, “but I think it might be something more than just a random hook-up. We’ve started spending a lot of time together, and being around him, it’s reminded me about my past, about who I used to be. He’s reminded me of thoughts and feelings I haven’t thought about in a long time.”

“Like what?” Alexis asked as she narrowed her eyes.

I hesitated. This was the part that I wasn’t quite sure how to explain, but I felt like I needed to say it out loud, if only to hear how crazy it sounded myself.

“I’ve been thinking,” I started slowly, “about putting some weight back on.”

Both of them stared at me like I’d just dropped a bomb on the room. Julia’s mouth hung open for a second before she managed to speak.

“All of it?” she asked, her voice filled with disbelief.

I looked down at the pizza in my hand, turning it over in my fingers before taking another bite. It was like a decision I hadn’t fully made yet, but saying it out loud was making it real.

“Maybe,” I said, shrugging, “maybe all of it... and maybe more.”

The silence that followed was almost deafening. Julia and Alexis exchanged a quick glance, clearly trying to figure out what to say next.

“Um, okay,” Alexis finally said, breaking the tension. “That is not what I was expecting.”

Julia blinked, still staring at me like I’d just spoken another language. “Wait, hold on. You’re serious?”

I nodded, feeling more confident with each passing second. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I mean, I’m not saying I’m going to balloon up overnight, but... yeah, I think I want to get fat again.”

Alexis sat up straighter, her playful grin fading into something more serious. “Maureen, come on. I mean, you’ve worked so hard to lose all that weight. Why would you want to undo all that you’ve done?”

“I don’t know, I just—” I paused, searching for the right words. “It’s hard to explain, but when I was bigger, I felt more like... me. Like I didn’t have to apologize for taking up space, you know?”

It was then that I started to explain to the two of them how I truly felt, how my weight loss made me feel as though I had lost a part of my true self. “I mean, you guys have never been as big as I was,” I said to them, wearing my heart on my sleeve as I spoke, “you don’t know what it’s like to wake up every morning and feel like there is a part of you that’s missing. I am literally half of the person that I used to be, and I just don’t feel the same. I want to get my old self back again. I want to feel like me again.”

The room fell silent again as my words hung in the air. I knew they were both trying to process what I was saying, trying to understand why anyone would willingly choose to go back to a body that society said was wrong. But the more I said it out loud, the more certain I became. This was what I wanted. This was who I was.

“Yeah but, Maureen,” Julia said, finally breaking the silence. “What does you reconnecting with this Marcus guy have to do with you wanting to gain weight again? I don’t get it.”

Alexis nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I mean, is he the only reason you’re thinking about doing this? Is he one of these freaks who goes around fattening women up and breaking their hearts? What do they call those guys?”

“Feeders,” Julia said firmly.

“Yeah, that's it,” Alexis concurred. “Is he one of those?”

I sighed, pushing a stray piece of hair behind my ear as I tried to organize my thoughts. I decided that this would not be at all an opportune time to tell my friends about the wild piggy-play fantasies that Marcus and I engaged in, if ever there would be such a time.

“It’s not like that,” I said to them sincerely. “Marcus isn’t making me do anything that I don’t want to do, and my decision to want to put some weight back on isn’t really about Marcus at all. Sure, reconnecting with him has brought up a lot of memories, reminding me of who I was when I was bigger and happier, but it’s all about me and who I want to be. Marcus isn’t trying to change me; he’s the one person who never made me feel like I had to change. Anytime I’ve ever spent with him, I always felt comfortable in my own skin, and being with him now just reminds me of what it was like to feel that way again.”

Alexis leaned back, crossing her arms. “Wow. I had no idea you were feeling like this.”
“Neither did I,” I admitted with a small laugh. “Until Marcus came back into my life, I don’t think that I even realized just how much I truly missed that part of myself.”

Julia let out a deep breath and leaned back on the couch, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well, Maureen,” she said to me, “If this is really what you want, you know that we’ll support you no matter what. Isn’t that right, Alexis?”

“Yeah, of course,” said Alexis after hesitating for a moment. “You know we’ve got your back, no matter what.”

A wave of relief washed over me. It felt good to know that, even if they didn’t fully understand, they were still in my corner. That was all I needed. Now that all of that was out of the way, I reached for another slice of pizza, feeling lighter in a way that had nothing to do with my body.

“Okay, let’s get real,” Alexis said, raising her slice in the air like a toast. “If you’re gonna do this, Maureen, then maybe Julia and I should get fat too.”

“We might as well,” Julia howled, “we’re already a bunch of hungry hippos over here! Let’s all just be a big bunch of fatties!”
“I can handle that,” I laughed, raising my own slice to meet hers. “Here’s to doing things our way.”

After that the conversation shifted back to gossip and movies, with the weight of my heavy confession settling into the background. We ate more pizza, we drank more wine, and for the first time in a long time, I felt truly free and at home in my own skin in a way that I hadn’t been able to in a very long time.