Chapter 1: touching down

*Munch munch munch* Ashley stood quietly and quite a bit anxious, hastily biting into a croissant that she had gotten from a kiosk a few meters to her left. Well, her second croissant, at any rate. Ashley couldn’t help it… she ate when she was nervous.

She was standing that day at the Rosen-Shepard International Airport in the city just north of her home town.

“Now Boarding Flight 393-“ a voice on an overhead speaker started off, but Ashley was hardly paying attention. Her feet were tired from standing for so long and, although the terminal was relatively even-temperatured that day, she was beginning to lightly perspire.

She shifted on her knees again, and they responded with a soft creak, indicating to the girl even further how burdened she was just by having to support her own considerable size.

See, Ashley was fat. Or, scratch that, Ashley hadn’t always been fat. But now…

She was REALLY fat.

Ashley had always come from a family of people blessed with extraordinary appetites. It was one of the things her and her siblings had inherited from their mom’s side, along with blonde hair, blue eyes and prominent cheekbones. Those cheekbones had all but disappeared under her chubby cheeks, cheeks that were getting so bulbous that aforementioned pretty blue eyes were always forced into a slight squint.

Ashley, of course, hadn’t always been the size that she was. Having always been a very athletic girl in her teen days, Ashley had been able to use sports to keep her appetite and weight in check. An avid member of the soccer team AND, more importantly to her at least, co-captain of the cheer team, she’d graduated high school the perfect model of a picture athlete. Trim, muscular and, more importantly, the spitting image of her equally svelte and slim mother and little sister in the audience that day.

But then, well, college happened. Ashley had decided to stay local, going to University only a town over and spending all 4 years rooming with her best friend Melanie before they’d gotten jobs together at a local firm.

Melanie was,,, a bad influence. No, Ashley hated saying that about the girl, but it was true. Mel had always been a lot more accepting of her weight. It had always been quite the visual contrast seeing the two of them together, Ashley with her hard-earned gym-toned body and Melanie, staggeringly fat even as a coed, her big, bouncing belly entering into her dorm room before she did. It was the epitome of the “hot girl with the fat friend” stereotype.

But that had all changed with college. For the first time, Ashley was completely surrounded with temptation on all sides. An unlimited meal plan that worked in any restaurant on campus, vending machines in the corner of every hallway, free donuts before morning classes!? Normally she’d have practice as a distraction, but Ashley unfortunately hadn’t continued with her athletics into college. She had gotten a pretty sizable scholarship to attend for business and marketing, and had found the major super stressful with hardly any extra time for herself, especially not extra time for exercise.

Of course, the inevitable eventually happened. Ashley finally began to succumb to her enormous appetite. And worse, she no longer had access to sports to burn off all of the extra calories! Sure, she could have gone to the gym or hit up the track, but who had the time? And even when she did, Melanie was quick to snatch that time up with impromptu snack runs or tempting offers to check out a new menu item at the local all-you-can-eat dining hall, where they’d spent veritable hours as a result.

The sight that Ashley’s family had been presented with for the girl’s college graduation was quite the contrast to the one they’d seen walking across the podium four years ago. Ashley hadn’t just gained 60ish pounds her first year of college. She’d gained roughly that amount each year proceeding! Worse, everyone in the family had had something to say about her weight. The last straw for poor Ashley was when her little sister Stephanie, her own flesh and blood, had gotten her a diet book- A DIET BOOK!- as a present last Christmas!

Now, at 26 years old and just a hair above 500 pounds, Ashley had to accept that she was past the point of no return.