chapter 1

It had been a good holiday for Zoe, she had had five Thanksgiving dinners, four Christmas meals, her freezer was packed with cookies, and she was gifted tons of Mcdonalds gift cards from all her relatives. Unfortunately, this meant she not only gained her usual holiday weight, but a little extra this year.

Usually, Zoe enters the winter at around 145, only twenty pounds heavier than her regular weight, but this January 1st the scale stopped at 165. “Oops,” Zoe thought to herself, “I really overdid it this year.” As she looked at herself in the full mirror on the bathroom door, she saw how round and plump her face had become. Her dimples had almost vanished on her cheeks and her chin was no longer as defined. Her blonde hair had grown frizzy and darker from all the fatty foods she had been eating.

As her eyes moved lower, she saw how chubby and jiggly her belly had grown. She sucked it in and it looked flat just soft, but as soon as she exhaled the belly plumped back out.
“Wonder if I should start my diet earlier since I gained so much this holiday?” Zoe asked herself.
Zoe put on her pajamas and joined her roommate, Ashley, on the couch.
“So, how much weight did you put on, it has to be more than last year?” Zoe poked her gut and giggled,
“Yea, it was twice as much actually, I might need to start dieting now.” Ashley smiled,
“Nonsense hun, you still look amazing, I know you’ll lose it just as easily as always, enjoy yourself” As Ashley finished talking she handed a plate of christmas cookies to Zoe, and that Dating app commercial with Satan and 2020 came on the tv.
“I was thinking of signing up for that app, try to meet a nice guy, been single too long” Zoe said.
“That’s actually a cool idea,” Ashley said,
“You know, you could really mess with some guys heads, and test them to see if they are truly into you” Zoe asked,
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Ashley answered, “use your pics from the summer when you’re at your thinnest, then when chubby you shows up, it will chase the losers away… I mean you’re going to for sure be thin again, and what happens when you regain next winter? They leave you?”

Zoe thought about it, and then agreed. She thought it would be a fun experiment too, to see how guys would react to her being chubbier than her posted pics and so she signed up for the app, and posted her pics.