The Bellflower Part 2 (Patreon)

Here is your weekly installment of The Bellflower. A lot more set up taking place, this time a bit more from Holly's perspective. Hope you enjoy it!

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2

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While she had strategically taken the day off to get a four day weekend, Holly's internal clock was too used to a 6am wake up call. As much as she wanted to sleep in, she tossed & turned for a few, trying to deny that she was wide awake. Through the crack in her blackout curtains, she could see the sky take on that typical pre-dawn purple she knew too well for this time of year. 

Slowly, she tried to sit up, realizing she might've overdid it a little last night with the pizza. The movement jostled a bit of gas free & she tried to suppress what would've been a loud belch into more of a dainty hiccup. Pazuzzi's was good, & probably her favorite ever. But they had a tendency to make their pies thick & doughy. They were also a bit on greasier side, which was partly why she was still feeling it. Then she remembered. She had brought up the idea of her & sister getting a pie each with the solid intention of putting some slices aside for leftovers. But then she also quickly remembered that she polished her entire pie off in very short order, going two & sometimes three at a time. She quelched another burp, but also, started regretting not saving herself some for breakfast. Hey, maybe Rachel still had a slice or two she could steal. Even if it was just generic old pepperoni.

Gently, she stood up, reaching towards her bedroom ceiling with a deep stretch. Unkinking her spine, aftermath of last night's dinner & current peckishness aside, she was happy. Holly had really missed Rachel, & despite Rachel, as always, having her weird hang-ups & reservations about... well... everything, it felt good to have her here for at least a little while, she thought. Give her a place to land on her feet after what sounded like a bit of a messy break up. She had never met the guy, but according to her weekly phone calls with her mother, he had sounded pretty good for her. And Rachel seemed to settle in ok. Eventually. At least once she got some food in her system. She seemed to chill out, & aside from a few snarky remarks about Holly's choice in sitcoms, lower her guard & have a little fun before passing out on the pull out sofa. 

"Oof," Holly's stomach gurgled a little, still feeling that pizza. She stepped towards her bathroom, but speaking of stomach, she passed by the mirror on the back of her door. Just then, Rachel's words from the elevator suddenly reverberated in her head, causing her to double back.

There was no escaping it. She had... filled out alright. She was the same girl that stood before it prior to work the day before, but something about Rachel's comment seemed to give her almost fresh eyes. And she could definitely see it now. She tried sucking it all in, as deeply as she could. It helped for her tummy, but other bits were still... well... bigger. And even as she slowly felt herself turning blue, the image still felt... wide. Plump even. She exhaled, pushing her potbelly forward with a heave. How?! How had she not even realized? How had she let this happen to herself? Getting so... overly-thicc? And how was she only even just realizing it now?

It was bizarre. Part of her? It remembered everything. Every single track meet. Every single dance routine. Almost every minute of every single hour she spent working out at the gym, or the dance studio, or the track. Every moment of training, practicing, working to accomplish every athletic goal she had ever set out to achieve. She remembered being fit, & staying fit, even throughout college, when most of her friends put on the fabled freshman 15. She was mindful to avoid those same pitfalls they fell into. Stay lean, & tight. She remembered how important being fit had always been to her. For as long as she could think back. Until...? 

At some point, apparently, it had just seemed to stop being so important. Without her even realizing. It was almost as the whole concept of had totally fallen off her radar. Like it suddenly just abruptly stopped fitting into the equation, & it wasn't a part of her life any more. And weirder still, she couldn't for the life of her remember when that exactly happened. Or what had even caused it. She certainly couldn't remember any sort of immediate catalyst. She had tweaked her right knee once in competition a while back, but it wasn't like she had reinjured it, or even remembered it being sore. In years! It just seemed like one day, she just sort of... stopped thinking about it. And that was the most shocking thing about it when Rachel piped up: her own confusion. 

Not only her workout routine, this obsession with fitness, this thing she had once held so dear, had stopped being on her mind for what felt like ages, but that for all its apparent importance, how she hadn't even realized it hadn't been even on her mind in ages. How it just seemed to stop being there without her even noticing. And how forgetting about it had seemed to already start taking an obvious toll upon her. And how she was all still completely oblivious to it, up until as her once-butterball kid sister of all people, was all too eager to it point out. "No," Holly stopped herself in her thoughts, realizing she probably had it coming for all the teasing as kids. Still, it wasn't fun being the butt of the joke, & she just wished she could've realized she hadn't even realized sooner. Much sooner. 

But now, with Rachel's honesty, looking herself over in the mirror, how had she been so blind? How was she not even able to tell? Her ass was huge! Flabby! It almost seemed unrecognizable to her. Like someone else's had been stuck on top of hers. Her shorts didn't even seem to fit straight, with her gut nearly poking out of her tight 5K t-shirt. The tightness she thought she had experienced, she chalked up to thinking they were just old & ratty. The fabric losing its stretch. All her new stuff, her stuff for work? That all seemed to fit ok. But then again, that all came by way of a subscription service she had heard about through a podcast. 

Distracted, she fell back into inspecting every inch of herself. Her hips & her belly were sticking pretty far out right now, wobbling slightly with every slight motion she made. The idea of herself having a jiggle made her bite her lip with a pained snear. What was worse was that it all seemed to stick in those lower spots, completely ignoring her modest tits, where she always wished she could get maybe a little extra. 

A thought crossed her mind, causing her to shudder. She considered each & every single one of the calories she took in so close to bedtime with that pizza she downed. And what about the leftover slice of cobbler she had just after work while she had been waiting for Rachel?! She visualized it as extra padding, almost seeing herself widen in the mirror. And widen. And widen.

"Ech." she vocalized, disgusted with herself. There was no denying it. She had, at some point, just apparently let herself go. But now? Now she realized & she was just going to have to get her ass in gear!

"Everything to your liking, Miss Holly?" Penny suddenly piped in. It wasn't necessarily booming, but sudden.

"Huh?" It startled her at first, hands involuntarily wrapping around herself almost as if she had been caught naked. It was so... doughy to the touch. "Shhh. Bring the volume down. You'll wake my sister."

"Volume at 8%, is this acceptable, Miss Holly?" asked a barely audible Penny as Holly reeled back.

"Yeah, better." She whispered, looking back in the mirror at the way her stomach distinctly protruded. She gave it a soft slap, careful to notice how much it jiggled.

"Penny, did I get... fat?" She asked with her upper lip snarled up to one side. There seemed to be a solid beat before Penny's typical, timely response.

"Miss Holly?" The AI asked in the way she responded on the notably few times she didn't fully understand a question being posed to her. Holly sighed & tried to change the wording to be a little more objective.

"Penny, have I gained weight?" she said more concisely, but still with what felt like an adequate amount of disdain.

"Miss Holly, if you care for my honesty, I have noticed a slight bit of fluctuation in your BMI recently. But only a nominal amount I had attributed to "coping with external stressors." You said it yourself how... "hectic" work has been for you the past few weeks. It, however, didn't seem like enough of a fluctuation to warrant concern, discussion, or bringing to your attention." Penny explained softly.

"Omigod," Holly rasped with a measured, but disgusted snicker. "So you were too scared to even tell my fat ass, is that it? What? Worried you'd hurt my feelings?" The machine was slow to respond. "Next time, warn a bitch, wouldya?"

"Like I have stated," the computer repeated. "It was an insignificant amount, barely worth mentio..." Holly laughed. Sometimes it surprised her just how human-like her smart condo could be. 

"Penny, forget that. How about... Is there any news on the gym?" She thinking she might just be able to get her jiggly ass in gear & start working this pudge off. She always did seem to shed weight pretty easily. Or at least she hoped she still did, the same as she had back in high school. Unlike Rachel's, her metabolism had always been pretty forgiving, but this seemed like its toughest test yet.

"The gym, Miss Holly?" Was her computer not awake yet either? She seemed to be kind of slow on the uptake this morning, Holly thought.

"Yeah. You know, the five star gym this complex boasts about supposedly having? One of the perks that helped sell me on this joint? Something that my HOA fee's supposed to go towards?"

"No news, I'm afraid. By all accounts, it seems as though it is still under renovation. Same as when you asked last month."

"Last month? Holly asked. She had a vague memory of asking Penny in passing, after looking for it the one day while doing some laundry. She walked by the door & heard buzzsaws. She remembered it being a bit weird as she sort of remembered it being a strange time for construction. Like late. And on a weekend. Was that the last time she thought about working out? A whole month?! Just then, her inner drill instructor growled at her that it wasn't the lack of a gym that got her into this chub situation, it was on her. "Perfect." Holly sighed sarcastically, realizing she had left Penny hanging. "Well, maybe I'll just look to go on a nice jog or something. Yeah. Before Rachel wakes up." She said confidently, before realizing how much her gut was sticking out. Once again, she tried to flex it inward a bit, focusing on contracting her stiff, weak muscles. "Yeah. That's the ticket."

"Unfortunately," Penny said, a bit sheepishly. "There is a slightly more pressing matter I feel I must bring to your attention now that you're awake."

"Towed?" Rachel hollered angrily about ten minutes later. "What do you mean "towed?!" Instead of waiting on a response, she kicked the spare comforter Holly had given her off & ran over to the window." 

"Mmmmmph..." Holly said, chewing on a bit of reheated pizza crust. Between the angst of delivering the news & having something to eat, she settled into a bit of a mousy posture. And seeing Rachel's now long narrow legs, she tried to not let other things on her mind bother her. Like how much her once chubby little sister was so much skinnier than her. Well, she at least didn't let it spoil her breakfast, swallowing her mouthful. "You wouldn't be able to see it from this side. But that's what Penny said. It must've happened in the middle of the night. She recharges overnight sometimes, otherwise she might've given us a heads up as it was going down."

"This is true," Penny piped in. "I was recharging when the incident occured." Rachel didn't seem to care about the computer, turning back to Holly.

"But you said...?" She flapped her arms in frustration by the window trying to peer out the corner, even though she remembered that yeah, the short term parking was the complete opposite direction of where she was looking.

"I'm SORRY!" Holly said with wide eyes. The eyes rolled back down to that last few bites of crust. "I didn't know! I fucked up!"

"Oh god!" Rachel shrieked, clenching her eyes & hugging her head. "It's got all my... My stuff!" Her arms dropped with a dramatic slap to her thighs. "All of my stuff was in the back seat!"

"I already said! I'm sorry! I didn't know!" Holly reiterated, finishing her last few bites.

"Wait... And that's... you're eating my leftovers too?" Rachel realized, less of a priority, but on top of everything else? She scrunched her face up into a growl, but concentrated on containing herself. "I... I want to scream right now." 

"Mmm," Holly nodded, putting her empty plate down & swallowing the last bit. "Sorry! I'm really sorry! I'll take you to go pick it up! Right now! Penny said the impound they bring it to isn't that far away. And I'll buy you breakfast on the way. Okay?! I'm sorry!" Rachel sighed, throwing herself back into the couch. 

"You better." She huffed, looking straight ahead with a thousand yard stare. "I feel like a bagel." Holly filtered her immediate thought, questioning "Only a bagel?" But figuring she was probably going to have to take responsibility for the fine, she wasn't about to talk her sister into a bigger breakfast.

About two hours later, Holly & Rachel had both been waiting in the parking authority's waiting room for about an hour & a half. Rachel, in the emergency spare change of clothes from her bag, was vibrating with frustration. Between the stress & the general ambience of the room, she wasn't too hungry & was just finishing up the everything bagel Holly had picked up on the way. Holly, trying to maintain her chipper smirk, holding their ticket in one hand while hammering out a few work emails on her phone. She was too distracted to noticed Rachel's constant side-eyes & eye rolls.

"Seems like it's taking a while." Holly finally said aloud. 

"Really? You think?" Rachel asked, burying a bit of the sarcasm in faux sincerity. Holly looked up from her phone with her own side eye. 

"How many times can I apologize? I didn't know!" She tried to offer. "And like I said, I can cover it."

"You better!" Said Rachel, looking at the digital number, waiting for it to tick over. Then it did.

"That's us." Holly said. She started to move, started to lean forward but her knee joints felt a little stiff. For the first time in her life... weak. Her ass smooshed against the seat again with a bit of a pudgy plop. Nothing major, but she literally needed too attempts to get to her feet, causing her to curse to herself in her head about how out of shape she had become.

"You good?" Rachel asked already three steps towards the counter.

"I'm good." Holly huffed, following suit.

"Well, typically, it would be around $300 to get it out of impound." The man at the counter said with a flat, unemotional look that didn't leave the direction of his desperately obsolete CRT monitor. 

"Heh-hahah!" Rachel chortled. "I think the piece o' shit is only worth $250 blue book!" The potato-shaped attendant was not having it, & stared back at her just as flatly as when he delivered the amount of the fine. 

"But there seems like there was an incident." His pace was unchanging, unwaveringly slow. Almost robotic.

"An... incident?" Rachel repeated, shooting him a look. Then shooting Holly that same look. Holly's lips pursed inward, just not wanting her little sister to get any angrier.

"It seems like as they pulled it onto the flatbed, the axle snapped."

"Wha-?! Ech... I-it's not even..." Rachel was nearly apoplectic. She reeled for a second before swaying back. "Heh," she tried laughing it off, "So YOU broke it?!" She asked, slamming the counter with her palm for emphasis. The potato-robot man was unmoved. Unwavering in his general detachment.

"According to our tow operator it was ready to go. The whole undercarriage was rusted. According to her, she was lucky to get it here without damaging it any further.

"Her?" Holly smiled softly, noting how progressive they were. Rachel, however, was fuming. The closely observant could see the boiling steam shooting out of her ears.

"How much to tow it to a garage, then?"

"You'd have to call your own tow truck operator." The man said as plainly as everything else. It was apparent that Rachel wasn't his first angry interaction of the day. Even the past half hour. "Our operators are only responsible for intake, not delivery. Besides, we don't want to be held liable for any further damage given the condit..." Rachel formed two fists & pounded the counter. She took a deep breath. She realized that anger wasn't having any effect, but she also wasn't any less angry. But she was also well past her quota for bullshit. Especially for only being up for two hours. And after an emotional yesterday. Her head came up & she tried to remain calm. "Look! Can I just get some of my stuff out of it? For right now at least! All of my stuff is in it! Like... literally almost everything I own." The man at the counter's expression remained steady, as he slowly lifted his arm up to the corner & a side door. 

"There are bags if you need them." He said.

With the sun heating up the blacktop, Holly pulled up & helped Rachel load the contents of her hatchback into the back of her old M-Class. It wasn't much. In fact, by the time they were done, what filled the tiny beater car only kind of filled a quarter of the room they had. But it was hot & it was way more physical activity than Holly had grown used to. She tried to keep it from showing but she couldn't help but pant, fighting off sweating through her what had been one of her favorite sundresses. At least before she noticed it being so snug.

"Is that... everything?!" She struggled to ask between gasps.

"I'll do another check." Rachel said. She moved with purpose, still humming with rage tried channeling into getting this done quickly. Holly used the brief pause to catch her breath, putting her hands on her wide hips.

"Are you sure you don't want me to just get another tow truck over he..."

"It's not worth it!" Rachel unleashed loudly without even looking back.

"Well we can't just..."

"I don't want to deal with it today, alright?!" Rachel snapped again. It was clear she was overwhelmed, & feeling partially to blame, Holly stopped pressing. 

As her sister awkwardly gathered up a bunch of random loose items in her arms, Holly got in & blasted the AC. She let out a sigh, realizing that while she was done exerting herself for the moment, they were going to have to take all this stuff inside then. But also, she thought, maybe getting back on the horse & starting to try to exercise again was going to be more of a struggle than she originally anticipated. She lowered her sunglasses to blot beads of sweat off her forehead with her forearm, & pushed the front vent to blast at her directly while she waited on Rachel to dump the rest of her accoutrements in the back. The gate closed with a slam. Holly winced, forgetting to explain you can hit a button & a motor does it for you. Angrily Rachel stomped along the side & got in.

"Let's go." She directly angrily.

"We're going." Her older sister said meagerly. She heard heavy breathing. At first, she thought Rachel was out of breath too, making her not feel so bad. But when she looked over, she noticed it was more because her nostrils were flaring. Rachel was still on the verge of flipping out. Holly looked to change the subject, spouting the first thing that came to mind.

"I'm hungry. Want to hit up some drive thru?" Holly asked, thinking it would help. Rachel threw herself deeper into the passenger seat.

"Are you okay?" She asked with some more patented side eye.

"What do you mean?" Holly recoiled, anticipating some yelling maybe, but not expecting that sort of response. Rachel skipped a beat before continuing.

"Well I mean... I'm the one that went through the messy break up here. But you..." While every word was hollered, & she was certainly still angry, her tone was different. Concerned almost.

"WHAT...?!" Holly had a feeling she knew where this was going. And she chose to remain ambivalent the first time, but if it kept coming up, she wasn't sure if she'd be willing to let it slide. Rachel pressed anyway. 

"All you seem to want to do is eat! And I can't tell why! But it's weird! Really weird! Especially for YOU." As frank, as she was being, there seemed to also be a fair amount of concern happening in her voice as well. This wasn't just her making fun, as frustrated as she was. Like she was genuinely worried that the was something the matter. "I mean you polished off a whole pizza last night. On your own! Then you had the nerve to scarf down the rest of mine this morning while you're telling me about my car!" 

"For the record, there's still a slice left!" Holly tried to contend. "I'm not a... monster..." But Rachel continued.

"Aw. Gee whiz. Thanks!" She started sarcastically. "THEN! You tell me you'll buy me breakfast instead! Which, sure. Thanks! But at the bagel place, you get your own bagel LOAD it up with way, way too much cream cheese, inhale the damn thing & then eye me eating mine while we sat there, waiting for our goddamn number!" 

"Did not." Holly lied. Feebly. but Rachel was on too much of a roll to stop.

"Now! What? Only about two hours later? Suddenly you're asking about drive thru? Hungry AGAIN?!"

"... What...?" Holly tried to play it off a bit as though she was just unaware. And in a way, she sort of was. Although in all honesty, it was much less a matter of "hungry again," & more "hungry still." To her, the more offputting part wasn't that Rachel was 100% right, but that there actually wasn't any thing wrong that she was hiding. She had honestly just been... hungry. And hadn't even realized it until her sister had pointed it out. She started to worry once again about her weight, but before her brain could go any further, her sister instead sighed & conceded.

"Sorry," Rachel slowly backpedaled, sounding a lot calmer than she had all morning. "I just... I'm probably never going to see that car again." A silence fell over them. It lasted for a solid thirty seconds before Holly happily tried to change the topic again. 

"RIP, Deb-Or-ah." 

"RIP." smirked Rachel. "Emphasis on the "O." The sisters laughed. All the way to the drive thru of Holly's favorite chicken place.

"Seriously though," Rachel probed, while sizing her sandwich up for another bite. "IS everything alright?" She would've never spent money at this place, given their weird religiosity, horrendous politics, & a story she read once about them looking to use their profits to hopes of smuggling ancient artifacts, hoping to maybe bring about the apocalypse from the book of Revelations or something. She did however justify enjoying the admittedly tasty chicken with the fact that once again, Holly was the one buying. So it was her money funding their bullshit, not Rachel's.

"Honestly? Things have never been better!" Holly shrugged her shoulders before sucking deeply on the straw of the orange creamsicle smoothie concoction she got on a whim. She fought off a deep, almost automatic "Mmmmm," enjoying the taste. And its temperature hit her just right, after moving those crates & boxes in the sun earlier. "Work's a little hectic & takes probably a little too much of my time, but I love my life! My condo! I'm thrilled you're here!"

"So you just like... developed a binge eating disorder, on a whim?" Rachel asked again, looking at her sandwich & taking another bite. 

"That's not funny! I knew a girl with something like that in college! It was so rough on her! You shouldn't joke like that." Her older sister scolded, eating a waffle fry. "And me? What I'm doing? It's definitely isn't THAT bad!"

"I don't know, it seems pretty bad." Rachel sighed before taking another bite of her own. She continued with her mouth full. "You definitely don't seem to be purging at least."

"NOT FUNNY!" Holly repeated, swinging a limp forearm that hit more of the back of Rachel's chair than her sister's shoulder. "I just... I get a little hungrier sometimes these days." She sort of trailed. "It's not that... It's really not that big a deal." She said meekly, before taking another sip from her smoothie. Almost as if maybe it was actually a big deal to her. After looking herself over this morning. And her not realizing she hadn't been thinking about working out. But before Rachel could pry further, Holly let out a short yelp.

"Owww!" She cried, applying the back of her wrist to her forehead before throwing her whole head back. "Owowowowowow!

"Brainfreeze?" Rachel smirked.

"Brainfreeze." Holly slowly managed softly, taking a second. Without readjusting, she put her cup securely in its holder before fishing a tender out of the bag.

"Well," Rachel continued, watching her take a big bite of chicken. "If there WERE something going on, don't hesitate. I'm here to listen." Unlike the playful prodding, this was more sincere & sisterly in tone. 

"Of course!" Holly smiled, coming out of cold smoothie-induced affliction. "I appreciate it. A whole bunch."

"And like... I'm not trying to be a jerk. Or at least a huge jerk I guess." Rachel said, trying a waffle fry herself. "I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable & I know how sensitive a topic of conversation this junk can be. It all just seems... I don't know. A little... unlike...you. If that makes any sense."

"No," Holly let out an uncomfortable sigh. "You're probably right." She picked up her smoothie & fidgeted with the straw a little, sturring her drink. "I've been thinking about it. And I definitely need to get my ass in gear. Before... before... it becomes a problem."

"Mmm," Rachel was taking a swig off her golfer inspired half & half. "A place as fancy as yours, didn't you say something about a gym yesterday? Don't they have one?"

"Mmm," Holly did the same off her smoothie. "Under Renovation." She air-quoted, even with her drink in her hand, & made a face, as if to demonstrate the irony of it.

"Well, how about this!" Rachel said taking her last bite & wiping the crumbs off her hands, "Tomorrow's Saturday, right? How about we both get up early, we throw on some sweats or whatever & we go for a nice long jog around the glorified office park hell you call neighborhood."

"Hey!" Holly took issue at her sister's snark first, but realizing that Rachel, her once chubby butterball of a sister was offering to go on a jog with her? Help her get motivated again? "That... that would be... incredible, actually. I would love that!" Few things in the world would've made her happier. Even as kids, it was something Holly was always looking to do.

"Okay, so then it's settled." Rachel shrugged. But then Holly's phone made a strange notification noise. It was one of the goofier default noises, the ones only old & really basic people ever seem to pick. Once Rachel realized what it was, she couldn't help but roll her eyes. Which was fine, because Holly was burying her attention into it.

"OH!" she said, getting excited again. "I completely forgot to tell you!" Before continuing, she took another deep sip off her smoothie.

"What?" a leery Rachel filled the void.

"Friends of mine. Neighbors, & girls I know from work. We've been doing a ladies' night. Every friday."

"Okay," Rachel said, seeming to not understand where she fit into this.

"... So you're invited!" Holly volunteered. But Rachel didn't seem as thrilled as she would've liked.

"... Do I have to?" Rachel asked timidly. She knew the type of people Holly was friends with. And she could only imagine the basic-ass "secretary," "Ech, Mondays, am I right?"-style humor of the people her sister shared an office with. Her sister was her sister, but dealing with other people like her sister? Without familial obligation?

"What's a matter?" Holly asked, almost a bit wounded. "They're COOL!" She said. In the most uncool way possible. But she continued on. "Actually! It's at Deidre's tonight. She's basically like my supervisor & I told her all about you! She wanted to meet you. There's a few vacancies at work & she thought maybe you would be a good fit. And since you need a job..."

"Fine." Rachel sighed, swallowing her pride. "But no board games. Or weird multi-level marketing schemes!"

"Mmm," Holly started to just reach the bottom of her 32oz smoothie. To Rachel, it was almost a feat how quickly she got through it. "I can't make any promises about board games. They like Cranium some times. But there will most definitely be wine. And probably nachos."

"Great! I'm not looking forward to it!" Rachel said, her tone sarcastically pleasant.

"You're such a bitch sometimes." Holly sighed to herself, pushing her large cup into the bag that was now mostly just trash. Rachel let her comment lie, as she wasn't entirely wrong. And the SUV carrying the two sisters left the busy lunch rush of the chicken place's parking lot.