Bellflower Part 31 (Patreon)

 In this installment, Holly & Courtney finally get to talk about Courtney's seemingly abrupt move, while the conspiracy theorists try to piece together what caused one of them to put on several hundred pounds in just a few short weeks.

So I had a lot of this kind of outlined, but the holidays got in the way & held up a lot of the work I was hoping to do on it. Hard to work when I'm running all over the place or hosting company. As things start to slow back down though, there will probably be another short part coming up to make up for it very soon. Thanks for bearing with me!

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31

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“Hello?” Holly asked, pinning the phone to her shoulder with a copious amount of cheek. More than she was expecting anyway.

But even though it was only a question, her tone was stern. Almost reprimanding in a way. And Accompanied by an annoyed sigh. This phone call was something she was both eager to have, but also something she wasn’t looking forward to at the same time. Back in the comfort of her own condo, she was in the middle of unpacking the contents of a couple crinkly, grease-stained Burger Palace to-go bags across the length of her coffee table. This time, it wasn’t a snack, but an actual dinner’s worth.  At least up until her phone suddenly decided to ring.

“Hi Hol.” It sounded like Courtney on the other end of the line, but sheepish. Faintly, in the background there were cars. Washed out into the subtle drone of highway noises. 

“Hi.” Holly let out sharply. In still keeping that same upset tone of voice, it seemed leveled at the girl she thought was her friend, more as a jab than simply just said.

“Listen. We’re at a rest stop right now. My dad’s getting us something to eat, so I figured I’d… call.”

“Mhmm.” Holly hummed into the phone while puckering her lips around the straw of her extra large drink & taking a long, wet sip. Courtney continued, seeming to understand Holly’s frustration with her.

“But I just… I wanted to tell you... I’m… I’m really sorry I had to leave so… suddenly.” Courtney slowly managed, before exhaling.

“Sudden is right.” Holly reiterated as a rasp, before leaning back into her comfy couch with a couple of fries pinched between her fingers. “Not even so much as a “goodbye?” I thought we were friends!”

“We are!” Courtney defensively tried to insist. “And I didn’t think I needed to because it isn’t a goodbye! We’ll see each other again! Soon! Guaranteed.” She sighed. “But… perhaps you’ve got a point. Maybe I went about it the wrong way…. I just…” Courtney couldn’t stop stammering. She sounded broken up. Feeling a little guilty for maybe laying it on a little thick, Holly interjected with a slightly lighter tone.

“So... you’re moving back home?” She asked while inadvertently crunching down another fry. “Why? Is it...” She wanted to ask if it was because of her weight. How Courtney had gotten so large, the last time she personally had seen her, she had to help her unwedge herself from her door frame. But no nice way of wording that came to her. At least not before Courtney’s voice resumed from the other end.

“I… It’s hard to explain.” She seemed to sigh.

“Are you… you know. Getting some… help?” Holly mustered. As politely as she could, swallowing as much of her frustration as she could to be empathetic. As frustrated as she was with her, Holly didn’t want to hurt Courtney. Especially after the turmoil with Veronica last time. But at the same time, she was... concerned.

“I’m… it’s fine! It’s all going to be fine.” Courtney said in an assuring, more confident tone. There was soundly some noises. The highway got louder for a second before there was the crinkle of paper bag, not too unlike her own fast food, & a man’s grunt. Courtney seemed to dully say “hey” to someone & not directly into the phone. With a sharp thud, the highway turned back into a low drone. "Listen, my dad’s back & we’re trying to get back home before midnight so I should… probably get going.” This wasn’t the closure Holly needed, but it was at least… something. She fought the kneejerk instinct to insist to her friend that the Bellflower is her home, but for the sake of brevity decided against it. For now anyway. After all, if she did get off the phone, she could focus on having her own dinner. With the full bounty laid out & staring her in the face, making her entire condo smell like Burger Palace? She needed to eat too!

“Ok.” Holly finally settled on.

“I just…” Courtney seemed to start, before seeming to deliberate further on her words. “I just know we’re going to see each other again. Very soon! Sooner than you probably imagine, honestly! So while it might’ve been crappy of me, I didn’t see the need to say goodbye. Goodbyes suck!” As she seemed to get a little emotional, Holly could almost hear the tears welling up in Courtney’s eyes. It sure sounded like her alright.

“And I’m… sorry.”

“No! I am! I… didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You… Just… Look after yourself, Court! Okay?” Holly asked, talking to her more like a friend again, rather than just someone she was upset with. “At least until we do get to see each other again, like you said.”

“Oh don’t worry!” Courtney seemed to chuckle. It sounded like her hand came close to the phone, almost as if she was wiping a tear away. “I’m in good hands! See you soon!”

After a chain of soft “bye’s” & “talk soon’s,” Holly hit the button & looked down at the three Classic triples sitting in front of her. She tried to forget the greasy looking teen’s shocked expression when he recognized her coming through the drive thru a second time in just a few hours.

Somewhere, Penny ended the call on her end. While scooping another scoop of peanut butter ripple ice cream towards Courtney’s gaping maw, the AI tried to tell her “Holly says her best regards.” 

Courtney’s eyes seemed to flicker a little with some form of recognition, but otherwise, she was maybe just a little too engrossed in the ice cream.

“Okay!” Scoffed Marissa, shaking her head.

She seemed to take in each of their stares as she slowly shuffled closer to their table. “Whatever your deal is here? And can I at least take a load off first? My feet are really starting to hurt.” She plodded a few more steps towards their booth, narrowly swaying her extra large hips past an adjacent empty table. It was a very narrow miss. Then she muttered, a mile a minute, under her breath. “And I’m pretty hungry too. How’s the food here? S'there a menu to look at?”

Mikayla was in the best position to mobilize. Without taking her eyes off the goth, she slowly unwedged herself to get up & grabbed a chair from another nearby empty table, before thinking better about it & grabbing a second. With their legs scraping across the linoleum a bit loudly, Marissa’s tongue made a click of disgust that was barely audible. The goth looked at the flannel-clad roboticist as though she couldn’t be serious. But Mikayla seemed to simply ignore it, continuing to set both side by side in the aisle row, at the head of the already, barely a four-top booth’s table & offering Marissa the dual seat set up.

“Marissa?” Fran asked slowly, calling the two out of their tense stares, but almost as if she was talking to a child, & out of deep concern. “Tell me you left your phone…”

“In my car, MOM!” She interrupted, complete with an eye roll. “C’mon! This isn’t my first rodeo!” With a grunt, she lowered her bulk, probably a bit quicker than a girl her size ought. It seemed as though she was spitefully aiming for just one of the chairs. Everyone at the table, including Deidre, seemed to wince & brace a little in their own way. Just gauging the disparity between her heftiness & the chair, they each worried she’d keep going until her now significantly much larger ass hit the floor. 

But the flimsy-looking chair was surprisingly sturdy, holding like a champ. Well that, & the fact that her ass was large enough to spill over a bit onto the second inadvertently anyway, distributing just a teensy bit of the weight, but luckily just enough to only elicit a whining creak from both. Either way, much more favorable than a total collapse. Thanks to the engineering in her background, Mikayla had made the right call after all. And almost subconsciously, Marissa shifted a little anyway, centering herself a bit more evenly over both anyhow, if only because it was more square with the table. But the goth pressed on, seemingly unaware. “Jeez! What is up with you guys today?”

“What’s up with… you…?” Mikayla stammered, still standing over to her side. The way Marissa took up the entire side of the table now, it seemed nigh impossible for Mikayla, thick in her own right, to squeeze past again.

“Not a whole lot.” Marissa tried to answer in a way that would bring the conversation back to some level of normalcy. “Mostly keeping to myself a bit."

“Oh I’ll bet.” Mikayla seemed to jab as an aside.

“And who’s this?” Marissa willfully ignored the bite of her cohort’s tone, turning to Deidre with a welcoming smile that almost got lost in her now bigger cheeks.

“Um… Deidre.” the usually assertive blond awkwardly smiled back. While she didn’t seem to have a personal frame of reference for what was going on & the transformation that had occured, she was good at reading the room, & seemed to pick things up through context clues. “Marissa, was it…?”

“Deidre? A pleasure!” Marissa squeaked pleasantly while catching some of her breath again. It seemed amiable for an introduction, but that's when Rachel noticed Mikayla & Fran locking eyes & seemingly trying to mouth things to one another without Marissa noticing. But just then, the suddenly much larger young woman turned her attention back to the table at large. “So does Deidre know?”

“Do you?” Mikayla seemed to ask accusingly. “Or did you somehow like… forget?” Before anyone else could react, the table buckled a little.

“Tch!” Marissa clicked in tandem with a disgusted sigh. “And just what is that supposed to mean?!” Rachel winced. 

“Um… sidebar.” a fed up Fran called, desperately trying to scoot along the tight booth. Despite being tightly wedged between the seat & the table, it was like she was trying to get out. But if Mikayla was a little too wide to reclaim her seat, Fran trying to squeeze past seemed downright futile. “Marissa, would you… mind…?” Fran asked on approach. Her breath already seemed pinched, as Marissa sort of bobbled a bit in her two seats, somehow scooting them both to the side under each cheek. But if she spared any room though, it was scarcely more than just a few inches. The table shook & shuddered. Deidre winced as Rachel tried to avert her eyes from the weird flab-on-flab collision taking place. She could only feel the closest thing she could liken to an Earthquake without having a frame of reference for one. With something of a thud, a bang, some grunting between the two girls, & maybe one of the bolts holding the booth in popping off the support, the shaking stopped. She looked & Fran had somehow managed, turning to look at her as she adjusted & regained her ability to take full breaths. “Rachel. You coming?”

“Oh… I… um…” Deidre had her pinned into the corner against the wall. And on the other side of Deidre was the wall of Marissa, slightly more ajar to her side of the table now, further wedging her in. To her credit, Deidre looked as though she initially tried but was equally a bit befuddled as to what to do. Rachel, realizing the sandwich shop wasn’t that fancy, decided to just say “fuck it.” While still kind of a tight fit for even her, she slid her legs up onto the bench itself, standing in her seat & stepping over the back of the bench into the booth of the next table. It was the only way that made sense, even though it was the first thing she’d done in a while that required some level of agility. A level of agility her somewhat recently obtained belly wasn’t ready or balanced for. But she managed. And while both Fran & Deidre, in their maturity seemed a bit disdainful of her choice, couldn’t seemingly argue with the justification for it. Meanwhile, Marissa let out something of a jolly little chuckle. “One second.” Rachel said hopping down & scooting past Marissa as best as she could manage.

“They usually don’t act this… strange.” she heard Marissa confide to Deidre as she rolled her eyes in her direction.

“I’m telling you! She gave in. Hard. Like I always knew she would” Mikayla insisted as Rachel approached. It seems as though she had adopted Deidre’s yell-whispering technique from earlier, but was a bit louder, & through clenched teeth. "I always knew she'd end up like this. Like all the rest of them! After all of those fluid "cheat days” of hers? No matter what we told her, she was never the least bit mindful." Rachel was a bit surprised Marissa couldn’t hear the chatter from across the empty sandwich shop, but their suddenly larger friend didn’t seem bothered. Instead, she & Deidre, the large, round, besweatsuited goth & top-heavy, professional C-Suiter continued to make what looked to be awkward small talk. Rachel turned back just as Mikayla continued cynically. “For all we know, maybe she’s made… I don’t know. Some kind of deal with… them. IT! Whatever. But in no way we can trust her! Not now!”

“What?!” Rachel tried to suppress a gasp, also in the form of a weird whisper. She worried she might’ve missed a key detail, given how quickly it escalated. Slipping was one thing. But betraying them? Now seemingly talk of excommunicating her?

“Be serious!” Fran scoffed. “No.”

“I’m telling you!” A wide-eyed Mikayla doubled down. “She… she struck some kind of deal & now, she probably hasn’t even realized yet that it’s blowing up in her face!”

“By blowing her up too?” Fran asked sarcastically. “She’s a lot of things! But I know Marissa. And she’s no traitor! Frankly, she… she doesn’t really have it in her.” Mikayla & Rachel exchanged a look, not quite knowing what Fran meant. “Upstairs, I mean.” She continued. “But either way, I… I still trust her. Just... It’s abundantly clear that something did happen. Penny must’ve gotten to her somehow. Somehow we’re not looking out for. At least… yet. I mean, look at her! She doesn’t even seem all that... aware of it even.” She paused to gulp. “And that much? That fast?!” She looked at Mikayla point blank. “That’s more than Penny sneaking her an extra pint of ice cream here or there on a cheat day. She’s… massive.”

“Then how?!” Mikayla pressed. “What’s doing this to her? And you know, just how can she not be aware of putting on almost a buck fifty over the course of only a week or two?! Or wearing even sweats that are too small for her?”

“Well were you?” Fran snapped back a bit angrily. “I mean before I came along to show you otherwise?” Mikayla sneered a little at the inference. The fact that she needed to be “saved,” as it were.

“Ok, fine! I might’ve been oblivious.” She growled. “Once! And I ended up with all of this as a parting gift!” She gave a shimmy to show her own excess fleshiness a snap jiggle. “But never that much. And not over two weeks.” Mikayla snapped.

“Thanks for proving my point!” Fran argued. “So maybe stop blaming her for it, like it’s all her fault so we can figure out what actually went wrong!” In the tense break in the exchange, Rachel tried to push reset. She made a move to moderate & reframe things. If only to get them to focus back on the issue at hand. She turned to Fran first.

“I mean, to Mikayla’s point, for as long as I knew her, Marissa’s willpower never seemed all that great. Not to like… pass judgement or anything. But in my head, she didn’t really seem all that careful about it. I kind of figured she’d keep on putting on weight.” Rachel offered, timidly. “But slowly! Here & there, little by little. Nothing like… well… This.” By this point, Rachel had shifted to address Mikayla a bit more. “Fran’s got a point, & you’re saying it too! This is… a lot. Fast.” She paused briefly before offering her own opinion. “But maybe her being the way she was? That’s why they seemed to choose her? For whatever…caused this. Testing out… something new? Just because she’d probably be the most prone to it?” Rachel peered over her shoulder, worried she might’ve been a bit too loud. But Marissa & Deidre seemed too wrapped up in their own little sidebar, looking over & speaking about them with giggles.

“Testing out something new?” Fran repeated, rolling it around in her head. She suddenly seemed to start walking back to the table abruptly, leaving Mikayla & Rachel to look at one another again. “Hey, Marissa?” Fran called.

“Yes?” Marissa at first purred, before awkwardly trying to shift back to look over her shoulder. But in doing so, the chairs seemed to slowly scoot a little further apart & creak. She was a little too big to do the thing she was hoping to do for effect. 

“Can you… help her out?” Fran asked Rachel with a sigh. Rachel’s eyes widened. Was she sincerely being asked to help move Marissa? Mikayla sprung into action though, grabbing one of the chairs.

“HEY!” Marissa jerked. Rachel bounded to grab the other as they both tilted the large goth out to face the aisle more so both Fran could address her, but also so Deidre could get out of the booth again. “Stop!” Marissa seemed to fight though, trying feebly to swat them away.

“What… changed?” Fran asked, standing over her.

“Changed?” Marissa asked, tightening her expression. “What do you mean changed?”

“Over the past week or two.” Fran elaborated. “Anything… different?”

“What is this? An interrogation?” Marissa scoffed. Her protest seemed to raise Mikayla’s ire a little, as she looked to more Fran, but also Rachel with something of an “I toldja so” look. Unwavering beyond something of a slight grunt, Fran grabbed another empty chair, spinning it, almost like she was going to do the patented “let’s wrap” sitting backwards position. And while Marissa may have surpassed her in terms of weight, as Fran lowered herself, the others worried she might’ve been a bit too big for one chair herself. It creaked loudly, but luckily held. Now at eye level, she continued, undeterred, with her shelf of a butt poking up in the air behind her as she leaned forward into the back of the chair.

“Call it whatever you want,” she said assertively. “But it’s important you let us know.”

“Why…?” Marissa seemed to ask slowly. To Rachel though, it sounded almost like she vaguely understood “why.” But maybe she needed it spelled out for her. Fran seemed to have a look of reticence. She looked to Rachel, who only seemed to be able to grit her teeth. Luckily, Mikayla had no qualms finally addressing the elephant in the room.

“Because you’ve literally ballooned, since the last time we’ve seen you!” She said, almost with a look of catharsis. “That’s why.” 

“Wha…?” Marissa seemed to choke. Her deviant expression dropped into something a bit more melancholy, before she tried to stammer. “I… I haven’t… I mean…” Deidre, perhaps a little bit more than Rachel, suddenly had flashbacks to Veronica’s outburst. The one that upset Courtney. 

“Take a second.” Fran tried to assure her, putting a hand on Marissa’s fleshy shoulder while shooting Mikayla a look. 

“Well... things were… seemingly getting a little tight for me.” Marissa said off to the side, curling up into a pensive smile, trying to take it in stride. “But… I just thought a load of wash had gotten… shrunk.” Rachel squatted, joining her & Fran at their level.

“You didn’t realize you were like… eating more?” She tried to ask it in a way that didn’t sound accusatory, but genuinely wanted to understand how she couldn’t have realized what led to this.

“N-no more than usual.” Marissa seemed to shrug. “At least… seemingly.” She looked up at Rachel. “Fuck, is it… really that noticeable?” Rachel’s eyes widened reflexively, but she really didn’t know what to say. Which was maybe too telling a response in the first place. Fortunately, that’s when Fran intervened to push her original question.

“We need to know what’s been going on.” She stated directly. “What’s different with you, what led to… this. That way, we can stop it right here! And so it doesn’t… keep happening. And you don’t get any… well… bigger.”

“I… I…” Marissa stammered, looking to Fran. “I haven’t done… anything differently. I’ve just been… at home. Doing the same stuff I usually do! Keeping to myself. Crocheting. Listening to music. And like all of my Penny stuff is like… smashed or dismantled.”

“And she, it… didn’t try repairing anything?” Mikayla asked, her tone vaguely more sympathetic now suddenly.

“Not that I’ve seen.” Marissa stressed, shaking her head, flopping her messy bun a little.

“Any… hungrier…?” Deidre inserted, trying to help. While they appreciated her concern, the others seemed a bit dismissive of what seemed like an obvious question.

“I have been… a little extra tired lately.” Marissa seemed to acknowledge. “Sleepy even.”

“Sleepy?” Fran asked.

“Yeah!” Marissa grasped onto it. After all, it seemed like something. “I mean you know me! I’m usually a night owl. I typically operate on like three or four hours in the wee morning. Maybe an occasional nap?”

“That’s not healthy.” Deidre seemed to mutter to herself. But only Rachel seemed to hear it.

“But lately, I’ve been getting like… proper night’s sleep. Over eight hours.” She seemingly started to realize. “Do you think…?”

“Um…” Fran seemed to compute. It wasn’t conclusive, but it was something. “Let’s not panic, but…”

“Great!” Mikayla scoffed sarcastically, flapping her thick arms. “So now, on top of everything else? We just have to worry about suddenly, randomly gaining on a couple hundred pounds in our sleep now, without even realizing it?” For someone as logical as she was, it seemed like a bit of a jump to conclusions. But worrying nonetheless.

“Fuckin’ awesome.” Rachel sighed.