Voices: Part 1 (Patreon)

(1)

Pruitt Wilson had always appreciated the simple things in life. As a young girl she dreamed of the tried and true Disney formula for a happily ever after and had few aspirations growing up outside of finding a loving husband and having a big family with lots of babies to love and adore. While other girls in high school had gone to prom, she was learning to sew and reading sappy romance novels. While other girls were exploring their sexuality, she explicitly avoided it in order to save herself for the right man. This should have been the right decision, she thought. She learned later from experience however that the only thing that learning from abstinence only education and adults who insisted on never having a relationship until your 30’s did was blind you to what was really out there.

At age 16, Pruitt genuinely believed that she found the one for her and only her: a tall, poetic guy with a clean shaven face and star of the community college drama club. To any real adult, Justin Moore was an annoying tryhard who just happened to be better than the other performers in the Juniper Valley College acting troupe, but to a junior in high school, he was dazzling. Where others saw a scrawny 21 year old in his dad’s leather jacket who threw temper tantrums every time he lost a match in his local fencing club, Pruitt saw a dashing swordsman who would defend her from evil. He had his own car and his own style, and where Pruitt saw with starry eyes a worldly and wise hero with endless stories of his brilliant adventures, the rest of the world saw a stupid kid trying to convince them that he was a ninja master who fought Shaolin monks in Italy and spoke fluent Japanese. He was an obvious liar and a total weeb, but she was an impressionable child and hopelessly devoted to him.

Her story went the same way many girls’ like her did. She was convinced to have sex with him and ended up pregnant, believing that this was the start of her dream life even as he cheated on her with anyone who would let him. She found out and was devastated but couldn’t bring herself to leave him, resulting in over 10 years of low-level mental abuse until she finally had enough and left him at 28. Her daughter Calliope went with her during the split, and while he did still make periodic attempts to stay in his daughter’s life, there was a saddening lack of a fight from Justin when the announcement that his daughter was moving away was made. The pair were able to get their own little home thanks to some intervention and assistance from Pruitt’s parents, but it didn’t quite patch the holes in the hearts of the mother and daughter.

At 32, Pruitt had become much more independent and comfortable in her own skin, but remained somewhat naïve and untrusting of strangers and men especially. She had developed a heavy cottagecore aesthetic and took an interest in soft, simple hobbies like gardening and photography, often times with Calliope being her little partner in crime. Pruitt’s new goal was to find herself and learn who it was that she wanted to be. She began dressing up and posting to her instagram all sorts of crafts and deer-like looks that she more or less created herself, all the while learning to make the best of every little slice of life she could find.

Calliope was the more headstrong and self-sufficient of the two. As much as she did enjoy the simple, warm-fuzzy lifestyle that she and her mom shared, Callie was also interested in Mortal Kombat and learning to skate. Her mom would tease her for making her feel like an old lady, but generally supported her daughter in just about every aspect of her life. But Calliope still had troubles. She was afraid of boys and rarely spoke to them after all of the warnings from Pruitt about dating the wrong guy or believing too hard in romantic fairy tales. This made it especially hard to make friends, and even though the intentions behind the lessons and lectures were good, the social anxiety instilled in the poor girl made her a bit of a loner and subject to bullying at school. Eventually, the problem had become so bad that Callie had built up a reputation as a sobbing, weak crybaby despite her best efforts to make friends in her small town.

(2)

“Heyyyy….This is pretty nice, huh?” Pruitt singsonged, looking around at her new house in the suburbs of San Bernardino. It was much larger than their old place in the Northern California woods, but after so long in the middle of nowhere with things already having fallen apart long before Callie was able to have a chance to be who she wanted to be, Pruitt decided that a change of scenery was exactly what they needed.

(3)

“It’s so big.” Calliope agreed, if only by matching her mom’s tone.

The pair wandered around the house together at first, marveling at the pool and backyard or opening every cabinet in the kitchen to gush at each other over how many things they could fit inside and still have room. They naturally began to drift, distracted here and there by different things until they were periodically calling to each other from separate rooms about bathtub sizes or places where various hobbies could be accommodated easily. Pruitt found herself upstairs before she knew it, inspecting what must have been the master bedroom without even thinking about the fact that her daughter was completely out of her field of view. She meandered into the walk-in closet and simply stood there for a minute, drinking in the cool ambience of the small room without a care in the world.

(Hey)

It was just a whisper, but one that shouldn’t have been there. Pruitt nearly jumped out of her skin when she’d heard it but assumed it was Calliope nearby. The worry and paranoia only began to set in when she looked around the corner and couldn’t see her daughter. It wasn’t like Callie to play pranks to begin with and there was no one around, so she pulled out her phone to see if she’d accidentally turned on youtube somehow and found….nothing. Just a black screen with a darkly tinted reflection of herself. Her pulse quickened as she furrowed her brow behind her thick framed glasses and she moved out of the closet and into the large bathroom linking it to the bedroom, cautiously checking the corners and empty spaces before moving through them. She crept quietly, looking around the open room for anything out of the ordinary before moving to the window just in case. She moved the blinds to look out and her heart sunk into her stomach. There, probably 100 feet away and standing by the pool was her daughter.

With one last frantic, unsure look around the room, Pruitt bolted downstairs.


“Alright…..Last one and then we are officially moved in! Yaaaaaaaay!!!!” Pruitt cheered with a subdued, sweet excitement, throwing her hands up in the air and wiggling them around delightedly.

Over a week had passed since the incident in the closet and after talking about it with Calliope, she’d chalked it up to just being a creepy thing she experienced that she never actually found a reason for. She had no idea what it was or where the sound had come from, but it was far from the first time either of them had heard a sound that they mistakenly thought was a voice. Nothing had happened since then and they’d all but forgotten about it despite making sure to spend the first night sharing a bed. It was the first time either of them had moved from their old home in their old town, and so the clung together for comfort and safety. The fearful, nervous nights quickly turned to excited decorating and evening movie marathons for the mother and daughter duo, and Pruitt often found herself sighing over how happy she was that the decision she made was turning out to be the right one. Her daughter was happier, she was free of her ex, and things seemed to be looking up. She only wished that days like those would last as long as they could.

“You know….we’re not actually moved in until we unpack all the boxes.” Calliope corrected, inciting a stern grimace from her mom.

“I mean…that SOUNDS true…..but doesn’t lunch and a trip to the ice cream shop sound even MORE correct?” Pruitt offered.

Calliope rolled her eyes and smiled, her young features failing to wrinkle even as her lips widened into a big grin.

“I can do lunch…but I think I should pass on the ice cream. I’m trying to watch my weight.” Callie said.

Pruitt was shocked and dismayed at the revelation that her obviously skinny daughter was worried about dieting. “Oh my god! Are you okay? You don’t have to cut out the good stuff! You’re already thin as it is! Are you okay? Has someone been bullying you again? Already? Are you okay? What’s going on?”

Callie smiled shyly and rolled her eyes. “No, no one’s teasing me. And yes, I know I’m skinny, but I wanna stay that way and I just feel like I’ve been eating a lot lately. I can feel my tummy getting squishier and I just wanna stop it before it gets too bad, you know?”

Pruitt sighed again, looking to give some motherly wisdom but feeling like she was coming up short. “Well…I mean…I can’t talk since *my* tummy is all squish, but I’m not going to make you eat if you don’t want to. But…..I’m still going to get some ice cream anyways.”

They got in the car together and drove down to a local sandwich shop and ordered a couple subs. While Pruitt got a footlong, she noticed with some slight concern that Callie ordered half as much as she usually did. After lunch, they took a walk across the shopping center to the local Baskin Robins where Pruitt ordered a banana split. She did have hopes that seeing her mom enjoying a sweet treat would tempt her into asking for one herself, but despite even offering, Calliope politely declined. She wasn’t rude or hostile, nor was it that her mother didn’t understand, but Pruitt still drove home with a quiet, somber smile the whole way. The pair walked inside without a word. Calliope felt awkward and unsure if her mom was mad at her for not wanting to be fat, while Pruitt felt guilty for trying to manipulate her daughter into breaking her new diet for her own comfort.

There were a few halfhearted attempts at small talk before they inevitably went to their separate rooms to unpack the rest of their belongings. Despite the smallness of the events, Pruitt still felt down. She reasoned that it wasn’t so much about trying to get Calliope to drop her diet before it started, but more that it was upsetting to think about what the entire situation meant. Her daughter was growing up. Soon she wouldn’t WANT to be mommy’s little pal anymore. She would be more interested in boys and cars and parties or whatever it is she was getting into. Certainly the boys at least if she was trying to stay thin.

She folded up the majority of her clothes, taking note of some of her own older outfits. The amber haired sweetheart knew that she wasn’t as thin as she used to be, but figured that she may as well try on the clothes she was unsure of before throwing them out given how much time and money she spent looking for things that fit her aesthetic.

There was a slight chill in the room from the moment Pruitt popped her top off, removed her shorts, and looked into the mirror, taking stock of her chubby body. She had boobs, but not big ones. She had hips, but they weren’t wide enough to warrant any special attention. Her belly was perky and round, not saggy or mushy like other girls, but really all that did was make her less squishable. In her opinion, her figure was in every way mediocre and not really what anyone would consider sexy or attractive. And so she stared every night and every morning. Not hating her body. Not loving it. Just….knowing it. And for a while, that was enough for her.

(Hey)

She heard it again. Terror gripped her as she began frantically looking around like a wide eyed teddy bear for the source of the sound, desperately turning on lights and snatching up her clothes from the floor and nearly falling to the ground as she tangled herself up trying to get them on. She almost got her shorts back on before realizing that in her panic she’d put them on completely backwards.

(Hey, I’m talking to you, fatty) It said in a whisper that didn’t sound unlike her own daughter’s voice.

“Who’s there?” Pruitt whispered from the floor, paralyzed in fear as the air grew colder around her.

(That’s a stupid question. You’re all alone. There’s no one here.) The voice whispered from the closet, causing the prone woman to sit up and gaze into the empty walk-in with wide, doe-eyed horror and a viciously rapid pulse that she could feel in her ears.

“Who are you? What do you want?” She whimpered quietly into the ominously empty room.

(Who are YOU?.....

What do *YOU* want, tubby?)

Whatever it was, it’s description was terrifyingly apt enough to put Pruitt into tears. She knew she couldn’t call herself curvy, but she wasn’t thin either. Not only was she heavyset and rectangle-shaped, whoever was speaking to her knew it. Even worse, she found herself sinking at the notion of being referred to as “tubby.” Worse still that she felt herself agreeing with the voice’s apt description of her figure.

(You’re a bad mom.

You’re holding your daughter back.

You’re jealous of her.)

Pruitt began crying on the floor, more terrified of what the voice was saying than the actual presence of a disembodied whisper speaking to her directly.

“Why are you doing this to me? Who are you?” She asked, more pleading than inquiring. “I love my baby. I’m not a bad mom..”

(You are.)

Pruitt found herself becoming suddenly restless, and then angry. She flipped her shorts around and stormed into the closet in her bra, furious and filled with a newfound flood of mama bear rage.

(4)

(What are you going to do?

You gonna beat me up?

Maybe if you’d spent as much effort on sticking your own diet as you do ruining your daughter’s, you might stand a chance.)

Pruitt grabbed a stool from the corner and yanked the trap door to the attic down, using the ferocity of her anger and waning bravery to confront whatever intruder had invaded her home, but found nothing in the tiny room. Her attic was not some old-style horror movie house attic, but a small, enclosed space that was smaller than the closet itself and only barely big enough for even a short woman like Pruitt to stand up in. Even then, she had to tilt her head down or bend her knees to remain upright. Finding nothing, she hurried back down from the attic and back onto the stool, grunting at the effort it took just to get down from where she was and feeling the soreness of her chubby arms after even so small an effort.

(You look tired.

You should lose weight, tubby.)

“Leave. Me. Alone.” Pruitt growled, her white, squared teeth now bared and ruining her deer-like visage. “LEAVE MY DAUGHTER ALONE.”

(You couldn’t save her if you tried, fatty.

You’re just a fat loser with a deadbeat ex.

You’re going to ruin her.

She’s going to end up just. Like. You.) The voice taunted in it’s girly whisper.

In full mom-fury, Pruitt made a mad dash across the expanse of her large master bathroom. It didn’t matter whether the house was haunted or there was an intruder or even if she was just crazy, there was nothing more important in that moment than grabbing her daughter and leaving that house by any means necessary. However, as fast as she ran, she felt herself getting nowhere as the bathroom seemed to extend onward the farther she ran, and after just a few energized seconds the chubby woman felt a hideous cramp welling up beneath her ribs. Pruitt squinted her eyes and lumbered forward, bent over and wheezing from the exertion. She tried to make sense of what was happening to her, running through every Poltergeist scenario and every bit of Freddy Krueger trivia she knew in a half-hearted attempt to make some sort of progress towards rescuing her daughter from whatever dwelled within their new home.

(Tired already? You’re so out of shape. It’s disgusting.)

She pressed onward, once again jogging out of sheer spite and finally feeling like she was getting a little farther. Inching close and closer to the end of the bathroom and closer to Calliope.

(You won’t make it.

You’re too slow.

You’re too fat.

*YOU* should be the one on a diet.)

Pruitt roared in anger, screaming out for her daughter at the top of her lungs only to further wind herself from the effort.

(Go on a diet.

You need to lose some weight.)

“LEAVE ME ALONE! CALLIOPE!!!” She called through ragged, burning breaths.

(Too fat.

Too slow.

Too ugly.)

“Leave me alone! I need to help my baby!!” She sobbed, slowing once more to a walk. She felt her legs begin to wobble beneath her.

(She doesn’t need a fat pig like you for a mom.

She needs someone pretty.

A role model.

Someone thinner.

Someone stronger.

Someone better.)

“Please…..” Pruitt begged, sobbing as she crawled to the edge of the tile and onto her bedroom carpet, gasping for air.

(Go on a diet.)

“I need…To get…to Calliope..” The dizzying woman urged herself on.

(You need to lose weight.

You need to go on a diet.)

“My baby…I need…my baby..”

Pruitt felt herself reach the door to her bedroom, but the walls seemed a million feet high and her vision was spinning. Her strength had almost completely left her, but her will pushed her to continue fighting even while blinded by exhaustion.

(You need to go on a diet.

Lose weight.)

“I can’t…reach…Too…High…Too…” She gasped drowsily, too tired even to cry.

(You’re too fat.

Lose weight, tubby.)

Pruitt felt her limbs chill as a tired coldness washed over her. Try as she might, the strength and eventually even the feeling in her limbs went away and she lay on the floor, eyes shut to hide from the dizzying room.

“I…need…”

(You need to eat less.

Diet.

Restrict.

You need to lose weight.

You need to get skinny.)

Pruitt slogged her way out of bed like she normally did back at her hold home. She felt the soreness and lethargy from the extraneous effort she’d had to put forth during the move. Slipping out of her tanktop and shorts, she stared into the mirror in preparation for her first shower in the new house. While normally she didn’t mind what she saw in the mirror, today she just felt…frumpy. Whereas she normally could look at her naked figure with a sort of accepting apathy, she was suddenly aware of what a flabby ogre she’d somehow let herself become. It disgusted her in ways that she never really thought of before, and she wanted nothing more than to turn away and get clean.

The hot water of the shower was fantastic, and she reveled in the new showerhead that came with the place, but before long her mind drifted back to her behavior the previous day. She wasn’t exactly sure why she had tried to get in the way of Callie’s diet. It wasn’t like it was hurting her, and she still ate a healthy amount of food. She wasn’t sickly or anything. She just wanted to stay thin.

(You’re just jealous)

The thought came through loud and clear, and it disturbed Pruitt as to how honest she was suddenly being with herself, but she couldn’t deny it either. She had convinced herself in the car that it was more about her baby girl growing up without her, but she and Calliope were still thick as thieves.

(Admit it.

You wanted her to stay fat like you.

So you wouldn’t have to change.

You wanted to make her fat so you wouldn’t have to diet.)

She sighed again. She’d been doing that a lot lately. Perhaps, she thought, the new perspective and being free of all her other excuses was forcing her to open her eyes and see things she didn’t want to believe were there. She hadn’t been happy with her body in years and even dove headfirst into an outdoorsy forest-fairy farmer aesthetic to mask her dissatisfaction with fashion. She watched as the bubbles from her shampoo poured down her round, perky belly and decided that it was something that she actively didn’t like about herself.

Throwing on yet another pumpkin-spice brown outfit, Pruitt sorely waddled down the stairs, clinging to the rail as she did and cursing her lack of fitness. She found Callie already up and pouring herself a bowl of Cap’n Crunch from the cabinet, smiling sweetly in greeting.

Pruitt groaned playfully, eliciting a sympathetic “awww, mommy” from her daughter as she moved to grab some cereal for herself. Normally she would have dove for the box of Apple Jacks sitting on the floor of the cabinet but this time she felt herself reaching with some slight sense of obligation for the Frosted Mini Wheats instead.

“I thought you hated those.” Calliope said casually, quirking her head at her mom’s straight behavior.

Pruitt let out one of her trademark defeated sighs and pursed her lips guiltily at her daughter. “Yeahhh…well….I think you may have gotten to me yesterday and I feel kinda bad about how I’ve been acting towards you.

Calliope looked concerned and confused at the same time. “Awww, what? Oh mommy no. I don’t think you’ve done anything bad or mean. You’re like….super great to me all the time and I love you so, so so so many.” She said sweetly in playfully bad grammar that they both shared.

“Well…..” Pruitt began. “I feel like I tried to get in the way of you starting a diet the other day and I think I was just jealous because I’ve been kinda chunky for a long time. You worrying about your size just made me think about how much bigger I am than you and it made me insecure.”

With a loving quickness, Calliope jumped up from the table and hugged her mom sweetly.

“I think you’re super great and so so pretty. There’s nothing wrong with you, my mommy. You’re not even all that big. Just a lil fluffy is all.” She said, almost moving Pruitt to tears.

“Thank you baby…” She sniffled before composing herself with a big, upward tilted breath. “But still…I think it’s time I made myself a little less fluffy and got down to a healthier size. So regardless of what size you are or what you do, I need to go on a diet. For me.”

Calliope smiled and gave her mom another hug.

“That’s awesome and I think you’re super cool and so honest with yourself.” She said.

“I love you so much.”