Fat Happens: Part 8 (Patreon)

The very morning after deciding to take up running and become active, Miri lay in bed with absolute dread for the day's planned activities. She was awake, but still could not get herself to remove herself from under the blankets, instead choosing to make excuses for why she couldn't get up in time for Tawny to arrive and start a new routine of getting up early and exercising.

She reasoned that she didn't get enough sleep because she'd been up all night, which while true, was less about having work to do or being unable to rest than it was about waking up twice in the middle of the night to get a few pieces of the cheesecake she'd been excitedly thawing.

The second venture was weakly resisted by the tubby Asian before her desire to lose weight was completely eclipsed by her craving for desserts soaked in whipped cream and chocolate syrup. It was only three minutes after the idea for a second helping hit her that Miri was drowsily plodding down the hall, her bare, dimply thighs quaking with every step as her soft, round belly jiggled and bounced against them. Satisfied with the dressings placed on the entirety of what was left of the cheesecake, the dark haired plumper turned on the tv and eased onto the couch, pushing over a couple fast food bags and a pile of dirty clothes in the process. With her plate resting on her wide, flowing stomach, she binged several hours worth of a show involving clones of medieval women fighting to find love before realizing she was falling asleep and headed to bed, leaving her sticky plate on the cushion next to where she sat.

She knew then that she wasn't going to be waking up any time before the afternoon, but tried to insist to herself that she would.

When Tawny had first challenged Megan's complaints with the idea to start running every day, Miri was enthusiastic and excited, but as the day wore on, she felt lethargic and uninspired to move at all, still licking tiny bits of dried chocolate sauce from the sides of her mouth as she waited restlessly for the knock at the door.

But the knock never came.

Around 3PM, Miri had considered the day a lost cause for running and instead chose to continue watching her show until it was again time for bed.

So was the routine for the next four days: Miri would laze and stuff herself from the massively crammed fridge and cupboards while she waited with decreasing readiness for the obese blonde who never bothered to show up. Towards the end, she didn’t even bother putting on clothes, instead slobbing around the house in her underwear, braiding her hair to avoid having to do anything with it.

(1)

On some occasions, Lori would call and chat, giving her daughter some enjoyable social interaction and allowing the both of them to become closer than an overbearing mom and ungrateful daughter. The more they did so, Miri noticed that they had more in common than she'd ever realized living with her.

They shared a taste for the same greasy foods, no longer bothering to warn the other of it's effect on their figures.

They both enjoyed the same tv shows and would babble together for hours about what happened during the new season of this or that.

Both women even seemed to like the same style of clothing, generally walking around the house in underwear and slipping into a tank top and a pair of stretchy jeans when modesty was required. Lori had made a remark that surprised the younger woman when she said that the elastic on her pants kept wearing out. Miri told her that she'd experienced the same thing when she didn't wash them for a while, disallowing the material to tighten back up. Lori then responded by saying that she didn't like that washing her pants made them tighter, so she just avoided it if she could, then laughed it off saying "who wants to do laundry anyways?" Miri couldn't help but chuckle and agree, still pleasantly and amusedly surprised that her mom did the same thing she did, figuring that if the elastic snapped, she'd eventually grow into the rest of the item.

Easier still was the shared inclusion of sundresses into their wardrobes, which allowed them more freedom of movement with less pinching fabric and sizing difficulty. Miri had promised to take her to Mirabel's to get more while simultaneously warning her about the owner's demeanor.

(2)

For the first time in ages, Miri felt like her mom was happy to be around her, and that they were really beginning to understand each other. Lori had been increasingly understanding and supportive when Miri told her about feeling hungry and tired a lot of the time, relating that she too began feeling that way around her age and that that was "just what happens."

Lori would tell her all about the things she had enjoyed doing as a teenager, but wouldn't be able to even try with her current size and motivation. Miri had known many of those stories already, having heard about her mom's budding dancing career and love of hiking and even a short stint in martial arts before she got pregnant. She protested the idea of not being able to be athletic briefly, saying that she wasn't pregnant yet, but lazily agreed when her mom knowingly laughed and reminded her that her active days were already long behind her. Realistically, she thought, she wasn't the kind of girl who was going to drop a hundred and thirty pounds and still live the way she wanted.

(3)

Still, Lori never faulted her, saying often "That's okay. You're just like me. Women in our family start losing all that at 18. Nothing we can do about it."

Miri wondered if having a fat daughter simply justified her giving up on her earlier passions, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she too had fallen out of a lot of activities that used to mean a lot to her.

For as much talking Miri and her mom had been doing however, interactions with Tawny had been brief and sporadic. Since resolving to start exercising together, the two had never once made a plan or even the slightest attempt to meet up to do so since it had come up five days prior. Miri had consistently convinced herself that it was either too hot or too late to go out, choosing instead to play games all day. Twice she'd gotten up with enough motivation to make the drive up the street to "fight fate" and work out, spurred by the increasingly distant memory of the voice from her high school years that urged her to restrict her eating and spend her days trying to ward off the extra hundred and fifty pounds of heavy, dimply flab that she knew even then would one day overtake and consume her tiny, frail body.

Those thoughts were short-lived however, as those same memories of hunger and light-headed exercise failures convinced her to eat a hearty breakfast for fuel, which rapidly became a huge platter of Chinese takeout or a bucket of fried chicken, both of which were punctuated by a heavy dessert. Afterward, the obese young woman would "give herself time to digest," which would almost involve falling asleep on the couch with sticky hands and face, surrounded by bags, boxes, and cans as the tv droned on in the background. By the time she would wake up, sweaty from the heat and still drowsy from the meal, it would be long past time to go running.

It was a full week after Megan's outburst that the pudgy redhead decided to give her a call.

Miri stared at the name on her phone before forcing herself to answer it, dreading the coming conversation.

"Miri! Hey!" Megan said in a friendly, but clearly annoyed tone.

Miri sighed, "Hey. What's up?"

"Soooo, yeah, where've you been all week? You guys were supposed to come run with me and you never came over or called or anything." Megan said.

Miri felt herself get irritated immediately, responding blandly, "I thought we were too fat and out of shape to run with you."

Megan didn't hesitate in responding.

"You are. And you're just gonna get fatter and more out of shape by sitting at home. I figured I was being harsh and decided to try to stick with you guys and coach you through it, but that didn't happen either because you never came over."

"Then why didn't YOU say anything if you wanted us to go so bad? Why not just run with Tawny instead? Why do I have to go? You can run without me." Miri stated, thankful to have learned how to defend her points the way her mom did.

"Because I already run without you. Tawny won't go because you're not going, and neither of you talk about it, so she just sits around stuffing her face while I go out." Megan said, her voice verging on audible anger.

Feeling confident and calm, Miri continued, "That's because all of this was your idea. We were hanging out together before you came at us with your anorexic bullshit, telling us we're too fat for your liking."

"So first off, trying to lose weight doesn't make me anorexic. I am nowhere near thin enough to be saying shit like that." Megan rattled, trying to regain her composure.

"You don't sound too happy about that. And you're not even fat. You're the thinnest person I know, and now you're trying to rub that off on your friends. Have you ever considered that maybe I don't WANT to be skinny? Have you considered that all that extra fat you see on yourself isn't even there?" Miri pressed, knowing at this point Megan couldn't defend against that many attacks. A dirty tactic, she thought, but one she knew well.

"I'm not even going to engage with that, but at least now I know what you think of me." Megan huffed through the phone.

Now pacing around her room in a pair of stretched and lacy underwear, Miri rolled her eyes and retorted, "I'll remind you that you have already said twice that you think the two people who consider you a fairly close friend are so fat and disgusting that you feel the need to force us to lose weight."

"And I'm trying to help you both get past that. Honestly, if you guys exercised and ate better, you'd both be really pretty." Megan bargained, hoping to sound sympathetic and helpful.

More offended than inspired however, Miri responded "Oh really? Because the only way to do that is to be on an exercise regimen, obviously. Tell me, what exactly DOES pretty look like anyways? And please, I dare you to say skinny."

Megan stuttered slightly, feeling flustered.

"No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying. You don't have to be skinny. Just...like, not this huge, fatty blob who never cleans up or works out."

There it was.

After hundreds of arguments with her mom, Miri had learned from her how to make people say something incriminating by making them frustrated and confused. On occasion, she thought about switching her major from Programming to Law, figuring she'd make a decent prosecutor if she put in the time.

But either way, she'd caught her athletic frienemy in the same trap she'd used on everyone else who argued with her.

"So basically Tawny and I are amorphous blobs living in hoarder hovels because we are not like you and don't obsess over mainstream ideals of thinness.

Megan's reply was, as usual, stated as if it were a known fact rather than an opinion.

"Well, if we're being honest, then yeah. You don't have to OBSESS, but still."

"Oh no, if you're trying to make us like you, we do. Shall I begin posting magazine cutouts on my wall now, or should I wait for you to help me pick out ones that are good enough?" Miri said, smiling through her venomous words and stuffing a danish into her mouth and leaving the wrapper on the overflowing kitchen counter as she walked back into the living room, her bare feet slightly sticky and blackened by the dingy floor.

There was no reply for a few seconds.

"Look, this got stupid really fast. You said you would go, but it didn't happen and I wanted to run with you guys. If not, that's fine, but do you want to or not? No pressure."

Miri grinned smugly as she chewed the last quarter of her pastry, eating it in record time to open another.

"Sure, I'll go if you come get me tomorrow morning. Just make sure I'm actually awake or else I'll never move. Sleep-me will tell you whatever it takes to get you to go away."

Megan's sigh was audible.

"Alright. No hard feelings?"

"No hard feelings," Miri cooed happily, accentuating her puffy cheeks.

"Sorry for making you feel bad. Your body is your own business. Just remember that that applies to everyone else too."

(4)

"Sure. Sorry for getting mad. See you tomorrow." Megan said flatly before hanging up.

Miri grabbed a two-liter of Dr Pepper and plopped down onto the bed, sending a wave through her bare belly.

Grinning, she said," I win."