“Yeah, and it all came out of her personality.” Avery chuckled, “Seriously, you give me the choice between tacos and beer or a flat belly and I’ll pick tacos and beer every day of the week.”
“Obviously.” Brooke cut eyes at Avery’s roly-poly middle
“Obviously.” Avery said with a little pat of her belly, “But you know, it’s not like I’m some fat slob. I’m not a horrible person for liking myself.”
“Somebody has to.”
“I’m serious!” Avery laughed, “When Cheye said she wanted to lose weight, I was supportive. Wasn’t I supportive?”
“You were.” Brooke took a sip from her soda, “We both were!”
“And I never made her feel bad for dipping out on movie nights.” Avery held up a proud, pudgy pointer finger, “Or for not helping pay for takeout anymore—”
“She stopped eating takeout, Avery.”
“Okay, but whatever. The point is, I didn’t act like a bitch when she wanted to change everything about how we all hang out together.”
“No more than usual.”
“Exactly! Like, we’ve all been friends for years, so what, she loses weight and she decides that she’s better than us?”
“I don’t think that she thinks that she’s better than us, Avery.” Brooke continued with some trepidation, “She’s just trying to get healthy.”
“Fuck, she already lost 200 pounds… how much healthier can she get?”
Avery’s footsteps echoed in the floor below her as she trekked back towards the couch. Her tummy trembled, nestled snugly in the roomy crotch of her trusty sweatpants, and shaking from side to side at every step. Squatting back down onto the couch, a relieved grunt of satisfaction sounding from deep in her chest, she laid one hand back on the arm of the couch while the other laid rest across the swell of her stomach.
For as long as it had mattered, Avery had always been fat. All of them, the three of them, were. That was (in a weird way) one of the reasons that they all got along so well.
With other friends there had always been the looming reality of being their group’s Fat Friend. It had reared its head as early as Middle School for Avery and Brooke, and then eventually in High School for Cheyenne. The fact that, regardless of how their social circle changed according to the whims of adolescent socialization, they were always the biggest girls in all of their friend groups had been a strange topic of conversation to get onto but one that proved invaluable nonetheless.
When they started hanging out with each other, there was none of that. They were just three girls who knew enough of the same people, disliked enough of the same people, and had a mutual appreciation for food and natural affinity against exercise. It had carried them through high school, through college, and into their twenties.
Their friendship had been so simple.
Why Cheyenne had decided to fuck that up was beyond Avery.
“Healthier than us, that’s for sure.” Brooke sipped on her soda before running a deprecative hand over her own tubby tummy for emphasis, “I think I actually managed to find some of the weight that she lost.”
“Yeah, well…” Avery grumbled, drumming her stomach contemplatively, “I still liked her better when she was a fatass like the rest of us mere mortals.”
“I know you did, hun.” Brooke pat her friend on the shoulder placatively, “But…”
Brooke sighed. The sad, dejected sigh that she had been doing for the past few weeks while she’d been waiting for the tensions to boil over and fizzle out. Avery already knew what her friend was going to say before it had time to crawl up to her lips.
“Everything will work out in the end.”
They had both said it in unison, with Avery’s eyebrows furrowing crossly at her more passive friend who sheepishly bowed away from the topic.
“Did anybody ever tell you that you’re predictable?”
“Once or twice.” Brooke offered a smile before putting her can down, “I’m gonna get ready for work. Are you guys gonna be okay if I leave you two alone?”
“No, we’re not going to claw each other’s eyes out or anything.” Avery sniffed, “…But I might sit on her for a little while.”
The two of them shared a good laugh at that, with Brooke grunting and rocking much the same as Avery had before her. Plodding and plumping along the floor of their third-story apartment, Brooke wiggled her way tummy-first into her bedroom and shut the door behind her.
Avery’s face fell back to bitter as soon as she was alone. Reaching over to paw at Brooke’s abandoned soda, she managed a strained missive:
“Don’t care what you say… I still liked her better when she was fat.”
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