Kayla stepped out of the car, her heart heavy and her stomach twisted in knots.
"There she is!" a familiar voice cried out from behind the screen door, "Come over here an' give your ol' Granny a hug!"
This isn't how she had planned on spending her first year away from home.
"Hey Granny," Kayla managed as she walked up the porch steps, a half-hearted smile on her face as she watched the fat woman wriggle her way through the narrow screen door, "It's good to see you."
It had probably been three or four years since Kayla had actually gotten to see her grandmother up close like this. Memories of Christmases and birthdays from before the split were hazy at best, and her visits down were even more infrequent during her parents' divorce. She had spent plenty of time with her dad's parents since they lived nearby, but her mom's had always lived too far away for her to get particularly close to them. Her Grandma Lucy and Grandpa Alex had been at a good number of her competitions back in high school, even before she started to get really good. Meanwhile, Granny Lee had thought she was a cheerleader until two months ago when Kayla corrected her over a phone call.
Was it any wonder that she'd been dreading the idea of moving all the way up here?
"Ohhh don't look so glum!" the fat woman pulled her granddaughter close into her gut, smothering her in ample gut flesh, "We're gonna have a great time, you'n me!"
Kayla couldn't help but doubt that, very much.
The woman that had greeted Kayla at the front door was a good eighty pounds heavier than Kayla pictured her being. Whether that was just rose-colored glasses or her Granny Lee had put on almost a hundred pounds in the three or four years it had been since they'd seen one another, Kayla wasn't quite sure. But there was no denying that Granny Lee looked almost like a completely different person. She had always been round and plump, but now she seemed to have taken it to an entirely new level. Her arms were heavy with fat and her dress barely seemed able to contain her ample bosom. While she wasn't out of breath, the short jaunt from inside the house and out onto the front porch had left her noticeably winded.
God, how do people let themselves get this fat...
"Come on in here," Granny said cheerfully, "I got dinner ready for us."
Probably a lot of that nasty Southern cooking mom used to bring home on her trips down..."
Kayla had been very adamant about not wanting to move in with the grandmother whom she barely knew. Just as much as she'd been adamant about not wanting to go back to college once she lost her athletic scholarship. But unfortunately for her, her dad had been just as adamant about her not laying around the house if she wasn't going to be going to school. Her mom had been just as supportive of the idea of Kayla taking a "gap year" as her ex-husband was. If Granny Lee hadn't been in need of some help around the house since Kayla's grandpa passed a few years back, she might have been forced to go back to school or start asking around to see if anyone needed a roommate.
Kayla knew that she should have been more thankful for her grandmother letting her live in the guest bedroom rent-free. Getting three square meals a day and not having to pay rent was a godsend to someone with literally no job experience. Hell, not much experience at all beyond "gotta go fast".
She could have wound up anywhere in town, anywhere in the state, anywhere in the country, and most of it would have been much, much worse than having to share a roof with her fat wad of a grandmother for a little while as she tried to figure out what she wanted to do with her life.
"Kayla?" the large woman asked, now back inside the old country house and looking out onto the porch, "You comin'?"
"Yeah, just..." Kayla sighed as she grabbed her first two suitcases, "Just getting my bearings."
This was going to be the longest year of Kayla's life...
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