Weight

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Maria banged on the glass to her dormitory building until she nearly broke it.

“Hey! Stop that!” Henry said.

Maria quickly looked behind her.

“You were about to break the glass; what’s wrong with you,” Henry said, taking his Miton University ID out of his pocket. “I thought you’d be at the gym by now. I was heading over there now to meet up with you and Eva.”

She fell to the ground and leaned herself against the wall beside the door and quickly wiped her wet face with her sweater sleeves. She sat and continued to sob with her head laid between her hands.

“Maria?” Henry said as he grew nearer. He opened the door and held it open with his foot. “C’mon,” he said with one of his hands extended for her.

She grabbed hold of it and got up from the ground. Henry noticed her eyes were red and wet when she passed him to enter the building.

“What’s wrong?” Henry said.

Maria took out her keys and pushed the button for an elevator in the lobby.

“Maria?”

“Thank you for letting me in,” she said. “You can go.”

ding – the elevator arrived and they both entered.

“I said you could leave, thank you.”

“What kind of a friend would I be if I didn’t at least,” Henry said, “I mean, I can see something’s got you down. Like, why are you crying?” he asked.

They exited the elevator, Maria first. She walked to the door numbered 406 and unlocked it with her keys.

“I know you only get like this when someone makes fun of you.” Henry said.

Maria remained quiet entering her room. Henry stuck his foot in the doorway so it wouldn’t slam shut in his face. “I’m coming in, Maria.”

“No!” she said before collapsing in her bed and crying into her pillow. “Go!”

Henry seated himself in the chair by her desk, “I know if I go, you’re just gonna eat some comfort junk food. Now tell me, what’s the matter?”

Maria rolled over in her bed to face him. “Did we only become friends because we were fat at the time?”

“Probably”

“Then why are we still friends? You’re in shape now; you’re thin, like them.

“Why are we still friends…. What? Were you planning on ditching me if I was still fat and you lost your weight?”

“No,” she responded quickly. “I meant, why did you leave me behind. I thought we were supposed to do this together. Why’d you lose so much weight if we were in this together!? I stayed just as fat and disgusting as when we made our pact. We were supposed to lose the weight together. But look at you! Why’d you get thin and I stayed ugly? I can’t even look at myself.”

“You’ve never been ugly,” Henry said. “Jeez, you girls care too much about what you look like.”

“Please go.”

“What about instead of sabotaging yourself, we go to the gym like we planned.”

“I can’t,” she said. “That bitch is there.”

“Who? Eva?” said Henry.

“YES, Eva!”

“Ok; so, what about a walk instead?”

Maria rolled back over in her bed. “Just leave, Henry,” she said.

“You want to know why I didn’t move on when I finally got my weight under control?” Henry said. He got up from the chair and made his way to the door. “It’s because you’re still fat, Maria.”

“I KNOW I’M FAT!”

“Yeah, and I’m not anymore. But, I said I was going to see this through to the end. Our pact meant nothing if you want me to leave so you can blame me and my girlfriend for you breaking the door because you can’t stand the sight of yourself.”

Maria sat up in the bed. “Why do think that’s the reason I broke the door?! I was mad I couldn’t get in,” she said.

“You texted me last week to let you in when you left your card at the gym, Henry said, “You didn’t break the glass and you weren’t this sad.”

Maria looked at Henry. “Why Eva?”

Henry closed his eyes and gripped the bridge of his nose. “This again?”

“This was supposed to be our thing but you started going more and more with her then we stopped going like we used to.”

“Are you asking me why I decided to go on a date with someone I met at the gym, or are you asking me why it wasn’t you I went on a date with?”

“I don’t know,” Maria said. “It’s just hard still being the fat one between us.”

“You’re too hard on yourself, Maria.”

“No, I’m not! Do you think Eva would’ve ever agreed to go out with you if you looked like this?” She motioned her hands around herself. “Every guy I talk to thinks I’m just a tub of lard. They won’t even look at me unless it’s to point out how fucking fat I am.” She buried her face in her hands and began wailing. “Now, I’m alone! No one will ever love me. Everyone will always look at me with disgust.”

Henry got up again and walked over to sit beside Maria. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her. “You are loved, Maria. It hurts me so much seeing you like this,” Henry said, “You’re really not alone.”

She hugged him back.

Henry said, “I remember when thought I was gonna be stuck eating lunch all alone every day, being called a fat ass by at least one fucking person every single day.” Henry placed his head on top of Maria’s head which helped him dry off a tear that rolled down his cheek.

They stayed like that for a moment before he continued, “I don’t think I ever told you this before, but you helped save my life. I was in a dark ass place in high school. I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t ask to sit with you and your friends that day. Of course, then everybody thought I was gay on top of being fat, but you gave me a friendship I never thought I’d get to have. I stopped caring about what they thought because you helped see how wrong they were.”

They let go of each other and he continued, “I still know what you’re going through; losing the weight didn’t erase the memories. You and that pact gave me hope; I wasn’t alone anymore and I’d get to spend time with my best friend, working off my weight with someone who understood the battle too. I was so happy – I still am.”

He looked at her, next to him. “You’re beautiful to me Maria, not because of what you look like but because of who you are. You’re not disgusting; you never were. I know, it’s hard ignoring them, but you have made progress. Maybe not as much as me, but that’s because you gotta stop eating those damn snickers and cookies and ice cream and candy and junk food.”

“Why are telling me this like a sappy love movie?” Maria said. “You were happy going with me to the gym until you became too embarrassed to be seen with a pig like me anymore. That’s why you started going with her.”

“I never stopped going with you! Like today – I was going to meet you and Eva there.”

“You were going to meet Eva there and work out with her, leaving me to exercise alone, again.”

“Our pact was to lose at least a third of what we weighed. I know I already lost my hundred pounds, but you still lost fifty and you only have thirty more to go… Look, I’m sorry if you think I betrayed you when I started going with Eva, but the elliptical wasn’t doing much for me anymore. You tried the treadmill and thought it was too hard and I started to prefer running, not Eva. We simply met on the treadmills and had that common interest. I started going with her, and you, because I liked her company while I ran and she’s cute”

“Know that you’re the reason I go to the gym, not her. You’re the reason I’m still ali – ”

Henry’s phone notification sounded. “That’s probably Eva right now,” he said reaching for his phone. He got up from Maria’s bed. “Yep.”

Where are you? the text message read.

He replied, I’m on my way, 10 minutes

“Alright,” Henry said standing by the door again. “Gym or no gym?”

Henry walked over to the campus gym where he presented his card to the gym employee up front and made his way to the locker area in the back.

“What took you so long?” Eva said hopping off one of the treadmills. She grabbed a paper towel from one of the nearby dispensers and wiped her moist face. She untied her blonde ponytail and let her hair drop before taking a drink from her water bottle.

“Hey there, baby,” Henry said and hugged her. “I just had to make an important stop before coming here; let me get changed. I see you wasted no time.”

“No, there’s no time to waste,” Eva said, “How else can I maintain this sexiness?”

Eva flexed her tight buttocks, gripped by her black running shorts that seemed to just barely cover them. She walked with Henry towards the locker area.

“That fatso was here earlier and she reminded me of what I could turn into if I don’t get my exercise.”

Henry halted. “This is a gym,” he said, “Which fatso are you talking about?”

“That girl you used to come to the gym with before you got sexy too.”

Henry stopped and furrowed his eyebrows. “Oh,” Henry said, “She didn’t tell me she came here earlier.”

“You missed it. She fell and rolled off the treadmill like a tub of lard and ran out of here faster than she was going on the treadmill! Everyone was laughing. I felt embarrassed for her, as disgusting as she is. She even left her bag in the locker room; she must’ve went to the pig-pen because –”

“Shut up, Eva!” Henry said.

“Whoa, what’s gotten into you?!”

Henry laid his gym bag down and looked at Eva as they stood at the entrance to the men’s locker room. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But, what you said was just fucking mean.”

“You weren’t here,” Eva said. “You had to see it; she just tumbled over on the belt and rolled on to the floor and looked like a pile of lumpy pudding.”

“Don’t you remember when my weight was up there, and I was one of those fatsos?”

Eva sighed. “You’re a guy, and you’re tall; it’s different for girls,” she said. “If she doesn’t lose that weight she’s probably going to die alone at a buffet somewhere. She’s disgusting; I can tell the choice wasn’t hard in choosing which one of us you wanted to get underneath the covers with.” Eva smiled and touched Henry’s hand but he pulled his hand away almost immediately.

“What’s wrong, baby,” she said.

“What’s wrong is I didn’t know you were so shallow and cold.”

“What? That’s not nice.”

“I… I need to go.”

“What happened, Henry?”

He picked his bag back up and said, “I remember why I came to the gym.”

“Just get changed so we can start our run,” Eva said.

“No,” Henry said making his way back to the front.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving,” he said.

“Why did you come to gym, then?”

Henry ignored Eva and left. He was walking back to his dorm building when he spotted Maria walking outside too.

“What happened to the gym?” she asked as they approached each other.

“It didn’t feel right without you there,” Henry said.

“I was in a pretty bad mood,” Maria said. “I was going now, to meet you; I shouldn’t have shoved you away like that earlier.”

She hugged him. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Henry said returning the hug. “You were right.”

“About what?”

They let each other go.

“I mean, I got so caught up in losing the weight, I forgot what brought me to the gym in the first place. Eva told me what happened earlier.”

“Oh,” Maria said, “that...”

“She’s damn fine, but I could barely look at her when she described it. Sure, she’s sexy but you never told me she was a straight up cunt,” Henry said.

Maria chuckled. “When you met her, I was happy you got to find love. You said our pact gave you hope; well, you gave me hope too,” she said. “I was beginning to think I was going to die somewhere alone, fat living with a bunch of cats at home, and no one would ever know. But, you showed me this can be done – only thirty more pounds to go right?” she said with a smile, “and, you were always there sweating with me, shedding this weight. I almost let jealously ruin the best thing to ever happen to me.”

She hugged him again.

“I love you too, Henry. I’m sor –”

“Hey,” he said.

She looked up and met his gaze.

Before Maria could finish what she had to say, Henry touched her lips with his.

“Don’t ever be sorry for what you are; it’s taken me too long to realize you were the best thing in my life too. I love you.”

Tears ran down Maria’s face, but she was smiling.

Henry wiped the tears from her face with his fingers.

“I guess I can finally get to tell you,” he said, “I always thought you had the cutest face, I had ever seen.”

Maria threw her arms around his neck and Henry held her closely around her waist and they stood there, outside, and kissed.

“I knew you were gonna eat those snickers when I left,” Henry said, “Got any more?”

She looked up with the brightest smile Henry had ever seen from her.

He smiled too and took one of Maria’s hands as they walked together, back to the dorm building where they comfortably ate some food and spent the rest of the day and night together.

The End