Jen called her friend Emily and asked if she had any extra sweatpants, clearly embarrassed that she tore her jeans. Emily was a bit bigger than Jen, but still on the cheerleading team. She came to Jen's help as quickly as she could, knocking on the stall. She could hear Jen faintly crying. Jen said a quick thank you through her tears as her friend hung the sweatpants over the stall door.
Jen went through the rest of her day wearing Emily's sweatpants. Her classmates pointed at her and laughed, the gossip about her jeans having spread throughout the school. Her cheeks burned as she rushed from class to class, and was nowhere to be found during cheer practice. As the weeks passed, she wore the same sweatpants until they too became too much of a chore to put on. From M to L to XL she grew, becoming more and more withdrawn. She stopped going to cheer entirely, and stopped answering her friends' concerned messages, barely registering them in the hallway.
Then summer break hit.
She spent the entire summer indoors, embarrassed by her huge legs. She couldn't deny now that something was very, very wrong. She had grown almost 6 inches in height since January, and burst through her shoes. Her hips had doubled in size, and she looked almost cartoonish with her skinny, somehow still fit upper body and her flabby, fat legs. Her appetite had also grown, and she began to stress eat, which didn't help her situation at all.
As August rolled around, she packed up for college, which she dreaded going to. Luckily she had gotten in on academics and not athletics, because she was in quite a sorry state. Her suitcase was full of 7 identical 2XL sweatpants, which by now barely covered her truly gargantuan rear. Her dorm room was on the 4th floor, and it was absolute torment to lug her trunk-like legs up the stairs. A year ago she would have barely broken a sweat running up these steps, but now even going up a single story left her inhaling deeply, pressing her hands into her soft knees to catch her breath. She was pleasantly surprised, however, to find out who her roommate was. She looked up at her dorm room, 438, and saw her name and Emily written on butterfly-shaped stickers on the door. Could it really be her friend?
She knocked on the door. "Jen! I'm so happy to s-" Emily looked at the girl standing in the doorway to their dorm room, her jaw dropping. Stood before her was Jen, former cheer captain, as wide as the door frame. She blushed and couldn't meet Emily's gaze.
"-eeYOLY SHIT WHAT HAPPENED??" Apparently the summer had really accelerated things, Jen thought.
"I... got a bit bigger" she said, sheepishly. She waddled into the room as Emily stared, wide-eyed.
"No shit, Jen! Are you ok? Is this some sort of... medical condition? Elephantiasis?"
"N-no, I don't think it is? My doctor couldn't find anything wrong, not lymphedema, and no, *not* elephantiasis." Jen rolled her eyes. "I've just... been getting bigger, since January. I don't know why, though."
"Well, looks like you've got a lot of leg days to catch up on, then!"
This made Jen smile. She could barely walk, but she did also just spend 4 months moping on her bed eating junk food. Maybe Emily had a point...
As Jen and Emily decorated their shared dorm room, they got to talking a bit more. Emily had wondered why Jen was so withdrawn during their last few months in high school, even skipping graduation. She was glad that Jen was still alive, and that they were dorm-mates, though. Jen felt herself open up a bit more as they talked, too, and the two agreed to hit the gym later and try to get Jen back into some sort of shape.