Chapter 2: Fat is a Big Word
"Well it serves him right. What the hell was the thinking?"
"The boy gave it a shot, Helen. Give him a break. He's just a young man taking chances. Nothing wrong with that."
"If this girl is anything like you're describing to me, then he should have known better."
"Helen…"
"Don't 'Helen' me. I'm not wrong. Peeta should have known better than to set his sights so high."
Peeta winced as he listened to his parents in their kitchen. The swinging door separating the kitchen from the dining room did little to muffle the noise as his mother put the finishing touches on the Sunday dinner. He shouldn't have come. That was all there was to it. His mother was a master of getting information out of everyone and he should have known his father would cave and tell her about Peeta's humiliating afternoon. Why did he even bother to come to Sunday dinner knowing he'd have to be harassed about the Glimmer situation? He just wanted to die of embarrassment and shame and that was all there was to it. Why did everything have to be so humiliating?
He glanced down miserably at his protruding stomach and thick thighs. "That's why," he muttered to himself, giving the flab a poke. His stomach gurgled in response.
The smell of food – and not just any food, his mother's special cooking – wafted from the small kitchen in his former home.
In his mother's kitchen, calories didn't count. The nutrition label was something the stores 'just had to put on there to satisfy the silly health nuts'. The idea of too much salt was laughable. That was just her way of thinking and thus, her cooking was heavenly as much as he hated to admit it. He'd grown up with his mother's talents in the kitchen and it didn't feel right to go more than a few days without a home-cooked meal. Not that he didn't do any cooking on his own – he did. Having a third generation baker for a father and a mother with an obsession with butter that would put Paula Deen to shame hadn't given him much of a chance in life.
He'd always been fat.
It just sucked to have someone point it out.
Well, fat was a strong word. For three tiny letters, the word 'fat' carried a lot of meaning with it. He hadn't always been labeled 'fat'.
When he was born, he'd been labeled 'healthy' and a 'jolly-looking' baby.
When he was a toddler, he'd just been 'pudgy' and 'cubby cheeked'.
When he'd started school, he was the round faced little boy who always had cookies in his lunchbox and a smile on face.
When he was in junior high, he'd been 'big boned' but strong – he could throw his weight around and use his strength from hauling bags of flour in the bakery on the weekends and after school to succeed in wrestling and football. All that running had sucked, but he'd always been strong and enjoyed lifting weights. He'd been strong enough and could hold his own in sports, but he'd never thought twice about keeping up with them after he'd finished school.
Then in college he'd discovered beer. And late night pizza. And then more beer the next day to cure his hangovers and pizza leftover from the night before to top that all off.
After college, he'd joined the family business and become a full time baker and store manager. The hours were long and he rarely got much time off, so he ended up grabbing food whenever he could from the bakery or the Italian place just around the corner. Or it was Sunday dinner with his family or leftovers his mother left in his fridge. There was no more running for sports, nor was there an excuse to keep working out. He was still strong but the muscle was covered with a few layers of well….fat.
Peeta lowered his head and sighed. This officially sucked. He'd always been larger – his entire family was what someone would label 'stocky' or 'big boned'.
Or fat.
He wasn't as big as his brothers, that was for sure. Why that gave him some pitiful consolation he wasn't sure. Even with his height, his brother Bran was easily seventy pounds bigger than he was. His other brother, Rye came in a close second weight wise, but Peeta was willing to be he'd let himself get within ten pounds or so of him. In his family rounded stomachs, thick middles, and chubby cheeks were the norm. He didn't have to get on a scale to know he'd let himself get to the biggest he'd ever been. He wasn't innocent – he wasn't shy about sampling his baking to know that it was up to par. A slice of pie here, an extra helping of homemade whip cream there, added on top of the foot long lunch sandwiches and decadent Sunday dinners at his mother and father's house….it wasn't hard to tell why he'd gotten to the point where he was. And that was just when he wasn't at home. His own house was a bachelor's haven when it came to food – his fridge was stocked with beer, every kind of sauce or condiment known to man, leftover takeout, and a freezer full of more processed food he could ever eat.
Peeta knew why he was fat. But when it came down to it, what else did he have? Today was the perfect example. He didn't have a family yet, nor did he have a really nice house. He wasn't married or even dating anyone, and he was looking at life as a baker with his mother hanging over his shoulder.
Food seemed like a bit of a pacifying escape.
His brother, Rye, gave him a look of pity across the table. He too was single and was pushing thirty. "You really did it?"
Before Peeta could answer, the door swung open as his mother carried a tray of her famous lasagna in and dropped it unceremoniously in the center of the table. Peeta chewed his lip and glanced at his father who had followed her in. He carried the look of a man who had gotten the brunt of one too many marital lectures in his day along with the bacon covered green beans and a pair of zebra print pot holders. He shifted from foot to foot as his mother continued her tirade.
Only now it wasn't in the privacy of the kitchen. Oh joy, Peeta thought.
"You really thought miss long legs was gonna go out with you? Good thing I wasn't there, Peeta. I would have knocked some sense into you instead of egging you on like I'm sure this one did," she sighed, gesturing to his father. His dad shot him an apologetic look over her shoulder.
"You had to bring it up," Peeta grumbled to his father. "As if it wasn't humiliating enough that I asked her out and she shot me down."
"Why would you even try? Girls like that don't go out with guys like you, everyone knows that. Now that I think of it, I've seen her come into the bakery and I know exactly who you're talking about. Nice try, Peeta."
Peeta rarely got upset over anything –he was more of a go with the flow type of guy, but honestly? He'd just had his heart crushed. The last thing he wanted was for his mother to re-hash everything from what was quickly becoming the most humiliating day of his life.
"I just don't know why you put yourself through this, Peeta. You need to meet a nice, regular girl like Bran did and just get married. Stop chasing after the unattainable and settle for what you can get."
Peeta's temper flared. "Mom, I really don't think that's a kind thing to say about Delly. She's kind and sweet and beautiful and we're lucky to have her in the family. Bran got lucky when he met her in college and I don't appreciate you referring to her like a piece of chattel we happened to inherit. I'm sure he wouldn't either."
His mother paused, hands on her hips as she rolled her eyes. "Oh would you stop being such a little drama queen? I'm only trying to make a point."
"Yeah, well…get on it."
"Peeta! I only meant that you should set realistic goals for yourself. Delly isn't a model, nor is she a size two, but she looks right with Bran. I've seen that Glitter or Glimmer or whatever her name is and although she would pretty this family up, I highly doubt she'd been seen with you."
Ouch.
"Look, we were talking and getting along and I just wanted to-"
She cut him off. "-to what? See if you could humiliate yourself? That girl could be a model. What made you think she'd say yes to you?"
His father set the platter of beans down on the table and sighed. "Helen, the girl comes by and flirts shamelessly at least once a week. Clearly the boy was led on. Now can we just eat and drop it? Bran and Delly will be here any minute."
They finished getting ready for Sunday dinner in an awkward silence – Rye and his father giving him sympathetic looks while his mother seemed to sigh louder each time she came from the kitchen to plop another platter of food on the table. He just couldn't win.
Peeta moped his way through dinner, ignoring the sympathetic looks from everyone but his mother. She's somehow segued the dinner conversation to re-hash his afternoon humiliation for Bran and Delly while ignoring his desperately pleading looks for her to shut up. She had spoken the harsh truth and wasn't the truth always the most difficult to hear? Still though, he didn't want to deal with it. Skipping after dinner beers with his brothers and dad in the garage, he opted to head home early to have some peace and quiet. He didn't work on Mondays, so figured he'd wallow and mope in the privacy of his own home.
Like a bad habit, he went straight for the kitchen. Why did he always end up there? Oh, the leftovers. Opening his fridge, he tossed the leftovers his mother had sent home with him in and slammed it shut.
He paused.
Opening it a second time, he peered inside.
Leftover pie. Cold pizza. A carton of sugary soda. A leftover burger from lunch the day before. He'd stuffed himself with an appetizer of nachos and all of the French fries that came with the burger before eating over half of it.
He glanced down at his stomach. Pinching his side, he winced as he had to grab at least a hearty handful of flubber before reaching the muscle of his stomach. It was there, it was just…hard to find. Heaving a sigh, he walked to his bedroom and peeled off his jeans and flour-ridden t-shirt. He grimaced at himself in the mirror. He wasn't ugly, but he definitely wasn't…attractive. Perhaps it had been a good thing Glimmer had shot him down. What if he'd gotten the date, and a second, and then a third? Would he have invited her back to his house after the third or fourth date? Would he have taken off his clothes and pulled her into his bed?
Maybe it was a good thing she'd turned him down. At twenty seven, he was hardly a catch physically, but there was also another factor that had been holding him back: his experience. Or, lack of experience. He tried to imagine bringing Glimmer back to his house after a date. He pictured her pulling her top off, stepping out of her jeans, and looking at him to do the same.
Then he pictured himself almost dying of humiliation as she watched him struggle out of his jeans and peel off his shirt. What would she say when she saw his stomach? Or his back? He wasn't particularly a fan of either of those body parts.
No, that wouldn't do.
Moving to his dresser, he stripped out of his dirty work clothes and tossed them into the hamper. His house needed cleaning. There were dirty clothes and piles of clean laundry he hadn't gotten around to folding or hanging. Dust covered the surfaces and everything needed to be tidied and vacuumed. No, he certainly wouldn't bring a girl like Glimmer there.
Ambling back to the fridge, he snagged the leftover pie out of the box and dumped it on a plate, followed by a large dollop of homemade whipped cream. It wasn't even the light, fluffy stuff you bought in the store – no, this was made with tons of confectioners' sugar and real whipping cream. A real baker's masterpiece if he did say so himself. It didn't matter – he barely tasted it as he shoveled it into his mouth. He sat on his couch and ate the large chunk (it wasn't even small enough to be called a slice, he realized) of pie until he felt sick. He didn't even really feel like he was hungry – the sweetness settled on top of the dinner he'd just eaten at his mother's house and sat there like lead in his stomach.
Pushing the plate to the side, he looked down at his stomach in disgust. Glimmer didn't like him, his mother called him fat, and he didn't even like himself. He didn't like his life.
If this was rock bottom, well…it sucked.
I don't want to feel this way anymore.
It was time for a change.
He was suddenly struck with a terrifying thought: he'd realized he didn't want to live like this anymore, but now how did he fix it?
Everything was hopeless.
Thank you everyone for welcoming this story - your reviews and favorites and follows made my day and inspire me to keep going. I was really nervous to tackle this topic, hence the reason this fic has been sitting on my computer for oh, a year and a half. Please know that every one of you who commented has encouraged me to keep chugging along.
I stand by the disclaimer on the previous chapter - this is purely fictional and absolutely NO advice Peeta is given is from a professional - I'm just a writer, playing pretend for awhile in this world. If you chose to take your own fitness journey, stick with the professionals and your doctor.
