Thank you to the people that have reviewed so far, it really does make my day!
Sorry I didn't update yesterday, I was quite busy.
I hope you like this chapter though :)
Lauren woke up early the next morning, intending to sneak out of her house and go running before her parents or any of her older brothers were up, but when her alarm went off at half past five, she decided that she was way too tired to bother with getting up and going running, so she told herself that she'd do it later in the day and went back to sleep.
When she woke up for the second time and started to get dressed, she regretted not going for a run, she looked worse than yesterday, she was sure that she had somehow expanded outwards in the night. Lauren stood in front of the mirror, disgusted at her reflection, wishing that all that fat would just go away.
After spending a long time getting dressed and critically examining her body in every way possible, Lauren went downstairs for some breakfast. As usual, her mum and two of her brothers were sat at the table, eating toast and drinking coffee.
"Morning, Love," said her mum, smiling sleepily at her, "There's some coffee still in the pot if you want some, and I bought you some more of that cereal you like."
"Thanks, Mum," Lauren said, and went to look at the cereal packet that was next to the toaster.
Lauren found the nutritional information on the back of the packet and saw in horror that the sugary cereal contained almost 300 calories. She knew that she didn't want to use up such a large part of her calorie allowance before she even went to school, so she put the box of cereal back down on the kitchen worktop.
"I'm not that hungry, actually, I think I'll just have an apple," she said, grabbing one out of the fruit bowl.
Apples couldn't have that many calories, could they? 50? 100? Lauren had no idea. She figured that since it was healthy, she was allowed to eat it. After all, people ate apples when they were on diets all the time, so it couldn't possibly have that many calories.
Lauren took a bite of the small, red apple and enjoyed the fact that she was able to control what went into her body, it gave her a sense of power that she had never felt before.
"Right, I have to get to work now," Lauren's mum said, standing up, "Have a good day at school, you lot," she said, kissing Lauren on the cheek and ruffling on of Lauren's brothers' hair.
"Bye, Mum," said Lauren.
After the front door had closed and her brothers had gone back to eating their breakfast, Lauren threw her half eaten apple in the bin and went back upstairs to do her hair and make-up.
Lauren tried out at least five different hairstyles, trying to find one that didn't make her face look as fat as it was, but in the end she settled for having it down with a headband in it, due to the fact that she was already five minutes late for leaving her house, and she still hadn't done her make-up. She applied her foundation and mascara quickly, though she made sure that her face wasn't covered in streaks of orange and her eyes didn't look like spiders had been squashed to death on them.
Quickly, Lauren grabbed another apple and a bottle of water for her lunch, stuffed them in her school bag and left the house. She ran all the way down to where she was supposed to be meeting Sam, though her best friend was stood there looking anxiously at her watch.
"Where have you been?" Sam asked Lauren, "I've been waiting for like ten minutes."
"Sorry," said Lauren, out of breath, "I was doing my hair."
"Well, come on then, we don't want to be late for school," said Sam, and she started to walk quickly down the road, Lauren walking behind, still tired from running.
There was very little chat between the two girls on the way to school, Lauren had only eaten half an apple since breakfast the day before, and was too tired to keep up a conversation. Plus, they had to walk quickly since Lauren had taken so long to get herself ready.
They got to school just as the bell for registration was ringing, and walked quickly into their form room. The girls sat at their desk and Lauren relaxed in her chair, glad to be sitting down, at last.
"You've been quiet this morning," said Sam, "You okay?"
"Yeah," replied Lauren, "I just don't feel well," she said, quite truthfully.
"Oh, ok."
They sat and answered their names to the register and waited for the second bell to ring. Lauren groaned when she heard it, and slowly stood up.
"What lesson do we have?" she asked Sam.
"Um, art, I think," Sam replied, taking out her timetable to check.
Good, Lauren thought, at least she got to sit down.
The girls walked together to art and each took a place in front of an easel. Josh then walked in and hovered next to Lauren.
"Can I sit here?" Josh asked her, not sure whether she was still mad at him for what he had said the day before, because even though she had said it was fine, he knew that Lauren was not the most forgiving person in the world.
"Sure," said Lauren, smiling at him. "Where's Finn?"
"Excluded for locking that genius guy in year eight in the supply cupboard because he wouldn't do his algebra homework," Josh told her, "They didn't find him until this morning."
Lauren stayed smiling, she liked Josh a whole lot more when Finn wasn't around.
It was like nothing had happened between the two, they were laughing and joking just like the day before, and Lauren began to relax a bit. Before she knew it, the lesson was over, and although she hadn't actually done any work, and had gotten a telling off from Miss Campbell, she was a lot happier than she was at the start of the day.
"PE next,", said Josh, as him, Lauren and Sam were walking, "We're doing boys vs. girls football, and it's so obvious who's going to win," he said with a smirk.
Lauren's heart suddenly jumped as she realised, she'd have to wear her horrible PE shorts in front of the boys, including Josh. They'd all see her chubby legs.
"Come on girls, in you go," Lauren heard Mr Clarkson say loudly to the crowd of girls that were entering the girls' changing rooms that they were approaching.
"See ya," said Josh, as Lauren and Sam started to enter the changing rooms.
"Bye," said Lauren, stopping and staring after him.
"Come on, Lauren," Mr Clarkson said, "Go get changed. And don't take ages doing your hair."
Lauren's heart was thudding in fear, she didn't want to let Josh see any more of her fat body than he had to.
"Sir, I really don't feel well. So can I just sit out?" Lauren asked, hoping he wouldn't make her get changed.
"Well, just see how you go," said Mr Clarkson, glancing at her.
"Please, Sir," Lauren pleaded.
"Just get changed and then if you still feel ill then you can just watch."
"But Sir..."
"Now, Lauren, please," Mr Clarkson said.
Lauren saw that she wasn't going to get anywhere by arguing so she gave in and went to get changed. She took her time doing so and was the last in the changing room, when everyone else was heading across to the football pitch.
"Come on, Lauren, please," Mr Clarkson called impatiently from outside the door.
"I'm coming," Lauren called back.
She was stood in front of the same mirror she was at lunchtime the day before, trying to pull her black shorts as far down as they'd go. Lauren was quickly getting very irritated by the fact that they only covered the top part of her thighs, there was still plenty of fat left on show. She soon gave up on the shorts and started trying to stretch her long sport socks up even further, but they were even more useless and couldn't possibly get any higher up than her knees.
Lauren wanted to cry at the sight of herself, but she was very aware that she looked enough of a sight already, without the unnecessary mascara smudges and lines in her foundation.
"Lauren, now!" shouted Mr Clarkson.
Slowly, Lauren walked across the room and opened the changing room door, knowing that Mr Clarkson would come in to see what she was doing if she didn't.
"Finally. What took you so long?" Mr Clarkson demanded, locking the changing room door.
"I told you I didn't feel well, Sir."
"Well maybe you'll feel better after a bit of fresh air. Come on," he said, and they both started walking out towards the pitch.
"How come you took so long?" Sam asked Lauren when they reached the rest of the class.
"I just did, okay?" Lauren snapped. She wasn't in the best of moods.
"I was just asking," Sam said.
"Right, yeah, sorry," Lauren said, "I've just got a really bad headache," she explained, which was actually true.
"Right," said Josh, walking over to the girls, "Ready to lose?" he grinned.
"Oh, but we're not going to," said Sam, smiling.
Mr Clarkson blew his whistle, the loud noise made Lauren's head hurt even more.
"Girls shooting in that direction, boys, the other way," he shouted. "You can sit out if you want, Lauren."
Lauren thought about it, Josh had probably seen how much fatter she actually was anyway, the least she could do was to look like she was making an effort to change it.
"No, I think I'll be okay, thanks, Sir," Lauren said.
"Okay then," said Mr Clarkson, slightly confused. "Right, we're starting," he shouted.
He blew his whistle and threw the ball in the middle of the pitch, one of the boys got it and started dribbling it across the pitch.
Lauren ran around self consciously for a while, pretending to be interested in the game, but in her head she was just wishing that the lesson would be over, so that she could get changed back into clothes that didn't show so much of her fat body.
Every time she got near Josh, she turned and ran the other way, hoping that he wasn't paying attention to her humongous legs.
Whenever someone scored a goal, their team cheered and the opposing one was heard screaming all sorts of reasons why it didn't count, all the noise made Lauren's head hurt. Throughout the game she began to feel increasingly unwell, and was thinking about going to sit out. But it was exercise, she thought, something she desperately needed, so she was determined to keep playing for the remainder of the game.
Suddenly, the ball came rushing in her direction.
"Lauren!" someone shouted.
Lauren made a half-hearted attempt to kick the ball, missed it, and somehow managed to trip over her own two feet. She felt herself falling and was then on the floor, flat on her face, in front of everyone.
So what did you think?
I really got into writing this chapter, even though nothing much really happened.
I know that Mr Clarkson is an English teacher but he's been shown a few times teaching the kids PE and I didn't know who else to put so I used him. Plus, he's by far my favourite of the teachers.
So anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, and please review :)