He hadn’t always hated the way he looked. Up until eighth grade, he’d actually liked being fat; had loved the fact that he was taller and bigger than everyone else in his school. He’d liked the way his body felt, all soft and squishy but strong underneath. Also, his dad was a bigger guy, and Xander had liked knowing that he’d grow up to look like the man he idolized. But then puberty hit, and with the onslaught of hormones had come interest in girls and, somehow, an extra forty-five pounds on his already-chubby frame. The two were not compatible, and it didn’t take him long to figure it out. It only took one girl, his ninth grade crush, Jayna, telling him he was too fat to date for him to get the picture. After that horrible night at the dance, he’d come home and stared in the mirror at his shirtless body, cursing the belly he’d previously enjoyed.
Xander stood before the mirror on Adrian
He shook his head, taking a handful of his abundant middle and jiggling it a bit, sighing. He didn’t hate his appearance all the time. Xander knew that he was a decent-looking guy, and even occasionally considered himself attractive, fat and all. He could see the appeal of being “comfortable.” He even had moments in which he still enjoyed being fat, but then he’d feel like a weirdo for liking such a thing, and would try to put it out of his head.
Tonight, though, there was no enjoying his soft physique. After grimacing at his reflection one more time, he pulled on his standard sleeping attire, baggy gym shorts and a t-shirt, and flicked off the overhead light.
The door opened a few hours later, spilling light from the hallway fluorescents across Xander’s face, causing him to stir. He threw an arm across his eyes and rolled away from the light, groggily wishing that Adrian
“Shh!”
“Why?”
“Because Xander’s here, isn’t he?” a female voice whispered loudly.
His awareness brightened, but he stayed still.
“Aw, who cares? He sleeps like a rock, anyway,” Adrian
“Yeah, a big, fat rock,” she giggled.
“I know, right? He’s friggin’ huge.”
“’Huge’ is an understatement. Y’know, he has a crush on me,” she said.
“Shh! You’re gonna wake the big lug! I don’t want him to know I’m here.”
“Why not?”
Their voices moved across the room, until Xander could tell they were standing by Adrian
“I don’t know, I mean…he’s a sweet guy…I don’t really want to hurt him. Especially after…”
“After what?”
Xander could hear a zipper being pulled down, and a brief rustle of cloth.
“Well, earlier this week, I came here to freak out at you because I was all upset, and you weren’t here, but he was…and he talked to me and made me feel better, and I kissed him. You know, it didn’t actually mean anything. And it totally gave him the wrong idea. He came to the ODE house tonight, all dressed up in a brand new shirt, looking for me.”
His roommate giggled. “That’s why he was in here flinging crap all over the place, looking for something to wear. He wanted to impress his sweet little August…”
A few long seconds ticked by. They were kissing. Then he heard the bedsprings creak, and wished that he could go deaf. No such luck.
“Yeah, well, you should have seen the look on his face when I told him it didn’t mean anything and I only kissed him because I was a complete emotional wreck and didn’t know any better. You’d have thought someone had just slaughtered a puppy in front of him. It was awful. I mean, I feel bad about it…but it was pretty stupid of him to think I’d ever be attracted to a blob like him.”
“Yes, very stupid…especially when you’ve got a hot piece of ass like me,” Adrian
The conversation cut off, and all Xander, now wide awake, could hear for the next hour was the squeaking of the bed and occasional moans and sighs coming from across the room. He stared at the wall, unable to move and incapable of slipping back into the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness, paralyzed by the way that her strawberry sunlight scent wrapped itself around his roommate’s musky one, changing slightly as her excitement rose. He lay awake long after the noises had stopped until his prayers were finally answered and, as the first rays of sunrise were pulling at the curtains, he fell asleep.
The next few months passed Xander by like leaves in the wind. He went about his days in a fog, going to classes, doing homework, reading, eating, and sleeping without any real knowledge or care for what he was doing. If Adrian was there in the room, he blasted music through his ear buds, and if August was there, he simply left and went to the library or the food court. He found it increasingly difficult to concentrate, and though he was still doing well in all his classes, Rhys noticed that his large friend wasn’t all there.
“Xander.”
“Yeah?”
They’d been sitting in the food court after the one class they had together, trying to get ideas for a head start on their philosophy final. Xander was staring out the windows at the freezing rain that was driving itself into the ground, coating the world with a slick grey membrane.
“Where are you, man? That’s the third time I’ve said your name.”
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, I guess I’m kind of out of it,” Xander explained.
Rhys gave him a concerned look. “You haven’t been sleeping a lot at all lately. You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I was just at the library pretty late.”
“Ah. I was worried that Adrian and August might be keeping you up.”
Xander’s head twitched so he was facing Rhys, and he blushed. “No.”
Rhys nodded, looking unconvinced. “So what were you working on?”
“What?”
“At the library. What were you working on at the library?”
“Oh, uh…”
“Oh, that’s right,” Rhys said, nodding, “you were working on being a miserable sonofabitch, pining away for a girl who’d rather be treated like dirt than give you the time of day.”
Xander gritted his teeth.
“Look, Xander, you’ve got to let it go. She made her choice, and it was a dumb one, but it’s over and done with. Forget her. Get some sleep.”
“I’m fine. She’s forgotten. I just don’t want to be there when they’re screwing so loud the people below us call to complain,” he retorted.
Rhys sighed. “It sucks, man. Maybe you can put in for a room transfer for next semester. I think the deadline isn’t until next week.”
“I’ve already tried,” Xander answered, glaring out the windows again. “There are no openings, and no one will switch with me.”
“Will Adrian switch out? I’d have thought he’d want to live in the Delt house.”
“They barely have room for the seniors. He’s been trying all semester, but they don’t have anywhere to put him. It’s not exactly like he chose to room with me in the first place.”
“Well, y’know, if worse comes to worse, you can come sleep on my floor if you need to. Jay will be okay with it.”
“Thanks, but I’m fine. The semester’s almost over, anyway. I’m staying for winter term, but he’s going home, so I’ll have the place to myself for a while. I’ll sleep then.”
“Why don’t you go home for a weekend or something? Decompress a bit, chill with people there.”
Xander shook his head. “I can’t go home like this,” he muttered.
Rhys gave him a confused look. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing. I’ve got to get going; I need to work on my journalism homework. Let me know if you think of anything for this.” The chair creaked in relief as he stood, the sound making him cringe. Nevertheless, he stopped at the cash register on his way out and swiped his ID to pay for five brownies, which he shoved in his bag as he lumbered out of the crowded area, stopping only to toss the wrapper of the brownie he was currently inhaling into a trash can.
He concentrated on remaining upright as he walked gingerly across the icy sidewalks that shone in the streetlamps, which had switched on in anticipation of the encroaching darkness. It was only four-thirty, but Xander was exhausted. He really hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, unless one could count the twenty minutes he’d fallen asleep in the library for. When he’d finally gone back to his room around three am, he’d walked in on Adrian and August making out in bed…sans clothing. Red-faced and shaking, overwhelmed by the scent of their passion, he’d closed the door and retreated to the lounge, where he’d tried to sleep, and had failed. It was light out before he’d been sure that they were asleep, and he was able to slip back into his room and collapse into bed. Not desiring a repeat of that scenario, he tried to fish his roommate’s schedule out of the soupy mess of his thoughts to figure out if he would be able to grab a quick nap while Adrian was still in class.
It’s…what is it, Thursday? I think it’s Thursday…yeah. So Adrian should be…he should be in physics, until seven forty-five…it starts at four forty-five, I think…and it’s with…with her.
At that moment, he glanced towards the science building, and there they were. August, shrieking and laughing as a grinning Adrian tried to pull the hood of her winter parka off her head. She swatted at him, and he caught her arm and pulled her into an embrace.
Xander forced his eyes back to the pavement. “A nap sounds really good right now,” he mumbled to himself.
Fifteen minutes later, out of breath from the stairs, he turned the key in the lock and entered his and Adrian’s room. A sulfury scent spilled out into the hallway and invaded his airways as he stepped over the threshold. His lungs spasmed, sending him into a coughing fit as he crossed the room and shoved the windows open.
“What the hell,” he said. He peered around the room, trying to locate the source of the foul odor, but saw nothing amiss. He chalked it up to his building’s ancient heating system, and, frowning, he dumped his bag out on his desk and sifted through his books, folders, and tablets for his brownies. He unwrapped one and shoved the whole thing in his mouth with a sigh as he sat, causing his desk chair to groan in protest.
“Fuck you,” he told it irritably from around the brownie. Xander glanced down at himself and momentarily stopped chewing, a slight panic grasping his heart. His shirt was tight. So were his pants. They dug hard into his waist when he sat, making his gut look that much larger. And it was larger, he knew. Larger than it had been two months ago. He swallowed the brownie and reached for another, resigned to his fate.
What does it even matter? he asked himself.
Just then, a movement over on Adrian’s side of the room caught his attention. He looked over towards his roommate’s desk and saw a blurry dark shape about the size of a basketball perched on the desk, twitching. Xander shot out of his chair and advanced on the unidentified object, but, with a faint cracking sound, it disappeared.
He got down on his hands and knees and examined the space under the desk and the mess under Adrian’s bed, looking for the…whatever it was that had been there a moment ago. He opened the closets and even pulled the desks and the dressers away from the wall to see if the thing could be hiding behind them, but he found nothing. The smell finally seemed to be dissipating, too.
Xander sat on his bed, rubbing his eyes hard with clenched fists. “I’m so exhausted I’m seeing things,” he muttered. “I’m going crazy. Just two more weeks,” he told himself. “Two more weeks until he leaves and I can sleep. Well, at least I can take a bit of a nap now while they’re at class.”
He rose from the bed and grabbed a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt to change into from his dresser. Just as he pulled his shirt over his head, he heard a key turn in the lock, and the door opened.
“Oh!” August shrieked, seeing Xander standing there, shirtless, gaping at her.
He saw her eyes fix on his belly, and she cringed. His face flaming, he turned away from her and yanked his t-shirt on.
“I-I’m sorry, Xander, Adrian said you’d be in class, I didn’t think anyone would be here…”
Xander just nodded, still facing the other direction.
“I just had to come back, I was here earlier and I forgot my physics homework, since Adrian and I were working on it together, and if I don’t hand it in it’s ten points off for the class…” she rambled.
“Yeah.”
He heard her sifting through the papers on his roommate’s desk for a few moments, then silence.
“Xander?”
“What.”
“I…I’m sorry. Y’know…you…you’re a sweet guy, Xander,” she told him, “but…you know I could never date you. If…if things were different…I mean, you know…if you…if you weren’t…so…so big…I would. But…I just…I could never be with a guy who didn’t take care of himself, no matter how sweet he was. So…I guess I just wanted to tell you that. You’re a great guy, on the inside.”
Xander barked a short, cynical laugh. “Yeah. I know. On the inside.”
“Okay, well…see you, Xander.”
He heard her open and then close the door, but still he stared out the window at the sleet pouring out of the sky, smelling the crisp, cold scent of the approaching winter coating the world. He willed the ice to coat his heart, to lock it up it so that its wretched, pained pounding would slow. He changed into his shorts, draped his other clothing over his desk chair, and climbed into bed. He was asleep in seconds, and dreaming the things his mind wouldn’t allow to surface in his waking hours.
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