>>154496
ugh
Halie was not happy.
She wheeled her shopping cart into the confection aisle, but her mind was in another place. Another time…
How many months had it been? Four? Maybe five?
Even four months is a long time, so why?
She stopped and stood there, staring at the colorful packages cluttering the shelf but taking in none of it.
Why did she still spend so much time thinking about her!?
The small girl’s grip tightened on the handle of her cart as the store around her faded away. A memory lazily materialized out of the fog, starting as nothing but a simple pear but gradually becoming more human. Becoming the girl that had invaded Halie’s mind, like a series of snapshots forming a collage.
Her thick, flabby arms…
“Halie?”
Her adorable, round face…
“...Halie?”
And good lord, her soft, heavy, enormous-
A pudgy hand waved into the corner of Halie’s vision, snapping her back to reality and sending her stumbling a couple steps back. She stared at the floor for a moment, trying to slow her pounding heart.
“Oh, hi, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you! I guess I must have misremembered your name…”
Halie looked up, and the sight she was met with made her heartbeat jump even higher. A lump formed in her throat as she stood frozen, blinking rapidly at the redheaded girl who moments before had been nothing but a daydream.
“Hey! Not sure if you remember me? Eheh. I’m Nat,” she said with a smile. “You helped me at the gym a few months ago…”
Of course she remembered. The ill-fitting gym attire, the failed workout, all of it had been committed to Halie’s memory like a series of photographs. But looking at her now, were the photos imperfect?
Her clothes were different, obviously. Her teal tank top was replaced by a blue button-up (whose buttons looked almost as strained as Halie’s mind felt), while her yoga pants had been traded for a large pair of black slacks that were tucked up to the center of her waist and struggling to hold back her fat middle. But there was more.
Was she fatter than before?
Thankfully, her mouth was quicker than her misfiring brain. “Ahh! Y-yes! I remem- sorry!!” she shouted in panic. “Y-yes, it is-I mean, my name is Halie. Sorry, j-just, lost in thought!!”
A small part of Halie’s mind recognized that she was being too loud, but her impulse control was malfunctioning… probably because she was preoccupied with taking fresh snapshots of the constricted marshmallow standing before her.
“Oh good, I was really afraid I’d gotten it wrong,” Nat said with a sigh and a soft chuckle. A soft, bouncy, jiggly chuckle. “I wasn’t sure I’d run into you again. I, uhhh, haven’t been in a hurry to go back to the gym.”
Halie stopped herself from saying ‘I can tell,’ instead sputtering “Oh! Y-yeah, I didn’t notice you around. Was wondering if I just kept missing you…”
A chubby dimple formed as a mischievous smirk spread across Nat’s face. “Heh! Were you looking out for me?”
The thundering in Halie’s ears died. Her heart had stopped. For a breath, she heard nothing, but felt as every cell that made up her timid body began to scream.
But somehow, the redhead didn’t even seem to notice. She continued on, easy as can be with her smirk melting into a lovely shrug which made the buttons on her shirt stretch nice and tight. “But yeah, nah, we stopped going. It wasn’t worth paying for or anything. God knows I wasn’t planning on dragging myself down there again.”
Hundreds of impulses, dozens of thoughts, and still Halie had no idea what to say next. She was trying very hard not to stare at Nat’s flexing buttons, which is when she saw the bright nametag clipped to her lapel that simply read, ‘Natalie’.
It took a moment for Halie to remember she was at the grocery store. She managed to say “S-so, you work here then?” in a reasonable tone, though the gesture she made to the nametag may have been a bit shaky. “I shop here a lot! Surprised I’ve never seen you.”
“Ah! Yeah, I’ve been working here part-time for a couple of years. Just afternoon shifts though because of school.”
“Oh, I usually come during my lunch! I guess that explains why…”
Silence. It lasted a moment, a single heartbeat, but Halie’s heart had restarted and jumped straight to triple time.
“So!” Nat said with a bright smile, “Can I help you find anything?”
“Oh, no, I’m just gathering stuff for school…”
“Hmm? What for?”
“For my classes. I’m in culinary school.”
“Oh, that’s awesome! So you must be a really good cook then?” There was a shift to the woman, a glint in her eye and some excitement in her voice. She spoke earnestly, gesturing with her hands and lifting a hand to her bright hair. “All I can make is breakfast. I’m no good at anything else. Can barely even make frozen pizzas some nights!”
And she laughed.
She had a wonderful, bright belly laugh.
“I-I’m alright,” Halie stumbled, trying to sound humble despite the woman’s words making her feel like some sort of superhero. “Still have tons to learn though…”
“Well, if you ever need a good review, you can get one from me, easy. I know it may come as a surprise, but…” Nat gestured down at herself dramatically, “I like food quite a bit.”
Halie struggled not to pass out. This girl was too much. How could someone exist that was this inconceivably appealing?
Nat was snickering, a porky girl’s chuckle, and it brought one out of Halie herself. Strangely, the laughter felt… relaxing. And really good on her chest. An absent-minded finger lifted to play with a lock of her hair. “I might take you up on that sometime! My teachers are always saying how important feedback is.”
“Well, now you know where you can find me!” Nat said with a gesture to the building. “I need to get back to work, but it was super nice seeing you again Halie!”
“O-oh, you too!” Halie said, feeling both saddened and relieved that she was leaving. “I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah, for sure! See ya!” Nat said as she turned and began walking away.
The camera inside Halie’s mind broke.
It had survived the smiles and the strained buttons. But Nat’s ass- her immense, pocket-stretching, thigh-slapping, waddle-causing ass- caused the camera to metaphorically drop to the ground and shatter apart.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there. Even after the woman had wobbled around the corner of the aisle and out of view, Halie still stood staring at nothing.
Had she acted weird? What if she was weird? Did she look cute? Oh God, she hadn’t brushed her hair after her nap… What if she’d messed this up? She’d never thought in a hundred years she’d run into her again like this…
All of those thoughts were in the back of her mind however, trying yet failing to tug down the lovestruck girl who now felt like she was floating on air. She replayed the sound of the fat girl’s chuckling and her… enticing offer. She’d thought her feelings were for nothing, that the girl she’d met at the gym was out of her life forever.
But today, fate had given her a chance.
And while the thought of seeing more of Nat made Halie’s knees weak with uncertainty, she knew one thing for sure-
She was really going to have a hard time thinking about anything else for weeks.