"I cannot believe your dumb ass," Amy said with a groan.
"I'm sorry!" Megan said, still stuffing her face with chicken nuggets they picked up from McDonald's. "I really wanted the soda AND the milkshake and... I just lost my grip."
"That spill cost us $200. You're lucky that driver had leather seats or else it would've been a lot more." Amy took a deep breath, trying to calm down. "Okay... I shouldn't be mad... $200 is a small price to pay for getting a ride there and making sure you were as fat as you are... sorry."
"No you're right, I am a dumb ass!" Megan said friendlily. "At the very least I'm a bad fat girl. A real fat girl would never spill that much sugary soda goodness. I need to get better at being fat."
Amy smiled. "Well you're doing a good job, walking through campus eating those chicken nuggets as if they were potato chips. Speaking of which, you walk SO slowly now."
Megan rolled her eyes and smiled. "I weigh almost 200 pounds more than you do you bitch! You try carrying that around. I'm glad it's breezy out today or else I'd be in a sweat... thank god I can almost see the Residential Life sign." Residential Life was conveniently in the campus's student union. Although it was on the third floor, it had an elevator right next to it, something Megan nearly couldn't go upstairs without now.
"They better not give us a hard time for submitting this on the last day," Amy said.
"Well the deadline is April 30th. That's today! If they give us a hard time I have no problem venting about how I'm too fat to climb stairs. I'll vent about how this fat is gonna make it too hard to breathe without air conditioning. I have no shame anymore."
"And I love ya for it! Alright, up we go," Amy said, calling the elevator.
"Wait, what time is it now?" Megan asked. "Can we grab some food? The union cafeteria is right there. Maybe some pasta and meatballs, yum... oh wait I want pizza. Do you think they have meat lovers today? What about a basket of chicken ten-"
"Megan!" She snapped out of her food daydream. "You don't have to eat 24/7 anymore!" Amy said laughing.
"I knowwwwwww," Megan said whining. "But I want to! Okay... two milkshakes then?"
"Okay okay, let's go... but we need to make it quick. I'm only giving you a few minutes to slurp those down. Res Life closes at 3pm and I know for a fact the people there are lazy and close early a lot. So we have less than two hours to get up there."
"Oh please, you think it takes me two hours to drink a couple milkshakes. Look at me!" Megan shamelessly patted her oversized stomach, which was peaking out slightly from her top, with a muffin top making her look even wider than normal.
"I do know you in that if I let you eat all the other stuff you mentioned, we'd be sitting here for two hours until you couldn't take another bite."
"...okay fair," Megan said.
The girls walked over to the milkshake bar and Megan ordered her two favorites; one Oreo milkshake and one peanut butter milkshake. Not only were they her two favorites, but they were also two of the most caloric on the menu, perfect for their plan all semester. But luckily for Megan, drinking dozens of them per week didn't spoil the taste for her, and she was just as enthusiastic about taking her first sip now as she was her first week on campus, almost 160 pounds ago.
The girls sat and chatted for 20 minutes as Megan drank almost 2000 calories of ice cream on the spot. They reminisced about the last few months, but also about their first few weeks as roommates, and how their friendship grew so strongly over not only food, but helping each other with their problems. Especially how, according to Amy, Megan is one of the only people she thinks really listens to her problems and helps her overcome them. Which is a sign of stronger friendship than any amount of feeding can create.
After a heart-to-heart and a lot of ice cream, the girls got in the elevator. "It's time!" Megan said happily. They walked out and walked up to the Res Life front desk before Megan's heart dropped a bit when they were greeted.
"Hi, welcome to NEP Res Life! I'm Stacey, what can I do for you today?"
"This is the same exact fatty I met in the bathroom a couple months ago... she must not even recognize me... I'm huge now... she seems to have gotten bigger too," Megan nervously thought to herself. "She saw me with a giant bag of M&M's... in the SHOWER. She's gonna rat me out if she remembers who I am."
Megan, after a solid pause, opened her mouth. "Hi there. I'm... so I... I'm here to apply for disabled housing."
Amy gave Megan a strange look, wondering why she could barely find the words to talk. "Oh excellent. Let me get you a form.. is this a recent diagnosis or a lifelong illness?" Stacey asked, clearly not recognizing Megan.
"Um... recent." Megan sheepishly grabbed the form Stacey handed to her.
"Okay well perfect... and by the looks of it you seem to have a doctor's note in hand," Stacey said glancing down to the paper Megan was holding. "So I'm gonna have you fill out that short form and bring it back to me along with official documentation proving the diagnosis legitimate. You can have a seat over there!" Stacey cheerfully pointed to couches nearby.
Megan walked over to one rather quickly for her size, the only one facing away from the front desk. "Megan, what's going on?" Amy said.
"Shh... that girl," Megan whispered. "Remember when I said some fat girl tried to get me to go to the gym with her, then she caught me eating fucking M&M's while I was showering... that's her!"
"Oh shit. She doesn't recognize you?" Amy whispered.
"No hopefully the extra 100 pounds or however much I gained since I last saw her threw her off. But I really hope she doesn't recognize me and call us out for doing this." Megan's cheeks were beet red.
"Calm down girl, just fill out the form. She didn't recognize you before, so she probably won't at all. And if she does call you out, I bet she doesn't have any say in this crap. She's a student worker."
"You're right, you're right. Okay let's get to this form..." Megan started writing all of her info, her name, phone number, home address, all of the basics. And then she went down to the checkbox. 'Reason for application: check all that apply'. Megan scrolled the entire list until she reached the very bottom. 'Super Morbid Obesity (BMI of 60+)'. "Check!" Megan said quietly.
Below she then had to rationalize why she was in need of priority housing. "This is where I shine..." As she's said many times, Megan deep down loves talking about her obesity. But in person she usually becomes too sheepish to be anything but nervous talking about it. But on paper is a whole other situation.
"My weight has become too high for me to live comfortably in any standard dorm room on campus. I am too wide to fit comfortably in any twin-sized bed, and am too heavy to easily climb stairs to get up and down from any floor that isn't the first. I recently met with my doctor to get dieting advice to lose the weight..." Megan and Amy both laughed as Megan was reading her plea out loud quietly. "...but before that happens I will need somewhere comfortable to live and achieve my health goals without feeling victimized by NEP's housing."
"You're a poet," Amy said quietly.
"I know how to fat," Megan bragged. The girls got up and brought the application back to Stacey, along with the paper certifying Megan's 62.25 BMI.
"All set?" Stacey asked. Megan nodded her head timidly now that she was back with her potential rat. "Okay let's see... Megan Lisowski... Megan... wait... Megan?" Stacey's head darted back up and looked at Megan, suddenly realizing who she was, and then registering all of the extra weight she put on since their single meeting over two months earlier.
"Oh... Stacey! We met in the bathroom once?" Megan said completely shaken. Amy just stared off into space, knowing she couldn't contribute anything positive here.
"Wait you're... applying for your obesity?" Stacey questioned, looking at the application. "The time I saw you eating M&M's in the bathroom... you were gaining weight on purpose?"
"Okay wait, it's not what it looks like. I'm not-"
"That's genius!" Stacey exclaimed. Megan and Amy's jaws almost hit the floor. "I mean I've worked here all semester but I just never made the connection, and..." Stacey stood up from her chair to fully reveal her body, which is clearly more than just a few pounds heavier than it was the last time her and Megan met. "...I could definitely use a bigger bed too."
"I figured might as well see what we could do, right?" Megan said, still nervous and shaken.
"The dedication you clearly took to getting this room is just... wow. You're huge! You look great too!" Stacey exclaimed, not thinking twice about her words.
"Uh, thank you Stacey. So is my application okay?"
"Oh it's definitely okay. And listen, between you and me, there's been a low level of interest in the special housing this year. I don't know how, but for whatever reason there's a lot of open spots. And usually we need to sort these applications based on 'this person absolutely needs disabled housing' like if you were paralyzed or something, versus 'this person could use it but might not need it'. But, I'll do you a favor. I'm gonna push this one through. No questions asked.
Amy and Megan's mouths dropped further to the floor, like they were living a fairy tale. "Stacey, thank you so much. Can I ask why? I mean you seemed very set on the gym and everything. Did something change?"
Stacey's face lit up. "Okay so meeting you low-key changed a lot for me. Before I felt crazy craving junk all the time, like I had some eating disorder. But then seeing you happily eating M&M's in the shower, I realized I'm not the crazy one, society is! And then I found this amazing small group on campus called F.L.A.B.; Females Love All Bodies. Ever hear of it?" Amy and Megan shook their head. "Well it's really about self-love and body acceptance but secretly it's just an excuse for fat girls to get together, hang out, and get school funding to order take-out. And I realized there's more girls out there than just me who are happy being fat and eating all of our favorite foods. It just took meeting you to see that. I can't believe I haven't ran into you all semester either!"
Megan's nervous level dropped from a 10 to a 1 faster than she's ever had that happen in her life. "That's just... amazing Stacey. Like, wow. Thank you. I need to check out this club first of all! But also I'm just so happy I was able to do that for you. I mean, I was the same way. As soon as I got to NEP I realized I didn't have to hide how much I wanted to eat or how much I wanted to eat food... so I grew! And I kept growing and before I knew it I was a true fat ass. And I loved it. So when I realized I could eat even more and get a kick ass apartment because of it, who would say no to that?"
Amy was smiling ear-to-ear at the whole conversation, watching not only her best friend achieve their semester-long goal, but do it so confidently. "Definitely not me... I'm gonna have to see if I can put in a late application, my BMI must be getting pretty high too!" Stacey said as she looked down at her own giant stomach.
The girls, mostly Megan and Stacey, laughed and talked for a few more minutes before heading their own separate ways. As soon as they left Res Life, Megan and Amy shared a warm embrace that lasted at least five minutes, finally knowing that their hard work and extreme eating (well, Megan's extreme eating) paid off. And not only that, but was an inspiration for others. "The literal last thing I would've expected," Amy said to Megan about Stacey at one point. But as much as the knowledge of their inspiration felt good, what felt even better was that they achieved what they worked toward. They won. And it only took gaining over 120 pounds.