Matilda Swaps Goals: 21/30 (WG)
,After her newly-crowned chef boyfriend has cooked a breakfast meal of pancakes, spinach and ricotta with bacon, Matilda makes her second deliberate effort in months to be punctual for practice.Close, but no cigar. She turns up a few minutes overtime, stuck in a limbo between not-as-late-as-usual, but not quite on time either. Elisha doesn’t seem to like this one little bit, throwing languid, resentful stares at her while the girls change into their gear, then jog outside, up onto the training pitch and into the chilly, dew-laden air.None of the girls want to say more than a single word to her during the session. It’s not as if they’re trying to avoid her – they just believe they have to act with caution around her, the way you would an injured stray dog that needs to be left alone and must be felt sorry for. It probably has something to do with the way she’s feeling out of breath during warm ups before most of the girls have even jogged the morning chill from their limbs. Margery strolls around like a vulture-necked sentry among them with her whistle in hand, using her voice and hands to bark directional instructions as they rehearse set plays and practice cut-back sprints. She never looks at Matilda. Not once. If Margery has to say anything to her at all, she speaks to the air around Matilda, eyes averted, never addressing her directly – and all while, Elisha somehow manages to worm her way into the centre of the pitch, sticking her foot into all the action as she struts around with her captain’s armband around her upper arm, fastened with obsessive precision as if to make her title as clear as possible.The real trouble comes after training in the change rooms.Kelsey, who is sitting on the bench beside her locker, huffs with lips pressed shut and drops her towel in her lap. She glances across at Talina, her defensive partner on the left wing, with an expression that suggests there are words trying to escape her mouth.Talina clocks onto her teammate’s searching gaze and squints at her, one brow raised inquisitively.With a quick glance over her shoulder, Kelsey licks her lips and then leans in confidentially. ‘I know we aren’t meant to transition until a counter-attack,’ she says under her breath, ‘but I can’t hold onto the ball forever. It doesn’t feel right. How do I move it into their third when there’s nobody to pass to when I’m getting pressured?’Matilda overhears the two of them. ‘You could just long-ball it across to Stacey,’ she suggests, finding it a bit annoying to lean over her knees and slip her shoe off her heel, with the way her belly keeps wanting to remind her it’s there all the time, now.The two girls turn to her, then swap a strange glance with each other. But they return their eyes to Matilda, nonetheless, and wait. They’re listening.‘Stacey should be mirroring your runs, right?’ Matilda reasons, leaning to one side and placing her shoe on the ground. She feels a fold develop under her ribcage as she does so. ‘Just like I was before Margery moved me to the backline. So if you’re waiting for us to move up the field, then just lob it straight over their heads. Straight to Stacey. Switch the play. She can do it. She’s a good controller of the ball. Not really that fast, but she can make the ball stick to her, you know? They won’t expect it. They’ll have to turn and chase her instead – so, if you let her dribble it up a bit, then get her to lob it over back to you again, it wastes the opponent’s time. By then some of us should have enough time to be making runs in behind for you to pass through to.’Talina bites her lower lip, a sequence of thought making her eyes narrow. ‘Sounds risky. Won’t that allow the opposition to regroup as well?’‘Yeah. Our counter attack would die– but not all of it. That’s why our back line stays back; to get ready for a turn-over, if that happens. Only our midfield players are meant to make those forward runs anyway.’‘Not according to Margery.’‘Who cares! Evangeline should already be there ahead of you. Beth runs ahead of me, cuts inside towards you. Elisha runs up too. The rest of us stay back and guard the turn-over, or otherwise just sit as an anchor if nothing opens up and you need to recycle the ball. But in attacking transition, if you need to, just keep switching play to the other side of the field, between you and Stacey. Make the opposition shift side to side. It might annoy them. Then, if you get far up enough, our fullbacks can run up, and overlap, or underlap.’‘That’s sounding an awful lot like an attacking style of football,’ Kelsey says, laughing.‘Again– who cares what Margery wants anymore? Talina; you and April can run up from your fullback positions and overlap. Grace and Mandy stay all the way back ready to stop a turn-over if it happens while I sweep in front of them like a traditional defensive mid. You can boot it back to me if there’s an emergency– I should be more or less isolated, and I should have a bit of space to work with. I’ll redistribute it to you from the back and you can try pushing forward again.’Kelsey’s eyes glitter. Talina exchanges a glance with her, then looks away to examine the wall as she sucks her lips between her teeth. She’s visibly turning the ideas over in her mind. Then she tilts her head a little and says, ‘You know what? I can… actually see how that would work, but… Margery would kill you for suggesting it, for one thing. For another; doesn’t that mean you’d have to do more defensive work than usual?’‘Yes and yes. But again, who cares. If I’m not marked by an opponent, just send it back to me and reset. I won’t have long, but I’ll be able to think up something on the spot and spray some kind of pass forward. Just get back into an open space and I’ll pick someone out for a pass.’Kelsey nods as understanding slowly unfurls in her mind’s eye. It’s not rocket science. As a matter of fact, it’s pretty basic football when it comes down to reality.But Talina still has one last doubt. ‘And if they counter-attack?’‘Everyone should be marking their nearest opponent’s run and shadowing them anyway. If they have the ball, pressure them. If they’re on the move, cut in front of their passing-lanes. You’ll have to do some sprinting, obviously, but when everyone’s running into our third, I’ll come forward and go up against whoever has the ball, force them to make a pass, or I make a tackle, either way I waste their time. Grace and Mandy should backtrack to shadow the opposition forwards when they run past me in case they’re looking to make a sprint into our box. Talina; by then, if the player you’re shadowing doesn’t have the ball, you and April just keep marking them so they don’t get to run out wide. And bam– we’re back into formation before they’re even in our final third.’With a sly squint, Talina slowly nods, and is about to say something when she senses movement and looks over her shoulder. ‘You’re not seriously trying to give tactical suggestions, are you?’ Elisha butts in, stepping into their corner with one foot forward, looking inquisitively between the three of them. She shoots a down-the-nose frown at Matilda, an expression of disgust twisting her facial features. ‘You know that’s not what Margery has asked us to do. And you should be the last one to be saying anything to begin with, Tild. Look at you. How is anyone meant to take you seriously right now?’Silence echoes like a propagating wave.Now everybody in the room is listening. Matilda sits on her bench like a child with nothing good to say and a rush of heat making her ears feel like they’re swelling.‘I take her seriously,’ comes April’s voice all of a sudden.But her support had been too soft-spoken. Elisha’s attention is aimed on Matilda so telescopically that nothing else matters, and April’s voice behind her fades as if it had never spoken.Matilda feels her own face contort. She should be able to defend herself. Why can’t she talk back?Oh. She knows why. She doesn’t want to know, but she does. Elisha is right. Who is ever going to take her seriously? Her out of shape appearance has pulled any credibility she had out from under her feet. Anything she chooses to say is only undermined by the obscene lump of overfed softness in the front of her shirt, the strain of her hips against her shorts, the meaty thickness of her soft thighs against the edge of the bench.Elisha takes a few steps back to stand against the nearest empty locker so she can face and address the whole room. ‘I hate to do this, but I’m speaking on behalf of Margery, and as your captain when I say we have to trust the plan. I know we aren’t getting results, but we will. We will if we do this right. Stand straight. Look up. Suck it in, and commit to the boss’s tactics. Whether any of you like it or not, they will work.’Matilda can’t help herself anymore. She’s about to lose her mind. She puts her hands on the edge of the bench and begins to rise. ‘But that’s–’‘Shut up, you fat ass,’ Elisha snaps, barely turning to acknowledge Matilda before continuing.In spite of herself, Matilda feels body-slammed to the floor. She slouches down with a heavy chest and tries not to make eye contact with the few girls she can tell are awkwardly glancing in her direction. ‘We have to believe in the plan,’ Elisha declares, planting one foot forward in assertive triumph. ‘If we all commit, it will work. Counter-attacks are about patience. We all know that. I know it might not be pretty, but it’s what we have to do for now… Not at all thanks to a certain someone who let themselves go, nooo, not at all… But, all we need to do is to stay focused, be patient, wait for the counter attack to properly present itself, don’t lose our cool by rushing in just to make an attempt at goal, and then eventually we will be able to do it right.’Matilda can’t stay like this any longer. Her lungs are too full of fire. She hangs her head and hisses under her breath, deflating.Elisha notices. ‘Oh,’ swinging around, ‘and I guess you still have a problem with that, don’t you?’ She throws a hand at her in angry gesticulation. ‘You. You, who’s just sitting there like that. Don’t you get it? You’re half the reason these counter-attacks haven’t been working in the first place!’‘Oh, right,’ Matilda lifts her head to glare at the captain from under raised brows. ‘So you at least admit counter-attacking doesn’t work–’‘Only because of you!’ Elisha spits. ‘You’re such a let-down! You’re too fucking slow! How the fuck are we meant to get the ball through the midfield with you slowing it all down? Honestly, I don’t understand why you get all these chances?’ Elisha’s body leans into her words as her repressed rage begins to unravel itself in a verbal mess. ‘Why the fuck are you even still here?’ Her eyes are hugely wide, bright and icey like marbles, hatred tightening her facial features as she gives her head small erratic shakes left and right to punctuate her words; ‘Honestly, I don’t get it. I try but I just don’t. Actually, no, you know what? I don’t care anymore. I’m done.’ She turns away. ‘I’m so done, I’m so fucking done. I’m so through with this, I’m so done.’ She wheels back suddenly. ‘You are the worst; you let yourself get this fat and never do anything about it? Like– are you in denial? Is that it? Are you fucking ignoring it? Because I’m not. We aren’t. You’re so fucking chubby and out-of-shape, just some fat-ass now, I don’t get what your problem is. Oh I’m so fucking done.’ Elisha turns away once more, but then decides to wheel back a second time. ‘Like, what is honestly your deal? Did you sign a fucking contract with someone else? Did your daddy pay your way into a position here? You a trust-fund kid? You got dirt? You got dirt on someone? What did you ever do to deserve this? I’m so over it.’ Elisha turns and takes a step away. ‘So over it.’ Then turns back for yet a third time, one hand carving the air in gestures of furious articulation. ‘I don’t get how you let yourself get fat and still play this game. Like no, seriously. You can’t even play this game anymore. Look at you, you fat fucking pig; you don’t even fit your shorts anymore– and– and what the fuck is with this?’ She grasps around her own thin waist at an invisible paunch, ‘You look pregnant! Who in their right mind lets a woman play at four months pregnant? You need to go on a diet. Like. Right, now.’ Elisha shakes her head and turns on her heel for good this time. ‘So disgusting.’ As Elisha’s tirade snaps to an end, she finally stalks away. She packs up the last of her stuff into her bag and leaves the room.When all is silent again, Matilda finds herself unable to make any meaningful movements with her limbs. Everyone is looking at her. Left stung and beaten, she knows she ought to have something to say. Something to do. But she’s trapped. A great, sinking weight like a waterlogged rag wraps around her soul, holding it down low. She’s anchored to the bench upon which she sits. Her upper back aches. Her shoulder blades feel strained. The insides of her thighs feel hot and itchy against one another, and heat prickles under her arms.Kelsey is staring at the closed door through which Elisha has departed. There’s a doubtful shade in her eyes. A crease appears under her lids, tensing briefly just before it vanishes – just a momentary thought about something.Matilda slowly reaches for her bag, puts the last of her items away and closes it. The zipper’s length seems to stretch for as long as a highway into the desert. Keeping her eyes averted in what she hopes looks like stubborn defiance, she gets up and leaves. She can tell Kelsey is watching her go, and in those grey eyes is something that might be sympathy.But, oh god, no, that’s not what she needs right now. She wants to tell Kelsey to stop.Dragging her bag behind her, she exits the facility, walks out to her car, and gets inside, dangerously close to the precipice of a flood of angry tears.. . .Carlile cooks dinner for her that night. He listens to her in silence while he prepares the food. It’s well into the evening and most of her fury by now has been vented out her mouth, nose and ears, dispersing like smoke to join the kitchen’s ambient steam, and her throat is sore from talking for too long. She’s been sinking further and further into the stool as she runs out of words to say, and now she’s leaning across the bench, slumped over her elbows, her hair over her face in an un-combed mess. The anger is all gone, strangely. Now that it’s gone she just feels tired. Tired and hungry. But Carlile is right there across from her, glazing potatoes in her kitchen. He silently coats the vegetables in marinate, saying nothing, just listening. She lays there with her head in her hands and breathes sleepily, eyes looking up at him from under heavy lids. Something inside her slows down to a steady lethargic rhythm of peaceful safety. Her heart settles into place as she watches him work. Like a ball, spinning as fast as a wheel burning itself out against the tarmac, finally hitting the brakes and slowing down to eventual stasis. She feels like a downy feather tossed in the wind, floating down, swaying gently to eventual rest. It’s comforting to watch him work, his skilled movements satisfying to observe as they play out one by one. His hands are long and strong. He cuts the potatoes evenly, holding the knife in the same gentle, firm way he holds her hand. She wants to reach out for him, touch his fingers, lace them around her own and slowly rub her hands into his reassuring warmth.Ever since his induction week ended, Carlile has begun to change. Physically. He turns away from her to carry the sliced potatoes to an oiled tray beside the pre-heated oven, and that’s when she notices the roundness in the back of his shirt where his hip bones used to sit sharper. A filmy wash of desire sheathes her eyeballs as she scans his body up and down. She can’t see anything below his stuffy grey sweatpants, but something is different higher up. His stomach bends out against his shirt somewhat, moreso down low than up high. But how has she only just noticed this? Is it really that sudden?Oh. God. She lets her eyes flit up to the back of his head, then back down, eyelids droopy with desire, and she stretches her body over the bench to crane towards one side for a better view. Then he turns around and catches her. She glances up and gives him a guilty, filthy smirk. ‘Hmm,’ she hums, pressing her lips together and still smirking. ‘You must be eating whatever you’re cooking at the kitchen.’She swears he’s quickly sucked in, the overt shape of his stomach shrinking back. The soft imprint of his hips remain there, however, too stubborn, unable to go anywhere else. ‘What’re you talking about?’ he says, looking away.Matilda sits a little straighter and shrugs, still smirking. ‘Nothing.’ . . .The Purple Vale Strikers visit Brentwood FC’s grounds that Friday to play their eleventh match of the season. The game goes all whack with stop-start motion that doesn’t really go anywhere. It turns out Elisha ratted on Matilda to Margery, thoroughly stomping on any chance she had at kindling a tactical flame in the girls’ game plan and forcing Kelsey and Talina to apologetically put Matilda’s ideas to the side.Despite being shoehorned back into Margery’s stiff, unfluid counter-attacking routine, the girls play without making any drastic mistakes, and everyone sticks their foot into the match with a growling fight that leaves them bruised and grazed for 93 minutes. Everyone except for Matilda, who can’t keep it up with that anymore. She is technically a defender, now, and she is stuck playing down the back line of the park. Except that every time she gets the ball, she fails to keep the momentum going forward down the lanes, either losing the ball to a tackle or running into a gang of opposition midfielders who find the time to rocket back into a defensive wall and force her to backpedal before she can cover any ground. She can hear angry locals yelling from the sidelines, but she doesn't allow herself to tune into what they’re saying.Around the 80th minute, a loose ball rolls away from a tackle eight yards from her. Elisha and Kelsey both converge on it, and Matilda sidesteps into some open space in case they need to pass the ball back to safety. As she moves out, she can hear her own breath like grinding rocks, and now an opponent jogs around the side to start man-marking her. Elisha gets to the ball first, and turns with it towards Matilda. The nearby opponent puts hands against Matilda’s arm and jostles with her. Instead of passing the ball, Elisha hoofs it clear up over Matilda’s head, all the way back to Nysha in goals. When Matilda tries to untangle herself from her opponent to run down the pitch, the girl gets in front to push off her body at a head start – her hands slipping down to accidentally push against Matilda’s waist, copping a fingerful or two of soft pudge.‘Oh my god, what happened there?’ Matilda hears the girl laugh as she runs off at a jog.Once the game ends with a 1 - 1 draw, she doesn’t hang around for any longer than it takes to change back into her clothes. The atmosphere in the change rooms is thick with invisible poison, gloom, and the threat of a managerial outburst closing in on all sides like an approaching stormfront.So she’s dashed out the door and into the unfamiliar parking lot before anyone can stop her. Sweat still coats her forehead, turning cold as the night air meets her skin.Her silver Suzuki Swift is parked in a corner away from the harsh white glare of the floodlights. Coming around the driver’s side, feeling safe and stealthy, she unlocks the door, slips into the seat of her small vehicle, and allows herself to be swallowed up by the entombment of darkness and safety. That is until she flicks her headlights on, and the sheen of frosty moisture across the windshield illuminates the smears of scribbles written on it by someone’s finger. The letters don’t make sense at first. “ s s a t a f ”Did somebody mis-spell a name? She blinks, and then tries reading it backwards. Her heart sinks, oozing through the gaps of her ribcage like emulsified jelly. “ f a t a s s ”Someone has written on the outside of her car – as if she didn’t know – that she is a fatass.Letting her head drop, she glances over each shoulder, out of the windows into the darkness beyond, but can’t spot anybody nearby. She realises she’s still breathing loud enough to hear herself. God, she’s so unfit. A fat, weak, out of shape piece of shit who used to be the best in this sport. What is left of her now, but a pot-bellied pig of a thing who’s sitting alone in her car, struggling not to sob beneath the oppressive weight of this name-badge written before her eyes on the windshield? She’s an unfit chubster who hasn’t even begun to fasten her seatbelt yet, knowing that when she does, she’ll have to deal with the fleshy package of softness that her belly has become, pressing against her fingers, and be forced to acknowledge a part of her that never existed before. And yet, in spite of it all, she can’t find the tears to cry with. She wants to, but there’s nothing available.Maybe it’s because the idiot who did it couldn’t even think to write it in reverse on the outside so it scans correctly from the inside.On the one hand, the word on the windshield hurts. But on the other hand, it somehow feels like scratching a terrible itch. She deserves this. She made herself chubby on purpose. She’s pathetic, and she’s gross. She has a fat belly, and fat thighs, and now someone has finally announced it to the public – a painful fact like a patch of restless nerve-endings trapped for too long beneath a plaster cast of “politeness”, busted open at last to be scratched at with long-overdue relief. Is that why this feels kind of nice, in a fucked up way?Matilda stares at the insulting letters on the windscreen, and for a brief moment in time, she imagines letting them stay there.Then she knocks the wiper lever down and watches the blades sweep up, back down – up, back down – erasing the word from existence.With that done, she drives off, feeling hungrier than she should be..When she gets back home, she launches into escapism with her entire soul. This is her last night to be alone with Carlile in her house before her parents return, so she wants to milk every vibrant minute of this time like the last drops of life in a wasteland.He is already inside, having used a spare key. As soon as Matilda comes into the kitchen, she latches onto him like a facehugger not even two steps through the entrance and tells him to get the fuck into her bedroom. But he tells her to wait first. He’s only just finished cooking them a giant dinner in time for her return. So they sit and eat in each other’s company, packing a little too much food into their stomachs by the time they’re done, and find themselves burdened with bellies too full to keep sharp minds, their patterns of thought gone as dull and blunt as mallets. They shove each other onto the couch in front of an unwatched movie, the wide TV screen flickering light across their bodies in the unlit room as they peel each other’s clothes away like gifts to each other, the room silent except for that sensual hiss of skin brushing against skin, of clothes rustling. They make love, bathing in the heat of each other’s bodies as they touch, caress, squeeze and grope. But it’s not long before she comes to sense that same feeling of avoidant distance, once again, in the way Carlile is moving around her.He won’t allow her hands to come near anything remotely soft – and that’s a problem. As he redirects her touch, time and time again, to the more exercise areas of his body, she realises that he’s been visiting the gym again. He's going to lose all his softness. Matilda’s heart wrinkles, and something inside her loses a gush of hot air. Her mood almost dies on the spot.But she can’t go back now. Pushing aside what she knows is just petty anger, she gives herself some time for its absence to take hold – and then, in its wake, a wave of aggressive passion floods into her body, filling her with something unbearable. She grabs him by the shoulders and plants hard kisses up and down his collarbones. He cups his hand under her groin and begins searching for her sensitive spot. Before they know it, everything is spiralling out of control faster than a chemical reaction rising, frothing, exploding over the head of a beaker.. . .During the evening of the next day, the sun keeps popping in and out of hiding behind flat grey clouds. She stares out her bedroom window, thinking about last night. He’d fucked her until it pounded. Even now, she feels a tenderness one stage below a bruise between her legs. Taking outside a small rubbish bag filled with their used protection and dropping it discreetly in the general waste can just in time for her mother to return home from the airport in a taxi, she’d felt herself walk back inside with a bit of a funny gait.As she sits at her desk with her laptop, eating a bowl of ice cream and playing around on Football Manager, she hears her phone go off behind her somewhere in the blankets of her unmade bed. She knows who it is. But she won’t be going to training today. It’s not like she deliberately made that decision. It’s just that something inside her doesn’t have the strength to lift a finger about it. As if the option simply isn’t there to be clicked on the menu. And anyway, if Elisha is going to be a filthy rat and destroy any chance at making the right adjustments to the team’s tactical play, then what is the point in playing? The idea of sacrifice is dead, now, and she has killed it, all for a head coach who does not possess a single good idea about how to manage eleven young female footballers.Carlile had left earlier in the morning to prepare himself for a long day in the kitchen, leaving her alone, bored, and with nothing to do except eat ice cream, simulate virtual football matches, and wait until the late afternoon when she can use the excuse of “dinner time” to eat an entire meal.So she sits in peaceful solitude at her laptop, scoffing ice cream with more speed than she realises, getting up for stealthy refills every now and then until the spoon scrapes the bottom of the empty carton and her stomach feels overburdened with dairy – her metabolism trying, but failing, to deal with the catastrophic onslaught of surplus calories.. . .When she arrives at the clinic for her intern shift early the next morning, Matilda knows she shouldn’t have done what she did. Well, there’s many things she shouldn’t have done. Shouldn’t have binged all that ice cream. Shouldn’t have worn this outfit. Shouldn’t have even turned up. Should have gone to the gym instead. Should have quit this headlong binge weeks ago while she was still ahead, when it was clear Margery was never going to budge.Taking a moment to be alone in the restroom before she goes out through the foyer to meet Dr Goodwynn, she stands with her back against the tiled wall and glares loathsomely at the ceiling, mouthing nasty words to herself over and over. Her mistakes have chosen now, of all possible moments, to step out of hell’s portal and overwhelm every cortex of her fucked up brain with panic. She wasn’t ready for this. Then again, she was never ready for anything, was she? Not like she thought she was. The truth is all too clear, now that she sees it from within the brown blur of muck she’s trapped in. The rotting state of her club – her childhood club – infused with so many irretrievable memories, hopes and dreams slowly sliding away from her, further with every bite of fattening food, every molecule of adipose tissue wriggling into its place to join the fray, even now, probably. From the very start, her plan had been the poorly thought-out design of a belligerent child thinking they could build a rocket ship to the moon out of cardboard, and it has all come to its cataclysmic conclusion at last, miles off-track from where she projected to land.What the fuck was she thinking, forcing her body to store fat against its natural metabolistic will? Besieging her stomach until she broke its default setting? Was she really deluded enough to think she could do enough “damage” to her club that they would be forced to perform a “Hard Reset” and “start anew” with “a different manager”? What a disgusting, spilled-over, splattered mess of an entitled fantasy.Her clothes won’t even sit on her body with sufficient slack anymore. It’s no longer simply a matter of discomfort, nor just about the sensation of tightness. She had found the mental strength to deal with these worsening maladjustments and the cognitive dissonance for so long – but all those mental gymnastics are unravelling, now, faster than a coiled spring. And something’s going to get damaged.What’s really concerning is that she just… woke up one morning from a dream she had about being a railroad construction worker building a rail track into Neverland, only to find her clothes just straight up wouldn’t fit her body when she tried them on that morning.It’s a lucky thing she brought a long woollen cardigan with her today, otherwise she’d be showing narrow wedges of exposed skin for everyone’s eyes to see. It probably looks stylistically stupid, buttoning a cardigan which is meant to hang open, but she’s got no choice. Her enlarged belly has filled the front of her collared white shirt with its roundness, pressing against the waistband of her slacks to the point that the bulge of her gut is putting a mean strain against the shirt’s buttons. As a matter of stylistic design, her slacks have no central zipper for a fly, but instead zip up either side. Problem is, she can’t fully close the zips on the sides of her slacks, even though her breakfast-bloated stomach has slowly digested back down to a more relaxed state. Having to suck in all the time has been causing problems – making it harder than she feels she deserves to draw a sufficiently deep breath into her lungs– and the buried musculature of her abdomen aches from having to hold tight under an endless outwards tension. It’s like planking. She can’t do it forever. There comes a point where she has to stop sucking in.A short time later, Matilda wanders down into Dr Goodwynn’s office. Taking her seat on the opposite corner of her desk, she has to keep plucking at the folds of her cardigan to make sure every part of the garment is perfectly rumpled in such a way. But the thick woollen knit keeps wanting to settle around the shape of the most incriminating bulges and curves of her softened stomach – the way it squashes together and rolls into its own mass no matter how she sits. She tries to keep her focus rigid as a rock while she watches patients come in and out of the office one by one for consultations and various treatments, but the sensation of her belly’s lower skin pressing against tight fabric, pushing up over the belt’s buckle, takes her mind away from the present again and again, unbelievably distracting.As the day churns on, Matilda begins to sense that something is… missing from Dr Goodwynn’s repertoire of language. Whenever an appointment ends, Dr Goodwynn takes five or ten minutes to discuss the patient’s problems with Matilda; to teach her about what went right, what went wrong, and to explain each decision she made based on her knowledge.Thing is, Matilda has noticed that just over half of the patients who come in on any given day are bordering on overweight, a few of them guaranteed to be quite fat. And yet not even once has Dr Goodwynn uttered the words “fat”, “weight”, “overweight”, “size”, or anything remotely synonymous, today. Actually, now that she thinks about it, she hadn’t even said those words last week. Matilda comes to realise just how tacitly she has been side-stepping those words precisely at the threshold of being brought up. Dr Goodwynn’s verbal dance is masterful, the gesture almost sweet… But Matilda wishes she would just say something, already. Just admit that she can tell. Get it over with. The elephant in the room is too loud, taking up too much space. Nobody can move around it. The itch needs to be scratched – just like the writing left on her windshield. F a t a s s. That’s exactly it.I’m a fatass, she confesses internally. Thank you for noticing. I have a fat wobbling ass now. I have a round jiggly beer gut and it pushes over my pants. I have fat legs. I have chubby hips. My tits are growing like they haven’t since I was fourteen. Even my arms look thicker. I know I am. Tell me again, I’m listening. Call me out on it.Dr Goodwynn is moving her lips, and her smooth dark hand is gently waving above her vision. ‘…Matilda? Is everything okay?’Matilda sucks in a lungful of air and straightens in her seat, feeling a row of buttons stiffen down the front of her blouse as her breasts and stomach in unison seek to push against them. All that’s stopping it from being seen is this stupid cardigan.‘Sorry, I…’ She lowers her gaze and shakes her head in apology.Nudging her glasses back up her nose, Dr Goodwynn’s dark brows pinch together as she peers at her student. ‘Are you feeling unwell?’‘Uhm. No.’‘This is quite uncharacteristic of you.’ Concern colours Dr Goodwynn’s face as she evaluates Matilda’s posture. Then she glances at the clock in the corner of her computer screen. ‘It is nearly afternoon. You are clearly unwell. I will not object if you need to go home.’Matilda puts her hands in her lap and twists her thumb from side to side. Among all the posters on the wall, a BMI chart happens to catch her eye, and she glares at it like she might decipher some hidden message. ‘That’s… really kind of you, but… No, I’m fine.’For some reason she feels like she needs to eat.‘I don’t mean to press,’ Dr Goodwynn speaks carefully, leaning with her elbow on the desk and swivelling her chair around to face her squarely. ‘But how is playing at your club going? The last time you told me, you said things weren’t going so well. You had run into some problems. Your coach? If I remember correctly things weren’t very good between you two.’Matilda smiles. ‘Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. That’s all it is.’Dr Goodwynn nods, saying “okay” with her eyes.Matilda withers like a dried flower.Well, it’s not a lie, is it? You can stretch half-truths to surprising lengths, if you give it a try.. . .Late to training. Again. She almost didn’t turn up at all. It’s getting far into the evening, and the sun has cooked the air to an oven-like warmth of stagnant humidity trapped among them by low clouds. At least that’s how it feels to her lethargic, perspiring limbs as she battles to push her body through several warm-up routines.During a brief lull in exercises, she hurries over to the sideline and bends over with a funny little sound coming from her mouth to pick up her bottle and take a long, hard drink. Her cheeks feel swollen with heat, blood surging through the vessels beneath her skin and neck. Her ears rush with over-pressurised circulation. Someone is calling out. Pulling her lips off the bottle with a smack, she gulps the last mouthful of water and resumes panting as she slaps the cap shut again. Her dizzy sight has never swirled this bad in her life. There are little flecks at the edges of her vision–‘Matilda!’ The shouting resolves into the sound of her name and she spins around to see Coach Karen looking at her from ten yards away, waving her hand in the air for attention. ‘Earth to Matilda. Hello. Yes, you. Coach Ilda has something she wants to tell you, please.’ Karen points across the grass towards the club building, where the distant form of coach Ilda stands, thin and Germanic, with her arms folded, leaning her weight back on one leg. Matilda looks back at Karen, but the small woman has already turned and walked off to rearrange a row of training cones.Matilda has to make her way around the boundary line so she doesn’t get in the way of the girls as they go running all over the place. At the dead centre of the pitch is Margery, hawking out micromanagements and instructions. She can feel Ilda’s gaze from all the way over here, and her belly is shaking as well. Fuck. Is it visible? Cotton fibre is tickling her stomach in places it isn’t meant to. Her upper thighs wobble on their frames. The journey around the outside of the pitch takes longer than she feels like it ought to.Once she comes to stand before the coach at last, Ilda is looking at her like she’s nothing more than a blank block of concrete. ‘Hello Matilda,’ Ilda says, in that flat, angular accent. ‘I must deliver bad news.’Matilda sways on her feet as a beat of unexpected silence goes by, forcing her to either wait and elongate the silence, or break the silence and ask what the bad news is. She can hear the girls shouting “pass! pass! here! over here! Open!” The whistle screeches now and again. The ball thumps and thuds. Feet pound grass in a haphazard patter.Ilda itches the side of her thin nose, one eyebrow lifting. Then she sighs, chest rising and falling, and looks off into the distance over Matilda’s shoulder with a squint. ‘Margery has asked of me zhat I pass on some instructions.’ A cursory glance at the head coach holding her whistle in the centre of the action. Ilda’s accent clips the ends off her words as she says, ‘As of now, you are to move into centre-back. Very much centre-back. A line of five, we are to assume. Vee are to train for a defensive formation of a five-two-two-one. Zhis is where you have brought us to. You are poor, Matilda. You are a poor, poor player.’A sledgehammer swings from Ilda’s mouth into Matilda’s sternum, and she feels her spirit sent reeling backwards out of her body from the impact. She stands awkwardly in stiff paralysis. Where did her feet go? She wants to drink. She wants to sink into the grass and decompose. She wants to cry. She wants to feel tears break loose from her eyes as they painfully swell and wet her cheeks. But they aren’t there. All that fills her is shock. Empty shock. And anger, waiting. Her throat grows thick with a hard lump like granite.What Ilda says is right. It is all her fault. Everything is her fault. She’s fat. She’s out of shape. She’s had this coming in the form of a time-bomb delayed way too long. Get it over with, she mentally projects her will. Tell me I’m fat. Just do it.‘Margery has instructed me,’ Ilda drags on, ‘to inform you of zhis. She can hardly stand to look at you, you know zhis? She is fürious. I will not say anything of why– you know why. Why you continue is beyond the reaches of my mind. As for her other lines of reasoning? Vell, your performance in the previous game is of particular note. Your… attitude, also. She cited also the many chances given to you previously. If I was to guess, then today was her last straw. You neglected to show up at all during the last session, and as of today, you do decide to grace us with your presence, however you are late once again. She sees fit now to punish you such zhat befits your behaviour.’A breeze sighs past them in the silence that follows. The coach is still gazing past her, somewhere into the middle distance. Matilda tries to make a split-second decision. Nothing? Or something? She’s rattling inside the bars of her own chest, yelling. The way forward is a high-risk move, but for some reason she takes it – even if it’s just to get a reaction.Feeling anything and everything except the aloof cockiness she’s pretending to exude, Matilda forces her shoulders up into a careless shrug. She looks away to the side, hoping it comes off as arrogant disinterest.‘Okay. Fine then,’ she mutters. ‘So I’m a centre-back now. Fine.’Coach Ilda simply stares at her, now, teeth nibbling something behind her pinched-shut lips..Half an hour later, Matilda stands in the middle of a line of five as they perform practice drills in their new formation. The girls quickly figure out what’s happened, and why, and they decide to sneak silent glances at her, mixed somewhere between accusation and apology. It seems they can’t decide.She takes up her new position with as much pride as she can manage, thinking it will make things easier, less physical, more mental. But she still finds herself growing sore and stiff-lunged by the session’s end, despite being asked to run less than usual. She never has to pivot. She never has to launch. She never has to leap into a short burst of speed, or pounce on something. Nor is she ever needed to sprint from one end of the pitch to the other in pursuit of the ball… and yet here she is, walking with hands on hips, sore, and slightly winded.And it’s Elisha’s time, now. It’s her golden era. She proudly takes Matilda’s old position on the wing, a spot she has always stared at with longing eyes and a salivating tongue. The prized role. A double-title of captain and playmaking winger. And everyone can see it, with Elisha’s back sticking up straight as a rod, eyes deeply focused like newly-calibrated laser beams, making passes with finer precision than anyone has seen in all three years of her tenure with the team.With Stacey shifting deeper to a left wing-back position, closer to Matilda’s line of passing, the two of them have to practise communicating as a pair for the first time in forever – but Stacey doesn’t seem too keen on it, leaving Matilda to awkwardly shift around the pitch, waiting for a backwards pass from Stacey during scrimmages and noticing the sheer resentment in her body language each time she’s forced into doing so.In the locker rooms afterwards, she tries to make some tactical suggestions, but Elisha bursts into flame all over again, coming down on her with such colossal fury that she nearly bursts a vein in her neck, letting her know to either shut the fuck up or get out. And there’s Stacey, behind her, throwing sardonic smirks as she bends an ear to the tirade.To make things worse, as if putting a grace-note of cauterisation to an open wound, coach Ilda pulls her aside afterwards to have a private word. The message is simple.‘Stop trying to undermine us, Matilda. Or you are finished here.’. . .On her study desk two days later on a Friday night sit two empty pizza boxes, a milkshake, and an apple crumble, still only half eaten, for dessert. She sits in her underwear, bedroom door locked, lost deep in a Football Manager session well into midnight as she finishes eating her dessert, her bloated stomach billowing out at full mast from her middle, and the upper meat of her thighs beginning to squeeze together. She doesn’t know it yet, but a microscopic stretch mark or two are beginning to redden along the outer zone of her breasts as they come close to reaching the size of mangos, their smooth flesh just beginning to overgrow the sides of her bra cups.. . .The team’s efforts that weekend against Ringhill Rangers FC awards them a 1 - 1 draw. Again. It’s awkward to play a full match defensively for practically the first time in her life, but eventually Matilda settles into the rhythm of the play and understands what is expected of her and when.The only reason the girls score a goal at all is because of a confident spell of attacking pressure that lasts for a solid twenty minutes. But after that, Matilda keeps getting outpaced, negged and dribbled around every time an enemy attacker near her with the ball. No matter how accurately she angles her intercepting runs, she can never get there on time, missing the chance to tackle by one or two missed strides.By the time the first half nears its end, she’s losing almost every breath she takes the moment it fills her lungs. For this, everybody pays the price. Barely five minutes into the second half, an opposition midfielder runs at her with the ball. Matilda spreads her feet, crabbing from side to side to meet them, making her defensive shadow as wide as possible… but they double-feint right, then cut left at the last minute, sending Matilda slipping backwards onto her ass as she sticks one foot out, her buttery thigh sent up and jiggling, missing the ball. She is left to watch as her opponent crosses the ball over to an enemy winger who’d been making a well-timed run through their backline towards the box, then passes it back to their midfielder, who lobs it straight over Grace’s head as she’s still turning to sprint back. The ball loops perfectly into the top corner of the net where Nysha wouldn’t have laid a finger on it even if she was Superwoman.From that moment, whenever the ball is up the attacking end of the pitch — a spell of grace during which Matilda can finally lean on her knees and suck air into her lungs — Nysha paces in front of the goals, sending her sidelong glances of concern.When the final whistle screeches, she knows the lost lead is on her shoulders. The opposition goal was her fault.But outside of that mistake, the rest of the ninety minutes are a different story. The pressure the enemy put on them should never have been allowed. She wants to ask Margery if she noticed how thin they were stretched on the defensive transition. Does she see how few options are available in the middle? Does she see the lack of depth in the forward wings? Does she see Evangeline looking utterly bored with nothing to do but knock the back every time she receives it? Does she see how much space the opposition players have to find angles all the way into their defensive half? She wants to ask a million questions.Her chance to complain comes in the locker rooms when April wonders out loud why it seemed like the opponent wing-backs never needed to actually run down the wings. ‘Why would they need to?’ Matilda huffs between heavy breaths, even though others have already regulated their breathing. ‘We’re stretched so thin in our midfield… and we’re not allowed to use our fullbacks to create numbers when we transition forward… Then the ball turns over, and we have nobody to contest for it in the midfield. So it’s just our fucking backline against… against everyone on the other team all coming at us? No wonder we got outflanked in the midfield.’This is when Margery finally materialises, as if from mist, the entire locker room flattened under a heavy blanket of silence. The rest of what happens is like a fever dream – half experienced, half remembered, but only in a haze of traumatised confusion.Standing at the door, Margery screams at Matilda to shut up or get out, then proceeds to jet them all with flaming rage like molten ore in a furnace, yelling so shrill and loud that her voice quickly disintegrates into a hoarse rasp nobody can understand every word of – and just when they think it’s finally over, she doubles back to scream some more, about how they’re all upstarts, none of them are really trying, none of them really care, how they’re all underperforming and a disgrace to the standards set by all those that have come before them, and that they’ll cause her an early death from stress and dismay. Dear Margery Hartwell, if only that were true…Out in the parking lot on the way to her car, with her head down, the only thing in Matilda’s line of sight is the gravel beneath her feet. She’s almost far enough to feel safe again, when she hears two familiar voices coming from behind her.‘Matilda.’‘Hey, wait up.’‘Matilda, wait.’She stops, then turns to look. It’s Beth and Talina.Shuffling sideways to hide out of sight behind a big silver SUV, she waits for her teammates to catch up with her. They’re carrying their duffel bags over their shoulders. Coming to a stop between two cars, Talina stands slightly in front of Beth, wearing a frown, but not one of anger or accusatory distrust, the way she expects from everybody these days. Instead, they ask her if she wants to go grab a drink and “talk” about things. Her first instinct is reluctance. Or is it just laziness, these days?She ums and ahs about it.But they aren’t letting her off the hook so easily. They push until she eventually gives in — another behaviour that has been characteristic of her lately; giving in. She’s a hungry, lazy, chubbed-up push over.‘Meet you at The Heelwood, then?’ Talina says.‘Yeah. Okay. Sure.’.About fifteen minutes later, they reconvene at a small lakeside venue not far from Prathfort – an S-shaped, glass-walled complex with a view over a few acres of undeveloped land and the rear-end of a golf course neighbouring a huge reservoir used for the city’s southern water supply. Beth and Talina sit on tall stools across the table from her with their backs to the view. Matilda finds herself gazing over their shoulders an uncharacteristic amount of times, her spirits coasting at a low glide, drained of fuel. They chat idly as they share a bowl of quinoa salad, garlic bread and a few glasses of wine, avoiding the looming agenda for now.Matilda realises she’s overstepping her drink quota when she asks a waiter for a second glass of wine before she can stop the words tumbling off her tongue.When the last piece of garlic bread leaves the plate, then all of a sudden Talina and Beth grow serious.‘Okay, so, look,’ Talina leans forward on her elbows, ‘now that we’re alone, I guess we can talk about things?’When Matilda meets her gaze, what she sees in those eyes is solid confidentiality, earnest determination. Good attributes for a defender to have. If Matilda had any say in it, she would have made Talina the captain years ago. ‘Sure,’ she shrugs with fake naivety, raising her glass to her lips to disguise their nervous movements. ‘What’s up?’Talina shares a glance with Bethany, then turns back to Matilda. ‘A couple of things. First of all, we’ve both been thinking; we want you to know that we totally, one-hundred percent agree with everything you’ve been saying. Teamwise, that is. Strategywise. Everything. All of it. We’re on your side–’‘And so are the others!,’ Beth interjects.‘Exactly. We can speak on behalf of everyone– well, almost everyone. It’s just that we’re all too afraid to say anything. We know how Margery is, now. She’d have a melt-down if she felt a gust of wind. But you know that. Probably most of all. It’s bad there. None of us feel like we have a voice.’Matilda blows a lungful of air out her mouth and nods, looking down at the table's wood, the particular diagonal slant of its varnished grain. ‘…Yyyyyeah,’ she grunts at length, taking a dejected sip of wine. A wide open feeling of space swirls up into her head.‘You must know that more than most,’ Talina admits.‘Yup.’ Matilda growls again, taking another disillusioned, mournful sip of wine.Beth shifts in her seat, eager to speak. ‘At least it looks that way, for you,’ she says. ‘All we ever see is Margery hammering you, and hammering you, and… over, and over, and over… and I just… we just…’‘We’re just worried,’ Talina finishes for her. ‘You’re having a real hard time of it, and we just wanted to check up on you, ask you if you’re doing alright. We should have done it already. Reckon we should have done it ages ago. We don’t want you thinking we don’t care.’Matilda feels an unexpected smile peel across her face. She lets it show, but turns it into a harsh laugh at the last minute, teeth bared. With another angry sip, she thumps her glass back down and lets the ensuing silence speak for her.Her two teammates adjust themselves awkwardly in their seats. Then Talina goes on. ‘We’re here for you, Tild. We just want to know, is all. I mean, it’s not to be critical or nothing, but I guess we’re starting to ask some, uh… questions. Now it’s at a stage where we have to ask.’‘What questions?’ Matilda demands. She already knows, but she wants to believe she doesn’t. She’d rather ignorance would coat her eyes and so remain blind forever.Talina rubs her lips and thinks, as if deciding upon which words to use. ‘I don’t know how to put this. But do you realise how much you’ve changed? Actually that’s a dumb-ass thing to say, of course you would, I’m sorry. I don’t want to corner you on this, but do you realise we can see how much you’ve changed?’Warmth drains from her cheeks down through her neck and into her stomach where it begins to churn like some freezing, arctic tumult. She shrugs. ‘Uh… I dunno?’ scrambling to deflect the conversation away from wherever it’s going, ‘I– I just think if Kendra never left, then– And why are all the people involved in this fucking club’s problems all have names that start with M?– Like Margery?– and me?– Oh maybe I’m one, ha!– And it’s the tactics, too, they are just… I don’t know… they…’Not realising that she’s been taking sips of wine between phrases to stall for time, she stops and blinks in confusion as a sudden swirl of lightness tightens around her ears. Her stomach feels heavy. She can feel it in her shirt, cumbersome and greedy for space. She’s not even full yet. Is it going to be like this all the time now?‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, Tild, but–’ Talina hesitates, sighing. ‘Would you say you’ve been eating more than usual lately?’Matilda deflects with a quick, ‘No?’ as fast as a snapped rubber band. Her hands feel awkward. They feel large. She doesn’t know where to put them. She shakes her head, hoping it adds veracity to her denial – but she feels stuck too deep in a claggy swamp of panic to believe in her own lies enough to pull them off.She looks at their faces, one then the other. Their eyes are flat, unblinking. They don’t believe her, do they?They ask again, wording it in different ways multiple times, but she categorically denies each alternately-phrased attempt. Eventually they give up and Talina orders another bottle of wine as they move onto other topics. Compelled by an unwavering chorus of anxiety between her ears, she sips the dregs of her alcohol too fast and gets woozy. They talk some more and she pours herself some more and she gets even woozier. At some point or another, she sways off her stool to go to relieve her bladder in the toilet, and wastes half the time she spends in the cubicle fumbling with the drawstring in her shorts and laughing spitefully at the stupid, round quality of her stomach, slapping it like a naughty child that needs to be told off. There has to be a good five pounds of breakfast, bread and wine in this big, taut drum of a thing – maybe more.When she comes back to the table, Beth checks her phone and says, ‘Well it’s nearly dinner time. Anyone else feeling hungry?’Talina shrugs. ‘Sure.’At that moment, Matilda feels a corner of her stomach that is somehow still empty unleash a subsonic growl. She nods yes without thinking, first, that she can’t be eating this much food anymore.So they all order a meal each. When the food arrives, they put conversation on hold, and it isn’t long before her two teammates are looking at her with something like confusion or pity in their eyes as she devours her entire burger, every last stray onion and drop of sauce and all, before they’ve even progressed halfway through theirs. It’s as if some secret suspicion has, at last, had its hypothesis confirmed.Matilda straightens and wriggles her uncomfortable backside around on the stool as she tries to find a way to sit that doesn’t make her belly feel like a cannonball fastened to her waist with tight ratchet straps.‘Okay, look,’ Talina says all of a sudden, putting her knife and fork down. ‘I’m sorry but I need to bring this up again. I’m sorry. But seriously? You just go and finish a burger like that in record time? And you tell us everything’s fine? Matilda, come on. Look at you.’ Talina’s shoulders drop as a sympathetic frown creases her brow. ‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, but… are you in denial about something? We’re just worried for you, Tild.’ Gesturing towards her bloated state. ‘We can tell you’ve undone your belt, by the way. Not that we’re judging or anything. Sometimes you need to. Especially if…’Matilda freezes. One arm starts to slide over her stomach.‘Look– once again, please do not take this the wrong way– but you’ve just changed in a matter of months. That’s all. And you haven’t said a word. We don’t want to suggest you’re getting fat or anything. We just,’ she glances at Beth again, ‘we just wanted to know…’‘Know what?’‘Are you pregnant?’Matilda feels her chest bubble. Laughter hits the back of her throat, but fails to emerge. She stares at them. She blinks slowly, trying not to lower her eyes, but having an impossibly difficult time of it.‘It’s okay,’ Beth tries to console her. ‘You can tell us.’Matilda’s voicebox spasms. ‘Yes. I know– I mean– what? No. No.’Beth’s entire face pulls back into itself like a flower blossoming in reverse, sucked into a vortex of embarrassment. ‘So then…’ she falters.Talina says, ‘You don’t have to pretend, Matilda. Honestly, you’re totally safe with us.’‘Guys,’ Matilda pleads. ‘I’m not pregnant. I swear. At least I’m sure I’m not.’‘Really?’Matilda’s eyebrows curl upwards. She’s just exposed herself under the harsh light of truth. The only other explanation has revealed itself by elimination. The expressions on her teammates’ faces are a heavy mixture of many things.‘So, you’re not pregnant?’ Talina clarifies.Matilda licks her lips and reaches for the wine glass again. ‘No,’ she says, eyes slipping aside.She can’t do it. She can’t look them directly in the eyes.Talina leans forward and lowers her voice. ‘Okay, then please– be honest. I’ll be honest. Don’t take this the wrong way. But if you’re not getting pregnant, then… you look like you are? Honestly, Tild, if you’re having a hard time with something, we’re here for you. We don’t want to see you suffer. Do you hear me?’Beth nods in agreement. ‘You were there for me. Remember? So I want to be there for you. And you know what? So do the rest of us. Remember what April went through?’‘People don’t just blow up like this,’ Talina presses. ‘If you’re binge-eating, coping with bad habits, or anything– absolutely anything– you need to stop before it’s too late. You’ll end up twice your size!’Matilda's voice shrinks to the size of a squirrel. ‘I know,’ she says, feeling herself sink back down into her seat. The floor feels very close. Her shoulders feel heavy and sore. The noises around her are so loud all of a sudden; the chatter of people – people everywhere – talking, gabbing, yelling, gesticulating, leaning back in peals of explosive laughter.‘If you already know, then do you need help? To stop?’‘I don’t know.’ Matilda can barely hear herself.‘Don’t know? What do you mean?’‘Don’t worry about it.’ Talina shuts her eyes, then wiggles her head in confusion. ‘I–’ She presses her lips tight. ‘I don’t really understand.'Automatically raising the glass to her mouth, Matilda flinches as a hand shoots across the table to push it back down. She frowns, then slowly lets Talina drag press her hand back onto the table.‘No,’ Talina says, shaking her head. ‘No more. Okay? From now on we have to stop you. No more drinks, or you won’t be able to drive. You’ll need to wait a bit before you can drive again.’With a prolonged, high-shouldered shrug, Matilda lets go of the glass and folds her arms over her waist as she slouches, gazing out the darkening window behind her teammates.‘Let’s just talk about something else, then,’ Beth suggests in a helpful manner. ‘We can forget about this for now. How about that?’.Matilda suppresses tears all the way home in the car, her fists clenched tight on the wheel, knuckles pale as bone. Last thing she needs is her parents to see signs of crying on her face when she walks through the door.Later on, alone in her room and feeling heavy with exhaustion, she’s not sure she can keep it up much longer as the weight of the day comes down on her like the crashing peak of a wave. She feels fat. Tired and fat. She probably looks all bloated and huge right now. Maybe Talina and Beth are right. She must look awful.The urge to get a cold hard look at herself in a mirror teases her mind, flirting with the threat of self-humiliation. But as she dumps her duffel bag against her bed, she glances at the clock. It’s late. She should just put herself to bed. Forget it all. Cry, maybe. Fall asleep and let the whole slate wipe itself clean. Get up in the morning, move on with life, hope Carlile doesn’t get turned off the moment he sees her gross, bloated, pregnant appearance.She barely changes out of her clothes before flopping onto her bed, whole body bouncing on the springs. Did they used to crunch like that? Maybe. Maybe not. She feels her stomach slosh. Staring at the dim ceiling, she cradles the sides of her belly like cheeks and presses them into each other, creating a vertical roll of fat that lips gently over her thumbs. Then she lets go, disgusted with herself.The pillow swallows her swirling, heavy head, and she shuts her eyes against the darkness, feeling herself rise up to the peak of the parabola of her emotion until she finally falls back down to the ground of her heart, crying softly.. . .
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