Fat Liberation

She sat with her back to the big backlit menu board that listed all of the possible permutations of tortillas, ground beef and soda. The grease in the fryer crackled, and two of the workers behind the counter cracked jokes in Somali. 

The cheese in my quesadilla was congealing. I couldn’t eat now. Not after what she’d told me. She had ordered only a small diet soda and was tearing the straw’s paper wrapper into tiny bits of confetti. She was looking down at her hands, and the tilt of her chin highlighted the extra fat there. She was wearing a thin t-shirt that showed the creases between her rolls of fat. 

“I’ve been seeing Jake for about two weeks,” she said. “And I think it could be something serious. I need to explore that.”

I felt like someone had kicked me right in the balls, just like my ex-ex-girlfriend had the one and only time I let her demonstrate her krav maga skills on me.

A fatty isn’t supposed to meet other guys. She’s supposed to be grateful to watch you play video games and pig out with you when you go on late-night Taco Bell runs. She isn't supposed to try out for roller derby, make the team, or look good in fishnets. She isn’t supposed to have fans in the stands shouting her name or dudes crowding around her after every game, hanging on her every sweaty word. She isn’t supposed to have twenty-thousand followers on Instagram yas-queening in the comments every time she posts a stupid selfie. And she’s really not supposed to leave you for your oldest friend, the bronco-riding, cowboy-hat-wearing, smiling-like-a-toothpaste-ad Jake. 

The day after her tryout, she had a red scratch on her cheek and a massive bruise on her thigh that looked like a map of Puerto Rico. Her eyes were shining and she was grinning with more teeth than I’d ever seen before. She’d lost some weight during all the training she did before the tryout out, but she was still fat so I didn’t sweat it. 

“I made the team,” she said. “I’m a Danger Doll. I picked the name ‘Splattie Boyd.’”

I didn’t get the reference, and when she explained, I said, “Do you really want to use the name of a tall blonde model who married a Beatle? It won’t invite flattering comparisons.” 

At first, she looked sad, and wouldn’t make eye contact with me. 

“Wanna watch me play Halo?” I asked, patting the edge of my unmade bed. Finally, she looked at me with narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw. She left and didn’t text me back for two days. 

Jake? How could he possibly be interested in her? His last girlfriend was a cute redhead who bought her jeans in the children’s department at JCPenney, a little doll who could ride on Jake’s shoulders. If he put my girlfriend on his shoulders, he’d end up six feet shorter for sure. 

“Do you...do you really think you’re his type?” I asked, finally. She sat back and smirked, flipping her hair over her shoulder like she was a hot girl and not a fat sow. 

“The point is that you are not my type.”

She got up from the table, leaving behind a soda that she’d barely touched. I turned and watched her walk out of the restaurant, her body silhouetted against the gray daylight. Her broad hips swished from side to side. The silver light brightened as it outlined the curve of her waist. 

When I turned my gaze back to the space she’d just vacated, I saw one of the Somali cooks looking at me with a faceful of pity. I looked away and picked up my quesadilla. The cheese was cold. I shoved it in my mouth, ignoring the rubbery tortilla and the too-salty beef. 

I pulled out my phone and flipped to one of my alt accounts on Instagram. She’d already blocked three of them for posting comments like fat bitch and whale and you can’t leave the house unless the fire department cuts down a wall. 

In her most recent Instagram post, she stood with her arms around two other girls, all wearing robins-egg-blue helmets and identical tank tops. She smiled, dimples forming tiny craters on both of her cheeks, her shiny blond hair in braids. The caption read: Undefeated! Best decision of my life. The photo had almost a thousand likes. I scrolled through the comments until I saw it. Jake wrote: you’re cute AF, babe.

I scrolled down and tapped the comment box. Obese cunt, I wrote. Wait ’til Jake finds out what a whore you are. Wait until he gets a disease from you. He’ll wake the fuck up and see what the rest of the world sees: ugly, stupid and worthless. 

I hit send. 

I set my phone down and finished the rest of my gluey quesadilla. When I picked up my phone again to admire the comment I’d left, her profile was gone. I tried searching her handle, but Instagram came back with a message that said, “no results found.” 

Blocked already. I’d have to create a new alt if I wanted to keep hassling her. I switched back to my main account, but she’d blocked that one too. I felt a sudden cold panic and typed Jake’s name into the search bar: “no results found.” 

Just a few weeks ago, I’d walked into this Taco Bell with her, holding her soft, warm hand. 

Droplets of condensation formed on the paper cup she’d left behind. I picked up and pried the opaque plastic lid off. I took the last little wedge of my quesadilla and jammed it into the cup, watching it drown in the cold liquid. I put the lid back on and whipped it across the room. I aimed for the garbage can, but it exploded against the wall, sending brown liquid and ice cubes skating across the grimy floor. 

“Hey!” shouted one of the guys behind the counter. “You got to clean that up!” 

I stood up from my table, kicked away one of the ice cubes that had landed near my foot, and walked out.