Love on the Scale

Chapter One

I slammed the door to the room I shared with my sisters, and stalked back over to the computer, sitting back down with a loud sigh. The chair creaked under my weight, and I winced at the sound. I asked for a new, silent chair every week, but there was never enough money, so I was stuck with the rickety old one my dad upgraded from. The thing squeaked enough when someone normal-sized sat in it; when I sat in it the whole house could hear its dying screams.

My thick fingers raced across the keys as I typed in different jobs titles. We lived in a small town in New York, but I wasn't looking for a job in town. No, I wanted to leave. I'd turned eighteen three months before, and I wanted out. I loved my family, but we were as crowded as crowded could be.

My parents, my four siblings, and I were crammed into the three bedroom house and expected to function in a normal fashion. It wouldn't have been that bad, if we were all small. But when two people had to flatten themselves to the walls when they passed, there were two problems: not enough space, and overweight people.

I had somehow managed not to gain too much weight throughout the years, but I was still too big. Apart from my brother, I was the smallest in the house. By smallest, I mean the only one who could still wear jeans that didn't have elastic waistbands, and not look like a mushroom around the middle.

James, my older brother, was the single healthy person in our household. At first, my family had the nerve to laugh at him for it, and at those times I wanted to slap them all until their heads spun, but they didn't laugh for long. James got offered a modeling job when he was sixteen, and he's been living pretty well since then. He was going to buy his own apartment and everything, but I begged him not to. I was the only reason he stayed.

Without him, I don't know what I would have done. He alone understood the pain I felt when I looked at myself every day, and how I hated not being able to do anything about it. He was a model, but he knew what I was going through. He had to live at the house as well, and be subject to the meals my family served around the clock. Butter in everything, lard, grease and oil... it was enough food to feed the neighborhood. I didn't even want to know how far in debt my parents were, from spending on food alone.

I clicked on an interesting listing, and scrolled down. There was a listing for a popular fashion company that was looking for a new designer. They were having a contest: men and women eighteen and older could create one full outfit, and show it off at their studio on the deadline. The creators of the best three outfits would be hired on the spot. It sounded great, but I knew it wasn't for me.

The shouts that penetrated the walls alerted me to James' arrival, and I smiled, still searching the site. James knocked twice before entering. I didn't turn around, enthralled with the fashions on the site, but my vision was blocked by two ice-cold hands.

"Guess what I brought you."

"Dude, your hands are freezing."

"Guess."

I sigh. "I don't know... some makeup?"

He barked out a laugh, and removed his hands. "Right. That would be a waste of money."

"Since it wouldn't do anything for this face anyway-"

His hand covered my mouth, and his other arm came around to set a small tub of brownie ice cream in front of the keyboard. "No, because you wouldn't wear it. Ever."

I scrubbed a hand across my mouth, and turned to look at him as he pulled up a chair and turned the back to face me, straddling it. It almost hurt to look at him; the perfect picture of health and fitness, back from a hard day's work of modeling. How could his life get any better? He must have hated having to come home to us pigs every day. I pushed the ice cream towards him, and he frowned.