The world was just a giant blur and everything hurt.
Please, please, let it be there!
Blindly rummaging around the top shelf of the pantry, my fingers bumped into something rectangular and heavy. I seized it and the weight and feel of it stirred up a host of familiar emotions. A little ray of warmth that dulled the pain.
Before it had a chance to fade, I unwrapped the chocolate bar and tore a big chunk out of it -- Nelson's Premium Bar, milk chocolate with hazelnut chunks, my absolute favorite. For a brief moment, I was in heaven. Nothing mattered except for the familiar, comforting, rich, delicious, intoxicating flavor.
Then the world came crashing back down. Everything was wrong. Everything was broken. I slumped against the kitchen wall and began to sob between bites of chocolate. Salty tears mixed with Nelson's Premium.
Once the chocolate was gone, so was the small buffer of happiness holding back a torrent of misery. I didn't have the strength to stand up so I grabbed the first thing in my reach, a bag of potato chips. I hate the barbecue-flavored ones but I tore open the bag anyway.
Anything to dull the pain. Anything so I wouldn't have to think about
her
.
***
"Shaun, what the fuck is -- are you alright?" someone asked.
Bleary-eyed, I looked up and wiped tears away with the back of my hand. I blinked and saw my little sister, Amanda, looking at me with a great deal of concern. She had good reason to be. Two empty bags of potato chips, the Nelson's wrapper, half a dozen empty Reeses, and a ton of broken chips that didn't make it into my mouth.
Amanda knelt in front of me and laid a comforting hand on my knee. "What's going on? Can I help?"
"No," I said and tears welled up again. My lips trembled. "She dumped me."
"Oh, no!" Amanda squealed and threw her arms around me. "I'm so sorry."
Saying it out loud elicited a wave of misery.
Alexis, my girlfriend -- no, ex-girlfriend now -- was gone and left behind a broken heart.
We met in college almost two years ago, in a math study group. She was a friend of Terri, who was my friend Jack's girlfriend. Gorgeous, with long, brown hair, and a fitness buff. I had a crush on her from day one.
In retrospect, it was more the fact that we hung out so much than anything else why we ended up dating. After all, what could she possibly see in me, a tall but chubby keyboard warrior? Okay, fine, I was a little more than chubby at the time, I was at two-eighty-pounds. It didn't look as bad as it sounds, since I'm just a smidge over six foot tall, but nobody who looked at me would ever think I was anything but fat.
Yet when I finally worked up the courage to ask Alexis out at the end of the first semester, she said yes. I was over the moon and didn't question it but it was obvious from the start that she wanted me to lose weight. Our first official date was a walk around campus that left me sweating and she never wanted to get dessert when we went out, even though I offered to pay.
I didn't care, I was overjoyed to have a girlfriend. My first serious adult relationship. We hung out, juggling classes and homework, and even went on double dates with Jack and Terri. Alexis thought I was smart and funny. Everything was great except our sex life -- or lack thereof.
We had done some kissing and a lot of cuddling and hand-holding, but nothing even close to second base. She rebutted two attempts already, so when I put my hand on her stomach one evening while we were making out, I didn't have particularly high hopes.
Alexis pulled back and looked at me with an odd smirk on her face. "I'll let you touch my boobs if you lose five pounds."
I thought she was joking at first but she wasn't, she was dead serious. Five pounds, under her conditions, and I could play with her tits as much as I wanted.
That's pretty much how our relationship started for real.
The first step was buying an accurate, digital scale, which I did that same evening. But Alexis said I had to wait until the next morning for my official weigh-in. The next morning, she let the next hammer drop -- I needed at least two weeks' worth of weights to average it out.
I didn't let that, or the 284 on the display, deter me. I was a man on a mission to touch some titties.
The day started with a light breakfast, that is to say, no second bowl of cereal, and I didn't have my regular between-class snack. Lunch was the same cafeteria food as always but I skipped the dessert. My stomach was growling but I stoically ignored it. For dinner, I only ate some fruit.
The result was I lost three pounds in a single day. Alexis just laughed and said it was mostly water weight, we'd see the real change at the end of the two weeks. Nevertheless, I was motivated to ignore the hunger and lose weight. The second day was tough, the third tougher.
On the fourth day, I broke down and Alexis walked in on me stuffing my face with an entire box of chocolate-chip cookies. I just wanted to eat one, I hadn't even realized I ate the entire thing until I saw the frown on her face.
"Guess you don't want to touch these after all," she said, flashing me her tits.
It was the first time I saw them in the flesh. Small but perfectly perky with big, brown nipples.
After that rekindling of my motivation, Alexis sat me down and we had a long, serious discussion about nutrition, dieting, and weight loss. We had a lot of those, actually. I learned a lot about how the body works and how everything I thought before was wrong.
It felt like we spent every waking hour of the day, other than classes, together. We exercised together -- I walked while she jogged circles around me -- and we cooked together. Some nights she even stayed over -- in the same bed -- and it felt like we were closer than ever.
It was obvious a few days before the two weeks were up that I was going to beat my target but Alexis stood firm. On goal day, after averaging out both weeks, I had lost almost seven pounds.
Touching Alexis' boobs was even better than I imagined. Soft but supple at the same time. Nipples that grew the more I played with them and made her sigh. When I wrested my gaze away from her chest the first time, her face was flushed with beads of sweat on her forehead.
"Should I stop?" I asked.
"No," she purred.
That day was also the first time I made her climax. I didn't think it could get any better, alternating between making out and sucking her nipples, until she grabbed my face, pulled me close, and pitched her next deal.
"If you lose another five pounds, I'll let you finger me."
The next few months were incredible. Alexis' tantalizing offers pushed me to my limits but every drop of sweat was worth it. We exercised several times a week, regardless of rain or now. I signed up for a gym and bought a bicycle. I fingered Alexis until she breathlessly begged me to stop.
All my friends noticed the changes and I drowned in compliments. I ran out of my last junk food reserve and didn't feel like buying any more. I got my first ever lapdance and blowjob from a woman who dressed in incredibly sexy lingerie for the occasion. Somehow, even my grades were going up.
I was happy and have never felt better. I was in love with Alexis. I seriously considered asking her to marry me.
There was only one fitness goal left, the biggest one so far, of twenty-eight pounds.
"If you reach two-twenty-five, I'll take your virginity."
***
"What happened?" Amanda asked a long time after my tears subsided.
"I don't want to talk about it," I replied. It was less embarrassing for her to think that she dumped me than the truth.
The memory was still too painful to even think about. The lecturer failed to show up, so the class was unexpectedly canceled after half an hour. Alexis would have been busy until at least four with her own classes, and I figured I could get a quick run in on my own. I just needed a protein shake and a change of clothes.
Riding up the elevator, I already logged the shake into my calorie tracker app. I unlocked the door, threw my bag on the ground, and grabbed the shaker. That's when I heard noises from the bedroom. I thought that maybe Alexis left the TV on since she slept over again tonight and didn't think twice about entering the bedroom.
Only to find Alexis, naked, writhing on top of someone who wasn't me.
Nausea overcame me. The only thing I remember afterward is the look of surprise and pity on Alexis' face. Then I was back in my childhood home, seeking comfort in the pantry.
"That bad?" Amanda asked.
I nodded.
"I'm sorry," she said and hugged me closer. "I never liked her anyway."
That made me laugh, erupting a fountain of snot.
"Liar. You told me to marry her."
"Sorry, I didn't see it coming."
"Me neither."
"My leg is falling asleep."
