~BBW (Multiple), Imagery, Conflict Resolution, ~SWG – Lauren deals with the issues between Amanda and Nikki
Chapter 7
Amanda by now was nearly a week into the self-imposed isolation that followed her quarrel with Nikki. She had no idea of Rebecca’s dilemma nor the exercise regimen Shannon was in and why, but she knew that Nikki had hit a nerve by comparing her autocratic, judgmental attitude to Shannon.
Many people like to think of time as a constant. An increment that everything else is based on: unchanging everywhere and anywhere in the universe. One minute is the same for everyone. But this notion isn’t true. Not scientifically, and certainly not personally. One week is seven days. Each day is comprised of 24 hours, and each of those is 60 minutes. Every single minute can be further broken down into 60 seconds, where each second can also be divided. This process is infinite, and segmentation of each part infinitely getting smaller over time. However, this doesn’t mean each part is so easily seen or felt. Counting nanoseconds isn’t something that can be done by a human.
Yet, in Amanda’s case, it couldn’t be done for other reasons. Time had all but stopped, making counting such a small passage of time impossible for her. The week she had been home had seemed like an eternity. Each click of the clock: never coming. Each click of the clock: never ending. Frozen, completely.
It was as tortuous as hell itself, and yet it wasn’t. At first it had appeared to be. Pain had run rampant. Excruciating pain: the likes of which were unbearable. But eventually she had gotten used to the pain, or perhaps it had worn off. She then entered a state of anger. Hatred toward her sister, her former friend Shannon, her life, the world. Seething in rage at nothing and everything at the same time. The next stage she entered was sorrow. The despair of knowing what she had done, what she had become, and who she was. Over and over she was tormented by all three, and only denial helped cast them away.
Perhaps it was like hell. There, in the corner, an imaginary devil begged her to take the door, to pass through it with him. If only she’d sign the contract, she could have her denial. Was empty happiness and false hope worth her soul…worth her future? On the doorstep many times she appeared, contemplating her situation. But alas, she never followed. This is where her purgatory would begin. And each time it did, she’d get back to where she started, with pain. Her cycle continued as she avoided contact for as often as possible.
It was an understatement when Lauren described Amanda as an emotional wreck. It was worse. A catastrophe of epic proportions, and the worst part was that she had never been whole to begin with. She wasn’t a functioning train that got side railed. She had been, she now realized, damned from the start, needing approval and guidance throughout her life. She was always the passenger, never the conductor. She could never get her emotions in check, she could never get her weight in check, and when she finally thought she had done it on her own, her train crashed. And she finally realized, or rather, finally stopped kidding herself. Her new life wasn’t as great as she thought it would be.
She had been naïve. The same naïve girl who thought her friends liked her in high school, and the same naïve girl who thought losing weight would end all of her problems. Here she was, just as lonely and sad as ever, and like always, she tried to have a scapegoat for her problems. But all that wasn’t true. It wasn’t her weight before, and it wasn’t her younger little sister now. It had been her and her alone. Now, even as she sat in her dark room alone, sneaking out only for minimal food or to the bathroom when she was sure no one was about, knowing full well she needed to get over this herself, she desperately needed someone more than ever.
Nikki similarly sat in her room, avoiding her sister like the plague for the past seven days, just as Amanda did. However, she was in a better position than her sibling. She wasn’t a wreck, just angry. Nikki went out as often as possible, staying away from her home, from Amanda. A week, though, was a long time. Finally, their parents asked their elder sister Lauren to intervene in the matter, knowing full well that neither of the protagonists would open up to them.
Lauren didn’t like to see her sisters like this. They fought a lot, especially when they were younger, but never had they shut each other off from one another (and in Amanda’s case from the world) for so long over something that seemed so trivial.
Lauren tried to get to Amanda first, trying to bank off the fact she was older and supposedly more mature. That fell through when Amanda never even responded to the knocks at the door. Lauren stood in the hall, fist against the door, leaning her head against it with her eyes closed.
“It’s Lauren, open up,” she sang as innocently as she could. Still, she only was returned silence.
“Fine, be that way,” she mumbled as she turned across the hall to knock on Nikki’s door, which opened almost before the knock.
Although the situation had gone south, Nikki’s attitude had not. Her white room reflected the light and brightened itself almost from within. Such was Nikki, always chipper, illuminating others with her own warmth and happiness. Filled with artifacts, designs, and even some jewelry influenced by the Cherokee (an area of interest to the buxom brunette), her room never gave the impression its dull color should have.
Walking away from the opened door, Lauren watched her sister’s bulbous cheeks rise and fall and sway and jiggle, seemingly all at once. Her black pants seemed unable to contain their motion, and her mass. With flesh overflowing the top and riding her pants down, it was common for Nikki to pull them up every now and then, even though they were tight enough to stay on for the most part.
Nikki turned around as she sat on her bed to face her sister, which made her weight gain that much more apparent. Her pudge rested over her pants, and definitely was a gut. Surprisingly despite her large chest, most of her gain seemed to find its way to her stomach. While still small in comparison to her bust, Nikki’s gut was gaining speed quickly as proven by her ever shrinking shirt from which it escaped however many months ago. One would have to ponder as to what extent her bust did play in that. Although her belly’s girth hadn’t grown that substantially, the brunette was on the verge of needing a new bra to fight her breasts’ urge to pop out.
“I guess you heard me trying to get into Amanda’s room,” Lauren said as she shut the door and pulled up a chair to sit across from her youngest sister.
“Yeah, I sort of figured you’d come to me since that failed,” Nikki nodded her head toward Amanda’s room.
Lauren sighed. “You know why I’m here, right?”
“Sorta.”
Lauren paused. “It’s been a week, and you two haven’t talked to each other once. You need to make up, it’s gone far enough.”
“I’m not apologizing to her!” Nikki yelled defiantly as she leaned forward violently, which caused her bust to shimmy. “She started it, and she can apologize whenever she gets off her high horse.”
“Come on Nikki. You’re the relaxed sister, you’re wise and mature. Why all of a sudden has that changed?”
Lauren placed her hands on her sister’s knee.
“She’s gotta realize what’s she’s become and how to solve it on her own. I’m not helping anymore,” Nikki said matter-of-factly whilst crossing her arms.
Lauren sighed again. “So it was pointless talking to you then. Fine.”
She looked around the room a bit before speaking again; she was hoping that the shouting by now had aroused Amanda’s curiosity and that she was eavesdropping. She thought she heard the click of a door opening, but deliberately ignored it.
“So…what did she say that got you so riled up?”
“After I helped her lose weight and was helping her unpack, she had the nerve to call me fat,” said Nikki.
Lauren eyed her up and down.
“Well…” She didn’t get to finish.
“Yes, I know I’ve gained weight,” the younger sister said annoyed, yet patted and jiggled her gut for emphasis. “That’s still no excuse.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“No, you were eying me up and down cause you think my shirt’s too loose,” Nikki said as she rolled her eyes. They couldn’t help but both laugh at the perceptive Nikki’s puncturing of Lauren’s transparent denial of the obvious..
“You know I don’t approve of it though. You should really try and lose some of it.” Lauren moved in to inspect her sister’s stomach. She was met with a hand and lightly pushed back.
“Lauren, we all know you’re a health nut. Some of us in the real world like to have some cake once in a while.”
“Yeah, and some ice cream, and roast beef, and blueberry pie,” Lauren teased as she kept poking her sister all over. Nikki couldn’t help that she was ticklish, and her older sister was too tall and strong to mount an effective defensive.
While still laughing she managed to ask her sister to stop.
“I give up, you win!” Nikki was red in the face and breathing heavy.
“Ha! Your big sister still has it after all this time. Well, better go tell mom and dad I tried. Sure you won’t reconsider?”
Nikki nodded. “I’m sure. She’s being creepy and she can change – I’ll forgive her when she apologizes, but she has to do it.”
“Alright then.” Lauren got up to leave and heard a creak in the hall floorboard. door open. Lauren jumped up and rushed out as quickly as she could. Hearing Lauren approaching Amanda tried running back to her room to shut herself in again, but Lauren was just a bit quicker and was able to block Amanda from shutting the door. It was too late – the struggle had begun.
“You’re not gonna win. Just give up and let me talk to you!” The struggle continued for a little longer.
“You have to come out eventually. Don’t think I’m below camping out in front of your door even if you do manage to close it.”
Amanda realized Lauren would do something like that. She was never one to give up.
“Fine, have it your way,” Amanda said giving up and going into her darkened room followed by Lauren. Amanda sat on her bed pouting and scowling, annoyed at the disturbance of her darkened world. Lauren, like she had done with Nikki; pulled up a chair and sat across her sister.
“So what do you want?” snapped Amanda.
“I want to know what’s going on. You two have never fought like this before. What’s the matter?” Lauren asked, trying to get closer to her sister.
What was the matter? Amanda had to search herself; she needed to think long and hard, as she had been doing the entire time. But she still had no answers. She started to well up; it was too much for her. She had done this too long, she had thought too long, she had been alone for too long.
Finally she practically jumped on her sister, hugging her and crying. She had tried to be strong, tried to do it on her own, but that just wasn’t her. She had been too proud, and finally realized she needed someone to lean on, to count on, and to look to. Lauren was taken aback at the outburst, and could only hug and stroke her sister’s hair.
As she sobbed she tried to let everything out, but it couldn’t be understood. She really was a mess. After what seemed like forever, Amanda finally started to settle down. Lauren wiped the tears from her sister’s face. “Feel better?”
Amanda slowly nodded in agreement. She sniffled a bit. “I’ve been such a jerk.”
“Now don’t beat yourself up. What’s important is you correcting the problem,” Lauren said.
“I know,” Amanda said sounding a bit disappointed. “So I’ve lost some weight – that doesn’t give me the right to be a prima donna like Shannon, judging everyone else. But its worse than that – judging gives me a feeling of power, even though I know I shouldn’t do it, it seems to come naturally. And it scares me.”
“It was different when you were larger?”
“Yes, because then I knew my position – I did what others expected and was accepted in spite of my size because of what I did, and I didn’t mind paying the price, until Shannon and the crowd stopped being willing to sell. So now I’ve lost the weight and, as Nikki said, I’ve turned around and started to become like them.”
“No, “ said Lauren. “You’ve discovered something dark that was always there. Its in me, its in everyone.”
“What’s that?,” Amanda asked.
“You’re trying to define happiness by making comparisons. It was a negative comparison in the old days so you substituted groveling and called the resulting relationship happiness. Now it’s a positive comparison so you’re substituting superiority for happiness. Neither works.”
“So what is happiness?”
“Happiness isn’t a relationship or things. It is a choice that comes from within, not outside of you. Defining your own worth and values – then knowing you’re living up to them works for me, unless I start slipping. When you’re being true to yourself instead of pleasing others you’re happy giving and serving, anything less is just a big show and fun for the moment at best.”
Amanda considered. “So all this weight loss effort has been a crock?”
“I can’t say that – but its not the key to happiness. We can discuss that later. Right now you’ve got someone who needs to hear from you.”
Amanda nodded. She swallowed her pride, got up, and went into her sister’s room.
“Nikki, I’m,” she paused. “I’m sorry.”
Lauren looked from the shadows of Amanda’s room at both of her younger sisters in the light hugging and apologizing. It had been long and hard, but it was finally over. Life possibly could now get back to normal in the Sullivan household.
Afterwards Amanda bean to think about Shannon and feel sorry for her.
“I wonder,” she asked, “if Shannon has been able to define happiness for herself yet? The wrong way has certainly cost her dearly lot. At least I stopped being a prima donna early. I wish we could be friends again, but fat chance of that!”
(Click here for next installment)
Chapter 7
Amanda by now was nearly a week into the self-imposed isolation that followed her quarrel with Nikki. She had no idea of Rebecca’s dilemma nor the exercise regimen Shannon was in and why, but she knew that Nikki had hit a nerve by comparing her autocratic, judgmental attitude to Shannon.
Many people like to think of time as a constant. An increment that everything else is based on: unchanging everywhere and anywhere in the universe. One minute is the same for everyone. But this notion isn’t true. Not scientifically, and certainly not personally. One week is seven days. Each day is comprised of 24 hours, and each of those is 60 minutes. Every single minute can be further broken down into 60 seconds, where each second can also be divided. This process is infinite, and segmentation of each part infinitely getting smaller over time. However, this doesn’t mean each part is so easily seen or felt. Counting nanoseconds isn’t something that can be done by a human.
Yet, in Amanda’s case, it couldn’t be done for other reasons. Time had all but stopped, making counting such a small passage of time impossible for her. The week she had been home had seemed like an eternity. Each click of the clock: never coming. Each click of the clock: never ending. Frozen, completely.
It was as tortuous as hell itself, and yet it wasn’t. At first it had appeared to be. Pain had run rampant. Excruciating pain: the likes of which were unbearable. But eventually she had gotten used to the pain, or perhaps it had worn off. She then entered a state of anger. Hatred toward her sister, her former friend Shannon, her life, the world. Seething in rage at nothing and everything at the same time. The next stage she entered was sorrow. The despair of knowing what she had done, what she had become, and who she was. Over and over she was tormented by all three, and only denial helped cast them away.
Perhaps it was like hell. There, in the corner, an imaginary devil begged her to take the door, to pass through it with him. If only she’d sign the contract, she could have her denial. Was empty happiness and false hope worth her soul…worth her future? On the doorstep many times she appeared, contemplating her situation. But alas, she never followed. This is where her purgatory would begin. And each time it did, she’d get back to where she started, with pain. Her cycle continued as she avoided contact for as often as possible.
It was an understatement when Lauren described Amanda as an emotional wreck. It was worse. A catastrophe of epic proportions, and the worst part was that she had never been whole to begin with. She wasn’t a functioning train that got side railed. She had been, she now realized, damned from the start, needing approval and guidance throughout her life. She was always the passenger, never the conductor. She could never get her emotions in check, she could never get her weight in check, and when she finally thought she had done it on her own, her train crashed. And she finally realized, or rather, finally stopped kidding herself. Her new life wasn’t as great as she thought it would be.
She had been naïve. The same naïve girl who thought her friends liked her in high school, and the same naïve girl who thought losing weight would end all of her problems. Here she was, just as lonely and sad as ever, and like always, she tried to have a scapegoat for her problems. But all that wasn’t true. It wasn’t her weight before, and it wasn’t her younger little sister now. It had been her and her alone. Now, even as she sat in her dark room alone, sneaking out only for minimal food or to the bathroom when she was sure no one was about, knowing full well she needed to get over this herself, she desperately needed someone more than ever.
Nikki similarly sat in her room, avoiding her sister like the plague for the past seven days, just as Amanda did. However, she was in a better position than her sibling. She wasn’t a wreck, just angry. Nikki went out as often as possible, staying away from her home, from Amanda. A week, though, was a long time. Finally, their parents asked their elder sister Lauren to intervene in the matter, knowing full well that neither of the protagonists would open up to them.
Lauren didn’t like to see her sisters like this. They fought a lot, especially when they were younger, but never had they shut each other off from one another (and in Amanda’s case from the world) for so long over something that seemed so trivial.
Lauren tried to get to Amanda first, trying to bank off the fact she was older and supposedly more mature. That fell through when Amanda never even responded to the knocks at the door. Lauren stood in the hall, fist against the door, leaning her head against it with her eyes closed.
“It’s Lauren, open up,” she sang as innocently as she could. Still, she only was returned silence.
“Fine, be that way,” she mumbled as she turned across the hall to knock on Nikki’s door, which opened almost before the knock.
Although the situation had gone south, Nikki’s attitude had not. Her white room reflected the light and brightened itself almost from within. Such was Nikki, always chipper, illuminating others with her own warmth and happiness. Filled with artifacts, designs, and even some jewelry influenced by the Cherokee (an area of interest to the buxom brunette), her room never gave the impression its dull color should have.
Walking away from the opened door, Lauren watched her sister’s bulbous cheeks rise and fall and sway and jiggle, seemingly all at once. Her black pants seemed unable to contain their motion, and her mass. With flesh overflowing the top and riding her pants down, it was common for Nikki to pull them up every now and then, even though they were tight enough to stay on for the most part.
Nikki turned around as she sat on her bed to face her sister, which made her weight gain that much more apparent. Her pudge rested over her pants, and definitely was a gut. Surprisingly despite her large chest, most of her gain seemed to find its way to her stomach. While still small in comparison to her bust, Nikki’s gut was gaining speed quickly as proven by her ever shrinking shirt from which it escaped however many months ago. One would have to ponder as to what extent her bust did play in that. Although her belly’s girth hadn’t grown that substantially, the brunette was on the verge of needing a new bra to fight her breasts’ urge to pop out.
“I guess you heard me trying to get into Amanda’s room,” Lauren said as she shut the door and pulled up a chair to sit across from her youngest sister.
“Yeah, I sort of figured you’d come to me since that failed,” Nikki nodded her head toward Amanda’s room.
Lauren sighed. “You know why I’m here, right?”
“Sorta.”
Lauren paused. “It’s been a week, and you two haven’t talked to each other once. You need to make up, it’s gone far enough.”
“I’m not apologizing to her!” Nikki yelled defiantly as she leaned forward violently, which caused her bust to shimmy. “She started it, and she can apologize whenever she gets off her high horse.”
“Come on Nikki. You’re the relaxed sister, you’re wise and mature. Why all of a sudden has that changed?”
Lauren placed her hands on her sister’s knee.
“She’s gotta realize what’s she’s become and how to solve it on her own. I’m not helping anymore,” Nikki said matter-of-factly whilst crossing her arms.
Lauren sighed again. “So it was pointless talking to you then. Fine.”
She looked around the room a bit before speaking again; she was hoping that the shouting by now had aroused Amanda’s curiosity and that she was eavesdropping. She thought she heard the click of a door opening, but deliberately ignored it.
“So…what did she say that got you so riled up?”
“After I helped her lose weight and was helping her unpack, she had the nerve to call me fat,” said Nikki.
Lauren eyed her up and down.
“Well…” She didn’t get to finish.
“Yes, I know I’ve gained weight,” the younger sister said annoyed, yet patted and jiggled her gut for emphasis. “That’s still no excuse.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“No, you were eying me up and down cause you think my shirt’s too loose,” Nikki said as she rolled her eyes. They couldn’t help but both laugh at the perceptive Nikki’s puncturing of Lauren’s transparent denial of the obvious..
“You know I don’t approve of it though. You should really try and lose some of it.” Lauren moved in to inspect her sister’s stomach. She was met with a hand and lightly pushed back.
“Lauren, we all know you’re a health nut. Some of us in the real world like to have some cake once in a while.”
“Yeah, and some ice cream, and roast beef, and blueberry pie,” Lauren teased as she kept poking her sister all over. Nikki couldn’t help that she was ticklish, and her older sister was too tall and strong to mount an effective defensive.
While still laughing she managed to ask her sister to stop.
“I give up, you win!” Nikki was red in the face and breathing heavy.
“Ha! Your big sister still has it after all this time. Well, better go tell mom and dad I tried. Sure you won’t reconsider?”
Nikki nodded. “I’m sure. She’s being creepy and she can change – I’ll forgive her when she apologizes, but she has to do it.”
“Alright then.” Lauren got up to leave and heard a creak in the hall floorboard. door open. Lauren jumped up and rushed out as quickly as she could. Hearing Lauren approaching Amanda tried running back to her room to shut herself in again, but Lauren was just a bit quicker and was able to block Amanda from shutting the door. It was too late – the struggle had begun.
“You’re not gonna win. Just give up and let me talk to you!” The struggle continued for a little longer.
“You have to come out eventually. Don’t think I’m below camping out in front of your door even if you do manage to close it.”
Amanda realized Lauren would do something like that. She was never one to give up.
“Fine, have it your way,” Amanda said giving up and going into her darkened room followed by Lauren. Amanda sat on her bed pouting and scowling, annoyed at the disturbance of her darkened world. Lauren, like she had done with Nikki; pulled up a chair and sat across her sister.
“So what do you want?” snapped Amanda.
“I want to know what’s going on. You two have never fought like this before. What’s the matter?” Lauren asked, trying to get closer to her sister.
What was the matter? Amanda had to search herself; she needed to think long and hard, as she had been doing the entire time. But she still had no answers. She started to well up; it was too much for her. She had done this too long, she had thought too long, she had been alone for too long.
Finally she practically jumped on her sister, hugging her and crying. She had tried to be strong, tried to do it on her own, but that just wasn’t her. She had been too proud, and finally realized she needed someone to lean on, to count on, and to look to. Lauren was taken aback at the outburst, and could only hug and stroke her sister’s hair.
As she sobbed she tried to let everything out, but it couldn’t be understood. She really was a mess. After what seemed like forever, Amanda finally started to settle down. Lauren wiped the tears from her sister’s face. “Feel better?”
Amanda slowly nodded in agreement. She sniffled a bit. “I’ve been such a jerk.”
“Now don’t beat yourself up. What’s important is you correcting the problem,” Lauren said.
“I know,” Amanda said sounding a bit disappointed. “So I’ve lost some weight – that doesn’t give me the right to be a prima donna like Shannon, judging everyone else. But its worse than that – judging gives me a feeling of power, even though I know I shouldn’t do it, it seems to come naturally. And it scares me.”
“It was different when you were larger?”
“Yes, because then I knew my position – I did what others expected and was accepted in spite of my size because of what I did, and I didn’t mind paying the price, until Shannon and the crowd stopped being willing to sell. So now I’ve lost the weight and, as Nikki said, I’ve turned around and started to become like them.”
“No, “ said Lauren. “You’ve discovered something dark that was always there. Its in me, its in everyone.”
“What’s that?,” Amanda asked.
“You’re trying to define happiness by making comparisons. It was a negative comparison in the old days so you substituted groveling and called the resulting relationship happiness. Now it’s a positive comparison so you’re substituting superiority for happiness. Neither works.”
“So what is happiness?”
“Happiness isn’t a relationship or things. It is a choice that comes from within, not outside of you. Defining your own worth and values – then knowing you’re living up to them works for me, unless I start slipping. When you’re being true to yourself instead of pleasing others you’re happy giving and serving, anything less is just a big show and fun for the moment at best.”
Amanda considered. “So all this weight loss effort has been a crock?”
“I can’t say that – but its not the key to happiness. We can discuss that later. Right now you’ve got someone who needs to hear from you.”
Amanda nodded. She swallowed her pride, got up, and went into her sister’s room.
“Nikki, I’m,” she paused. “I’m sorry.”
Lauren looked from the shadows of Amanda’s room at both of her younger sisters in the light hugging and apologizing. It had been long and hard, but it was finally over. Life possibly could now get back to normal in the Sullivan household.
Afterwards Amanda bean to think about Shannon and feel sorry for her.
“I wonder,” she asked, “if Shannon has been able to define happiness for herself yet? The wrong way has certainly cost her dearly lot. At least I stopped being a prima donna early. I wish we could be friends again, but fat chance of that!”
(Click here for next installment)
