Searching For Rebecca

Chapter 3: Glowing beacon of despair

dedicated to @DoNotMicrowave because The cell Phone Swap is literally one of my all time wattpad stories and it really inspired me for my own work! <3

I looked the part. If it wasn’t for my chubby thighs you could totally mistake me for someone who exercises on a regular basis. Hair pulled back in a sporty ponytail, cropped tee and jogging leggings all brought together with the pair of Nikes some great aunt got me for Christmas. (God only knows I hadn’t even taken them out of their box before today.) Not to mention my iPod in a brand new wristband, playing some funky tunes while I ran.

So yeah, looked the part, truth is I haven’t even left my room yet.

Now don't get me wrong, my family isn’t poverty stricken but neither are we the type with a fully functional gym in the basement. So that means one thing. I will have to run outside.

Where people can actually see me.

The thought makes me want to gag.

Even though I haven’t began the fitness regime yet, today has started well. I rose early (okay half eight, but it’s a Saturday! Give me some credit!) and ate a healthy breakfast. The latter consisted of a chopped up banana, drowned in natural yoghurt with some disgusting brown flaky things on top.

As there is no point in putting of the inevitable, I begin to walk down the stairs.

 ‘Mom! I'm going out!’ I hollered.

‘Okay’ she calls back. There is a pause before she replies. ‘Wait, where?’

Sometimes she forgets I never get invited anywhere anymore, especially after my best friend (and only friend, I soon came to realise) decided to up-sticks and move to Florida.

‘Um just out for a run. You know... fitness and all that’

She’s quiet for a while. ‘Okay just make sure you don’t get too hot, and take some water.’

I was one step ahead of her on the water front.

Finally I left the house and strolled to the sidewalk. Even though it was a little before ten in the morning, it was still too hot to be called warm. The sun taunted me from its place high in the sky like a glowing beacon of despair. Too dramatic? I think not.  

I did a few little jumps up and down to try and get me in the mood. Well, if I was being completely honest I had seen athletes do it and thought it may make my muscles work better.

Then, after a skirting look up and down the road to see if anyone was watching, I began to jog at a nice middle pace.

For the first one hundred metres I was fine. In fact I kind of liked the bouncy hair, springy muscles feeling. ‘Oh yeah, you can do this!’ I said out loud in a sing-song voice.

My good temper soon died down and by the two hundred metre mark I was suddenly feeling ‘the burn’. But I persevered, come on lungs, come on! I chanted in my head like a nutcase.

A little while later I was sure I would die. I couldn’t breathe – it felt like a fat man was sat on my chest eating a big mac. My muscles hurt like hell. My face must resemble a giant red apple with a sweaty wig glued to the top.

I honestly felt the best and worst I had ever been in that tiny second.

I had to stop, I had too. If I didn’t I would spontaneously combust. That much I was sure of.

But then images of having no friends and being called fatass filled my mind. Screw them. Not literally obviously, I wouldn’t go near those skanky hoe bags with a barge pole.

So I kept running. And running. And running.

When I completed the circuit I had set myself I was filled with a sense of merciless euphoria. The fat man had changed into a perky blonde cheerleader who was now doing cartwheels in my heart.

When I reached my room, my only intention was to collapse on the bed and when I felt suitably alive again, I would take a long bath.

Unfortunately the mirror had other ideas.

‘Ew!’ I gasped aloud, when I saw myself.

My skin glowed like a red sun, my nose was HUGE not to mention swollen. And I looked fat.

I wasn’t a dumbshit. I knew I wasn’t going to drop the weight like that because I went for one teensy run. But I couldn’t even see a positive effect it had had on me.

After a glorious bath, I dressed in a simple white eyelet lace cami and some denim shorts. My wavy hair was normally allowed to dry naturally but today I primped and preened it; blowing drying it and then viciously attacking it with a flat iron.

This was the new, semi-improved me. And by hell was I going to make a looker out of me yet!