“Stupid beautiful Isabelle and her stupid long legs.” My fat around my stomach was soft to pinch in my fingers. I could see the stretch marks around my sides starting to turn from pink to white. “And stupid Tom and his stupid beautiful fiancé and their stupid happy picture on my stupid Instagram feed.”

Travis came back in the room after his phone call and sat on the edge of my bed.

“I have stretch marks now, Travis.”

“You know, those are considered beautiful in some cultures.”

“Not helping. They aren’t beautiful in this culture.”

“No, really.” He started brushing my brown hair with his soft fingers. “People call them tiger stripes. It’s something you earn.”

“That’s if you get pregnant.” I groaned and showed him the picture. “Look at these two stupid happy people.”

“She is hideous.” He lied, smiling over at me. “Not nearly as pretty as you are.”

“You mean not as pretty as I used to be.”

“April, shut up.” That’s what gay best friends are for: living with and telling you to shut up. Travis has been the nicest through all of these changes recently. He was the first to offer to find a new place with me, the first to lend me a helping hand (with some money in palm) and the first to actually visit me in the hospital. “If you really feel that bad about a little weight go to the gym.”

“I have been going to the gym.”

“Well, go more then. And eat healthy.”

I sighed again and rolled over. My laptop showed that I had a new email from Cosmo. I had been waiting by my laptop day and night waiting for a reply to my article I submitted.

“Cosmo wrote back.”

“Oh! Good news?”

I opened the email. “Nope. They rejected it.” Apparently “How to please your man in Bed” was an overused topic and it needed more zest in order to be published. I groaned again, as that seemed to be my communication method.

“I bet dumb Isabelle doesn’t have a bad day at work.”

“What does she do?”

“Dumb executive assistant for a dumb Universal Studios hot shot. Hopefully they have an affair and call off the wedding. And then dumb Tom can go to dumb Google and do whatever dumb thing he gets paid for and be unhappy at work.”

“This dumb wedding.” Travis jabbed at me. He left my room and let the door creak behind him.

“I bet she doesn’t live in a dumb ugly apartment” I muttered under my breath. Normally I wasn’t this ungrateful, I couldn’t even afford this apartment with how freelancing had been going as of late. Pasadena isn’t exactly cheap and the landlord won’t take my fat as payment.

“Wait, where are you going? Can’t you see I need you?”

“Sorry, doll. I have to go to this dumb audition to make dumb rent.” Travis was an actor, and supposedly a good one at that. Maybe that could be my next career move. I can play everyone’s fat best friend. “I’ll come home right after. We can get dinner and I’ll bring wine or something.”

“Make it arsenic, or maybe just rat poison will do.”

“Never lose that sense of humor, April.”

And with that he was gone. I turned the TV on and tried to do some crunches while watching a reality show. Realities shows were great for making me feel better about having a personality and being a decent person while simultaneously making me feel horrible about my body. I often did a quick workout routine when watching TV since I wasn’t up early enough to do those morning yoga shows.

After I was all crunched I flipped open my laptop and skimmed through all the freelance jobs available. I preferred article writing, pop culture and feeding into it really is my strong suit, but at this point I would take any job that is offered to me. I have written vacuum reviews, made lists until my brain has fallen out, and still I am too broke to pay for anything.

This apartment is nice enough to live in but not nice enough to stay. As soon as I get a regular paying job Travis and I are out of here and into somewhere where the water comes out of the faucets completely clear and the paint isn’t chipping off of the ceiling. I will miss the inspiration that all the characters we live next to give me, but I won’t miss their loud banging or arguments or the elephants that live upstairs.

I often think about moving away from the west coast, or at least just out of California. I don’t think that will ever happen though. It was hard enough to leave Santa Barbara when I had to. I was born and raised there, as was dumb Tom. Why does my family have to be friends with his family? How do you friend break up with a whole group of people that have been there through diaper changes and growth spurts?

You don’t. And you can’t. The Middletons were closer family than some of my aunts and uncles. I should have known better than to have fallen in love with someone so close to everyone. They were there for the accident, but that caused the collateral damage of my un-engagement. Life has been more glamorous for me before than it is now. At least I worked off some of the extra weight.

I got in this car accident. I’m fine now, but I was bed ridden and put on heavy pain medication for a while. I gained 70 pounds, and I have lost 30 of them. I’m still 40 pounds heavier than I want to be, and I’ve been at a plateau for a while now.

I did another set of crunches in between applying for different article writing gigs. Hopefully some magazine would take as much pity on me as I have.