Friendship isn’t a big thing—it’s a million and a half little ones that, with proper care, can last a lifetime.
This is the kind of friendship that carries you from one stage of your life to the next, and is unfortunately an exceedingly rare thing. Too often, when we undergo a change of scenery, we run the risk of losing those that are closest to us. Whether it be graduating from school, getting a new job, or moving away from home, even the most ardent companionships can be tested and fail in the face of change. It is in the midst of these great upheavals in life, too often, that we find out who our friends truly are.
However sometimes stagnancy is the cause of these rifts. Rather than any great outward change, sometimes an inner development can test the waters of a once great friendship, only to find that it comes up shallow.
***
“Have you guys seriously just not moved since I left this morning?”
Cheyenne had shut the door more aggressively than she’d intended, and it had left her re-entry into the apartment with a nasty punctuation. The clutter on the kitchen counter and its sister pile on top of the fridge trembled enough to make a small secondary noise, alerting her housemates to a perceived annoyance that she held with their laziness. She just barely fought back a wince.
“Why, would that be a problem?”
Avery pitched a fat arm over the back of the couch, turning to face Cheyenne belly first with no small amount of contention. Brooke peeped out from behind her, looking more like a deer caught in headlights as she did her best to ward off any potential confrontation between the three of them with creased eyebrows and a worried look.
“I was just joking, Jesus.” Cheyenne turned corner to open the fridge, “God you’re so sensitive.”
“It didn’t sound like you were joking.”
Avery’s thick thumb pressed down hard on the Roku remote’s central pause button. Brooke’s stomach squelched uncomfortably in the face of conflict, something that she’d gotten used to over the past few weeks and months. Passive-aggressive comments had laid the groundwork for quasi-aggressive arguments to start cropping up over nothing. With the way that the little black remote had come undone at the edge, the force with which Avery had said her peace before slamming it down on the arm of the unfortunate couch beneath them, it appeared that today was going to be the fabled day.
“Look, I’m sorry I slammed the door okay?” Cheyenne whipped around with one of her smoothies in-hand, “I’m not trying to start anything today.”
“And neither am I.”
“Okay, then don’t.”
“I won’t.”
“Good.”
The two of them let out similar sounding huffs before begrudgingly resuming their day-to-day schedules. Avery remained in place on the couch while Cheyenne stomped through the kitchen, behind her roommates, and into her bedroom along the back wall of the apartment. This time she did mean to slam the door.
“I hate her.” Avery said loud enough that Cheyenne could have heard it even if she hadn’t been right next to the door, “I really, really mean it.”
“Avery—”
“No, I do! She’s such a fucking bitch to me now. To both of us!”
Avery tossed the Roku remote petulantly across the room. It collided against the wall but remained intact. If either of them were the sort of woman to get up and grab the damn thing as it laid on the floor, Avery was certainly the type of person to give smashing it against the walls of her apartment another go. Months of bubbling anger and frustration against someone who was one of her very best friends had left her a grumpy mess.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to resolve itself any time soon—despite what Brooke had been telling her for weeks now.
“Well, I mean… she was probably just tired from going to the gym.”
“So she shouldn’t fucking go!” Avery shouted, “I go to work and I come home just like everyone else and I don’t slam doors and start shit with you guys!”
Avery bowed her elbows and pushed hard against the arm of the couch, a lethargic grunt escaping from deep in her belly as she stood on her feet for the first time in a few hours. Pop Tart crumbs tumbled from the canopy of her upper tier of stomach and onto the floor as she took some heavy-footed steps towards the kitchen. Soft flesh trembled side to side with her every quaking step, her leggings rode down the slope of her ample cheek meat. Picking at the waistband with one hand, she grabbed a soda with the other and whipped back around.
“You want one while I’m up?” Avery cracked the top with chunky fingers
“No, I’m good…”
Brooke averted her eyes as Avery killed an entire can of soda before making her way back to the couch. Crunching it in her hands, the bodacious blonde opened the fridge and grabbed another one from the shelf. She tossed it to Brooke who, just barely, managed to catch it.
“We’re almost out—you know Cheye will pitch a fit if I order more before they’re all gone.”
“Ugh, you’re right…”
Brooke eased the pop top open, her chunky left arm held taut while her right bent with surgical precision. Crack! The carbonated brown bubbles fizzed as a small cloud of the stuff began to foam over the hole. After a few seconds, she finished the job and opened up the can for good.
“I just hate her now. She’s all…” Avery crinkled her nose and furrowed her eyebrows as she searched for a word that sounded classier and more accurate than the generic bitchy, “Like, you know, ever since she lost all that weight—”
“Oh my god you are not bringing up her weight loss again.” Brooke shifted in her squeaking seat on the couch, “Avery, just because someone decides to lose weight doesn’t mean that they stop having fun. She’s still Cheye.”
“Okay, but like no she’s not.” Avery leaned on the kitchen counter, her stomach cutting into the edge and rolling over by a good margin, “Ever since she decided that she was too good to hang out with us, all she’s done is bitch because we don’t want to go… jog or whatever.”
Brooke bit her bottom lip, silently pleading with her friend to not raise her voice so loud that Cheyenne might hear her in the other room. Holding out her hands in front of her belly, Brooke urged Avery to calm down. Or at least lower her voice.
“Ugh. You’re such a Mom Friend.” Avery swiveled back around on her heels to grab another soda, “But come on, you have to admit it—life was way better for all three of us back when Cheyenne was fat.”
Here Brooke stifled a laugh. Avery saw it, and cracked a smile. It had done more to ease the tension than any whimpering that the busty brunette on the couch had done, and it was almost as cathartic to say out loud as it had been to toss that stupid tiny remote against the wall.
“That’s mean; we should really be more supportive.” Brooke’s words fell flat when she couldn’t wipe a guilty little grin from between her cheeks, “You know she lost, like...  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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