This choice: With Little Miss Perfect around, Tara can only cope with hangry comfort eating • Go Back... The five days that Haley was going to be home, on paper, should have been a breeze. After all, Tara had lived with her sister for years before they both moved away, and on two of those days she got to get some respite by going to work. And the fact that she was considering going to work as any sort of respite should have really sold her mindset on the matter of her visiting little sister. It left them with an ample amount of time to catch up, but Tara was plenty busy finding other ways of occupying her time at home. With the extra portions that their mother was whipping up in the name of cooking for two of her girls instead of one, Tara was happy to take advantage.
"So..." Haley clicked her tongue awkwardly, the dinner table quiet except for the sounds of Tara's eating, "...think you're about finished, Tare?"
"Not... urrrp... not even." Tara managed, "You and mom do the whole... gingerbread house thing or whatever... I'll catch up."
The West household was not one that believed in the concept of leftovers. Even before its matriarch had reawakened her love of cooking, they had always instituted a clean plate club. That being said, Mrs. West had intentionally been cooking extra. She cooked just as much for Haley as she did for Tara—sometimes with only a few hours of rest! She was waking up early and staying up late to make sure that the Yuletide meals that had blessed her daughters' holidays all throughout their lives was just as ample and abundant as it had always been.
And most of it was finding its way into Tara's greedy mouth.
The first night that Haley had been home, Tara had claimed most of the glazed ham for herself, with the potatoes and the green beans falling to the wayside. The second night she'd tackled the turkey, taking most of the breasts and one of the legs while Haley and their mother ate their modest portions of leftover thigh and wing meat. But today, on the third day, she was starting to falter. After two days of big, heavy holiday meals, Tara was starting to slow down in her quest to fill the gnawing hole inside of her that Haley's perfect presence seemed to inspire.
After all, why shouldn't she eat like a pig? She was clearly the fat sister now. The fat, loser sister who couldn't make it out in Charleston.
Mrs. West and Haley, though similarly sort of oblivious in their own ways, weren't stupid. They knew that something was eating Tara. Which was why Tara was eating everything. But neither of them really wanted to breach the subject for their own reasons.
So they let Tara eat.
And eat and eat and eat.
***
"Ughhuguhughuh..."
Tara cradled her stomach as it domed out high above her on her bed. It hurt. It actually, physically hurt to have eaten so much in one sitting. After the past few days of stuffing herself, Tara felt closer to spewing all over her bedroom than she had ever since she'd moved home. That or exploding—whichever one sounded more painful.
It's not like I don't deserve it... making such an ass out of myself down there...
Tara didn't want to act like such a brat around Christmas. She genuinely enjoyed her family's traditions. In a lot of ways, she genuinely enjoyed her family! But it was so hard seeing Haley get everything that she wanted. That she felt like she deserved, after all of her hard work! She was dipping into her savings more and more, so that cushion that she had been banking on was drying up fast. She was more reliant than ever on their mom for food and a roof over her head. And she weighed more than two hundred pounds—she hadn't even been home a year and she'd turned into such a cow!
BRRBRBRBRBRLE
"Ugh... I want to diiiiiiiiiie..." Tara moaned, "This hurts so muuuuuuch..."
As if to remind her that, yes, she had just said that out loud, a series of gentle knocks came on her bedroom door.
"Hey, it's Haley?" the soft voice of her sister inquired, "You mind if I come in? I think we need to talk..."
"Ughhuguhughuh..."
"Was... was that a yes, or did you finally explode?"
"...it was a yes."
Far too weak to protest, Tara allowed Haley to open her bedroom door, poke her head inside, and recoil at the sight of her older sister—beached on top of her blanket.
"Jesus Christ, Tare." Haley remarked, "That looks painful."
"It is." Tara groused
"Do you think you got enough to eat?" Haley put her hands on her hips, "I mean, I like leftovers as much as the next girl, but they have to be left over first. You know?"
"Ha... ha..." Tara frowned, struggling to breath under the weight of her own indulgence, "What do you want, Haley?"
"What do I want? I want to know why you've been so weird to me since I've been home!" Haley stomped her foot and raised her voice to a whisper-yell as she shut the bedroom door behind her, "I want to know what's up with you! You're acting like a total brat, and it's making mom upset! Did I do something to you since I haven't been home? Like, honest to God, Tara, what could I possibly have done that made you so fucking mad at me that you'd stuff yourself until you can barely fucking move for three days straight rather than talk to me?"
And here, in a moment of clarity, Tara realized that her younger sister was right.
Rather, she had known that she was acting stupid the whole time. But bringing it up to her here forced her to reconcile her actions with her feelings and how they made everyone else around her uncomfortable. How she'd been selfish, not just with her appetite, but with... well, just about everything, and all out of spite.
"I..." Tara sniffled, hot tears welling up in her eyes, "I'm sorry, I just... I'm so sick of you being so perfect, Haley."
Given that this was normally the part of the conversation where the two sisters would have shouted at one another (which came long before, sometimes days before, the eventual tearful resolution) Haley was understandably taken aback. Her stubborn, hard-headed sister just breaking down like that and admitting that she was eating to avoid her feelings? It'd never been done before—at least, not between the two of them!
"Perfect?" Haley immediately lowered her voice to a soft, soothing tone, "Tara, what are you talking about?"
"You! You're... perfect! You get to live where I wanted to live you get to go out and have fun and meet guys like I always wanted to do..."
Here, Tara started blubbering inelegantly. A process made that much more difficult by the heavy weight on her stomach. She tried to wriggle to a seated position, but just sort of floundered for a bit before Haley helped her and sat down beside her.
"I-I had to move home because my stupid job bailed out on me and I couldn't find another one that would pay me as much to-to live there..." she continued, "And I came home and I got fat and... and Mom worships you!"
"Tara, mom doesn't worship me." Haley sterned back up a bit in defense, "Come on, you know that."
"Haley, she made all of your favorites for your first night home. Your presents pile under the tree has like, twice as many as mine. E-Even back when we were kids, you were always the favorite!"
"...of course she did those things for me, you dummy." Haley's head fell to the side sympathetically as she stroked her sister's back, "I don't live here. She never sees me. But she's really, really proud of you, Tare. And so am I!"
"Bullshit." Tara snorted, "You're not proud of me."
"Bullshit!" Haley repeated, "Tara, you're, like... a superwoman. You had a great job, you got a full ride to Wofford, and... fuck, the whole reason that I moved out to Charleston is because I was jealous of you!"
"...bullshit." Tara said it in a more playful sort of way, "You weren't jealous of me."
"You came home when I was still in high school and told me stories about going out to bars and the cool stories about your apartment and having your own office! How could I not have been jealous of you? I pretty much wanted to be just like you when I was a teenager!"
"...you never told me that."
"Well yeah." Haley elbowed her older sister in the spare tire, "Because I was too busy fighting with you."
Tara sniffed that ugly sort of sniff that happens when you're finishing up a good cry. A heavy, emotional snort, for a heavy, emotional girl.
"I guess I just kind of thought that you were trying to one-up me."
"Well I wasn't—I was trying to be like my sister."
"...willing to bet you don't want to be like me now." Tara laughed shallowly as she cupped either side of her gut
"Jesus, Tara, what does mom feed you?"
"Shut up." the older sister nudged the younger, "It's not my fault. She basically lives in the kitchen."
"Yeah, but do you have to live at the dinner table?"
"Ugh, you're such a bitch."
The two of them hugged, Haley patting her sister's back, as the Holiday Season began in earnest.
After she got off work the next day, she made sure to make time to snuggle up on the couch with her mom and sister to watch Rudolph.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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