Chapter 1
This book is part of a series. This is book 2. The first book is Nehero’s Song.
https://www.inkitt.com/stories/romance/999499
Mei xing
The thing about horrible plastic chairs is that they are not made for people. At least not for regular people like me. They’re made for skinny creatures that perch easily and elegantly on them. I am not a skinny kind of gal. I’m a big girl and permanently on a diet. The ugly yellow plastic chair I am sitting in is making another almost farting kind of sound as I shift around…again.
I hate the sound the horrible chair makes but my curiosity is in the driver’s seat tonight and I keep shifting around to try to surreptitiously look around to see if the beautiful man is here again tonight. He has come to the meetings for the last three weeks. He would slip in and sit in the back… silent and gorgeous and a little bit dangerous. He would never grab a disposable cup of horrible coffee, nor did he ever speak to anyone. He comes in, he sits down, he listens and then he leaves. He has become the center of a lot of speculation and there is not a woman and several of the men that have not noticed and admired the mysterious hot yummy with chocolate syrup guy.
I feel a little deflated when his chair is still empty. Not that it matters really, I would never even have spoken to him. I am not shy, but hot guys never see me, and I would never know how to even approach one. I am permanently assigned to the friend zone. I sigh and settle back in my uncomfortable chair concentrating on the laws of fat people on plastic chairs.
The law works like this, you appear to sit down, but in fact, you carefully distribute your weight evenly between both legs so that no part of your weight ever really settles on the chair. This is a very important law for people with a few extra pounds... not observing this law will result in the plastic chair making rude noises before the legs of the chair will each fold and slide away in opposite directions dumping you on the floor with your ass in the air and your knickers on show.
I should know I had ended up just like that at a party a few years back. Oh, sure people were nice, picked me up, even dusted me off. No one openly laughed but yea… if I was one of the skinny elegant creatures I would have laughed my skinny ass off at the fat girl with her ass in the air. True story.
I feel the slightest bump from someone sliding into the chair behind me, but I ignore it. I have come here for five months and I have made a few “friends” but for the most part, I keep to myself. This is a grief counseling group. Every person here has lost a sibling. So, I guess we all have something in common. That does, strangely enough, help with getting a conversation started. It is just that after the whole “Hi, I am Mei xing, I lost my sister, my brother in law, and my niece in a car accident eighteen months ago” part I run out of things to say, but coming here is helping. It helps to know that what I am feeling is normal and that there are others feeling exactly like me. That’s why I keep coming. I shift one last time to sneak a hopeful peek if perhaps Mister Hot Guy has come in. His chair is still empty.
“Are you looking for someone?” The man behind me asks. I shift in my chair carefully keeping my weight off the chair, so I can look behind me. The moment I turn I see it’s Mister Hot Guy behind me and my face instantly goes glow in the dark red.
“Oh, um no.” I squeak at him. I watch as he tries to shift in his horrible ugly yellow plastic chair.
“Plastic chairs are made for kids, not adults. There is no way to settle in these things and be comfortable.” He grumbles.
“Uh hu.” I squeak back. That’s when I pay attention for the first time, I mean I knew he was a very big guy, but for the first time, I truly look at him. Besides being beautiful, his big body is dwarfing the chair, and it’s not fat, but pure hard muscle. He is BIG like capital letter BIG and I am uncertain how he is managing to not put any weight on the chair. Surely, he fears falling as much as I do, yet he seems unconcerned as he squirms to find a comfortable seat. His big muscled thighs are probably holding and balancing his weight as easily as a Hooters girl her big tits, on a stripper pole. Yes, I have tit envy, petty, true but demit just a little more than perky would have been good. Sigh.
“So, I am Sky.” He introduces himself as he tries to fold his long legs to fit into the narrow space between my chair and his again. Poor guy really is trying to fold into a too small space. I carefully get up from my chair never spilling a pound out of line and pull it a bit forward to give him more room to maneuver. I sit down carefully making sure I don’t end up with my knickers on display.
“Oh, thank you, but you did not have to move.” He smiles at me but still his long legs shift into a more comfortable drape in the extra space. His big body dwarfs the chair and to be honest, it scares me because I don’t see how that chair can cope with him. Mine sure won’t. The guy is huge and as far as I can see there does not appear to be a bit of fat in sight. He must live in a gym.
“It’s nothing,” I mumble to him. I don’t quite know what to say. Perhaps I should warn him the chair is going to fold in under him?
“So, are you going to tell me your name?” He asks me with a smile that just about spills over me like sunlight after a storm. He appears very relaxed and comfortable. I envy him the confidence. My breath keeps huffing and my heart is going nuts. This guy is affecting my body, I swear my blood is all thick and trying to move all sexy and hot. My heart is definitely beating too fast. Stupid body, I was not built for sexy and molten. Well not quite true if I slap some makeup on I do melt that stuff off until I represent the poster child of eighties rock stars!
“Oh, sorry, Um I’m Mei xing,”
“Nice to meet you Mei xing.” His voice is deep.
“Likewise.” I feel that I need to pull my lungs and heart out sit them down and talk to them about inappropriately heavy breathing and exited heartbeats. No reason to get hot and bothered and misbehave. It makes my fat jiggle. Sigh. My body rarely listens to me.
“So how long have you been coming here?” He asks me and there is curiosity in his voice.
“Bout five months,” I answer my neck is getting sore from the odd way I have turned. I hold my body in the position though, it makes me look thinner. I think.
“Does it help?” He asks me and then I notice the bone deep sorrow in his eyes. That’s when I know, he is just making conversation. I settle down a bit and my lungs deflate.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I tell him gently.
“It’s OK, it happened a long time ago.” He smiles gently, but the sorrow in him is there open and raw.
“It does not matter how long ago it happened, in my experience, it keeps on hurting no matter how long ago.” I have learned that time does not make it better or the hurt less it just gives you more time to hurt.
“If you don’t mind me asking, who did you lose?” He asks, and I know the deep pain in my own heart shows on my face now.
“Eighteen months. Car accident Ruby was my twin sister, she and her husband Matt and their daughter Leila. Lost them all in one night.”
“I am sorry for your loss Mei xing.”
I like the way he says my name. I nod my head gratefully accepting his condolences. I honestly don’t understand condolences. Truly people come they hug you or shake your hand and tell you how sorry they are. I keep wondering what are they sorry for. Did they cause the accident? The drunk driver that caused it died in the crash too. His wife showed up at my sister’s funeral. She came and told me how sorry she was. I told her how sorry I was for her loss. What else do you say?
Oh, and the endless food. Casseroles for days. I wanted to yell at people after a while. I mean with my weight I have been on a diet since I was basically able to sit up. I am fat. Then all this food and I kept thinking it was rude not to eat it. Plus, I’m in mourning so, in the months since my sister’s death I have spread. Wide and jiggly. Grandmother has an odd manner of speaking, mind you she can speak properly, she just prefers not to, anyway she tells me all the time ‘man like a woman not stick woman that man can use as broom’.
Ruby. My twin. My grandmother is Chinese, and it shows in me and Ruby. Showed I mean. Well, it still shows in me. We were identical but for one difference. You could always tell us apart. Ruby was the hot sexy Chinese chick…. I am the fat Chinese chick. Well, that’s what people used to call us in school. The hot one and the fat one. The Chinese part was irritating and racist. Such are people. I guess it’s even easier to tell us apart now. Ruby is the dead twin. I’m the fat alive twin.
I don’t like my thoughts. I turn from the Mister Hot Guy… Sky. I shift my body. I wish I had shifted the chair clear across the room when I got up to move it for him. Should have done that or better yet just left. I feel alone and sad and fat and very aware of Sky. He is just too much man for me to not wish I was a little…less.
