The Twenty-Something Girl I Met

A stack of five syrup-soaked waffles piled high with whipped cream and strawberry sauce stared back at her in a tantalizing dare to herself.  Emily decided the Saturday after freshman college initiation that she needed to gain weight, lots of it. 

Her thighs ached in co-misery with her lower back and vagina.  With every desperate bite, she swallowed each sweaty cologne-drenched boy into the acidic pits of her stomach.  She ran her hand over her tight chiseled abdomen, perfectly sculpted into a sensual four pack from years of volleyball, soccer, and dancing her heart out.  She pulled her small baby tee away from her perky breasts, ashamed at their silent invitation to the sex-craved student population. 

Butter.  I need lots and lots of butter.  As she scooped a heap of butter from the family-style dish on the long table, she consciously rebelled against what smoky visions still remained from her drunken rampage of a week.  Barrels of stinky beer, football jerseys barely hiding hard bulging biceps, and the thumping bumpy rides with one guy to the next on couches, chairs, beds, and one strobe-lit stairway, spin in her hung-over head like a nightmare.  I don’t remember a single name, let alone a face.

As a group of guys in their school colors of yellow and white strut to her table while bragging about, “What a night,” Emily shouted through a cheek full of waffles, “These seats are taken!”  She heard a whistle and a few “Whatever,” s but they veered away to another table close to girls eating in flannel pajamas.

Now that Emily is twenty-five-years old, five-foot-six, and one hundred eighty-five pounds, she flings her ice blue eyes to meet my brown apologetic gaze, flicks her jet black hair behind her linebacker shoulder, and states matter-of-factly, “Honey, life is so much better as a big girl.”