Free Biggie by Derek E. Sullivan Page A

request. It happens so fast. Half of me wants to take it back, but the other half is curious. What will happen next?
    The message comes across the bottom of my screen: @Annabelle has approved your request. And then I get another message: @Annabelle is now following you . I immediately click on her photos and start scrolling. The pictures are ten times hotter now that I can look at them because she wants me to see them. There’s no way I’m sleeping tonight. I’m too excited.

Chapter 11
    One Hundred Ounces Of Mountain Dew
    While Laser never told Mom that I was sneaking junk food, he did convince her to send me to Dr. Pence. There’s nothing worse than being fat in a doctor’s office. When people walk into a waiting room, they scan the room and wonder what each person has. It’s human nature. In most cases, no one knows. But when someone sees a fat ass sitting there squeezed like a sardine into a chair built for someone half his size, it’s pretty easy to figure out why he’s there—because he’s fat.
    As I sit there, I watch people look at me and lift some pity smiles. They feel bad for me like it’s horrible being fat. I hate those pity smiles. I want to scream, “Don’t feel bad for me. I’m a hell of a lot smarter than you.”
    â€œHenry Abbott,” a nurse shouts out.
    â€œC’mon,” Mom says with a rub of my thigh.
    The last time I went to this doctor, I weighed 275 pounds. It was February 16, and I told Mom the weight gain was due to Valentine’s Day chocolates.
    I know the first thing the nurse’s going to do is have me step onto a scale, which will likely put me on the wrong side of three hundred. I try to wear baggy clothes, sweatshirts and sweatpants, and stay out of sight, so Mom won’t know, that despite her best efforts, I’ve put on weight. She’s not stupid, but I’m sure she believes I’ve put on five or ten pounds. I doubt she realizes that I’ve crossed three hundred pounds. The doctor says she should weigh me every couple of weeks, but Mom doesn’t. I think it’s because when she sees the numbers 270, 280, 290 pop up, she’ll start to cry or be embarrassed. Instead she makes me low-calorie meals and hopes the granola, fruit, and baked chicken work wonders.
    There’s little I can do now. I’m three steps from the scale and all the baggy T-shirts in the world aren’t going to help me now.
    I step on the scale. It immediately flashes 319 pounds, then drops to 313 before settling at 317, a new record. Wow, I really thought missing out on a week of Molly’s and walking a few miles would lower my weight, maybe to even less than 300.
    Mom smiles at me as we walk to the exam room to wait for Dr. Pence. Her smile is the same pity smile the old ladies and little girls shared with me in the waiting room.
    Dr. Pence is a jackass, know-it-all old man who treats me like a cancer patient. He loves to tell me that if I don’t stop eating junk food, I’ll die. I would believe him except for the fact that dozens of people come in and buy shit from me every night in the convenience store. All we sell is crap food: potato chips, Twinkies, pop, beer, beef jerky, and greasier food than a fast-food joint. Sure, I eat fried food at Molly’s and drink Mountain Dew like water, but so does everyone else in Finch. I wonder if Killer, who loves Dew as much as I do, gets the you’re-going-to-die speech.
    In the past few years, I have figured out a way to keep from being made fun of at school. All I have to do is keep quiet and to myself. The plan works. Everyone leaves me alone, except for Dr. Pence. He’s the only person who talks about my weight, who tells me I’m too big. No matter how hard I try, I can’t keep him from mocking me. And he does it in front of my mother. Is he doing his job? Maybe. But that doesn’t make me feel any less worthless when I’m in his office.