Free Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin…Every Inch of It by Brittany Gibbons Page A

that he’d need a ride home.
    He hung up and we sat together stiffly.
    “Hi, I’m Brittany,” I said, extending my hand to his.
    “I know who you are,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “We’re in the same class.”
    Andy clenched his jaw and looked straight ahead as the tow truck driver raised his car onto the platform. I had nothing in common with him, and frankly, I wanted him to leave. It was rare I got the house to myself, and I was dying to get back to Eric Nies and MTV’s The Real World .
    A short while later, a silver sedan pulled into our long wooded driveway. Andy stood up, thanked me for the water and letting him use my phone, got into his mom’s car, and left. Just like that. And that, children, is how I met your father.
    The next morning I awoke to the sound of dogs barking, a collective hounding that occurred whenever anyone dared to ring our doorbell or knock. I spent a large portion of my time in that house trying to beat visitors to the front door in hopes of heading off the barking and visitors giving looks of animal hoarding concerns. After a few minutes had passed my dad gently rapped on my bedroom door, stuck his head in, and said, “Uh, there’s an Andy Gibbons here to see you?” My puzzled expression matched his, and I hurriedly grabbed the bra from my floor and strapped it on underneath my plaid pajama shirt.
    I found Andy sitting calmly with my mother in the living room, on our brown floral couch, buried underneath a cocker spaniel and two Great Danes.
    “Hi, um, Andy, right?” I stammered. There was a stranger in my living room with my mother. “Did you forget something or do you need a statement for the police or something?”
    “Nah, I actually came over to see if you wanted to go to breakfast?” he asked, pushing the panting dogs from his lap as he stood up.
    “I am still in my pajamas.” Because holy shit, I was still in mypajamas, and not even cute ones. An oversize plaid nightshirt from the women’s section of Sears that had two large vertical holes in the chest that, I assumed, were for scratching your boobs through; only later would I realize it was a nursing nightgown.
    “That’s fine, I was just going to go to the McDonald’s drive-through and drive around town while we ate.”
    “I don’t know, I usually don’t eat in front of people and I don’t know anything about you aside from the fact that you are a terrible driver.”
    My mother, clearly just excited there was a straight nonrelative boy in the house, pushed me off into my room to change. I once saw this woman show up to a funeral in Crocs and a Looney Tunes shirt, and suddenly she was Mrs. Bennet prettying me up for Mr. Darcy. I threw on a hoodie and a pair of cutoff jean shorts and climbed into the silver Nissan his mother had been driving a day earlier.
    “Nice car,” I offered, running my hand along the soft leather and fancy buttons.
    “Thanks.” He smiled. “Mine’s in the shop.”
    We drove around quietly sipping orange juices and listening to the lyrical stylings of Dr. Dre. Every so often he would point to the house of a friend or ask me a question about my life.
    “So did your mom just find all those dogs?”
    “No, she breeds them, so we have that many on purpose,” I answered, looking out the window.
    We drove along the old railroad track and down country roads past fields and grazing livestock.
    “Do you watch many movies?” I asked, hoping to have some noise drown out whatever was happening through the speakers.
    “No. I am busy with basketball and golf, and I play lots of video games.”
    “Wow, that sounds awesome.” I sighed, bored out of my mind.“Hey did your parents make you take me out to breakfast as a thank-you or something, because this really isn’t necessary.”
    “No.” He laughed. “I asked you to breakfast because you make me nervous and I can’t stop thinking about yesterday with your hair piled all up on your head in that messy bun thing. I just keep sitting