Chapter Text
Madison was ten-years-old the first time she saw someone attempt the Fugly Bob Challenger—eight half-pound patties and sixteen strips of bacon separated by eight slices of cheese, all crammed into a sesame bun together with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, ketchup, and mustard. The beastly burger was so tall it had to be served with a long knife jammed down into it to hold it together and had to be walked out with the server gripping the knife’s handle to keep it all from falling over. With one hour to finish the five pound burger and the prizes of a free meal, your picture on the wall on the line, and the honorary title of Fugly Champion, it was nothing short of a spectacle to behold.
Madison’s parents wanted to leave, but she wanted to stay. They tried to insist, and she offered a week’s allowance if they could stay until it was done. Bemused, her parents nonetheless decided it couldn’t hurt to stay if she really wanted to that badly. She then watched, enraptured, as the man attempting the challenge systematically tore through the towering meal, ravaging nearly two-thirds in a third of his time then slowly but surely devouring the remainder before the time was up.
She had been to Fugly Bob’s with her family plenty of times before that day. Half bar, half restaurant, it served sinfully good fast food that was paradoxically a staple of any Brocktonite’s diet and a treat to be indulged in once, maybe twice a year for anyone who valued their heart’s continued functionality. Perhaps just as important as the food though was its superb location at the edge of the Market, giving the patio side of the building a spectacular view of the sandy beach outside. And on the far side of the building, opposite the patio was a wall plastered with pictures that Madison had seen before but never properly paid attention to.
“Mom? Dad?” she asked, staring at the photographs. “Why are there no women on the wall?”
The two of them followed her eyes to the wall of Fugly Champions before exchanging a quick, silent look. After a moment’s consideration, her father replied, “Well, eating contests aren’t a lady-like thing to do,”
“Why?”
He didn’t quite know how to respond to that, so her mother jumped in with the tried and true response of parents the world over: “That’s just how it is.”
They left, but on their way out, Madison stole one last look at the wall of champions.
The arrival of November in Madison’s sophomore year signaled two welcome changes for her. First, her friends Emma and Sophia had finally begun to lay off bullying Taylor Hebert. Emma’s good looks and mastery of the popularity game had quickly cemented her position at the top of the pack their freshman year. She and Sophia were practically glued at the hip, meaning Sophia was likewise held in high regard. Madison had made a point to ingratiate herself straightaway, so she could reap the same benefits as Sophia.
And being Emma’s friend? That meant bullying Hebert.
Madison didn’t think she’d ever seen a worse case of bad blood between two people than the antipathy Emma had for the tall, awkward Hebert, and that meant Emma and Sophia tore into her at every opportunity and expected the same from Madison. It had been a little frightening and more than a bit wearying how far they took it, but finally—finally!—Emma seemed satisfied to stop hounding Hebert. The shift was quite welcome, since Madison had better things to worry about than Hebert.
Like finally trying the Fugly Bob Challenger!
The arrival of November also brought with it Madison’s fifteenth birthday, and when the day itself finally arrived, her parents took her to her favorite restaurant to celebrate. Her mother split off to get them a table, and Madison followed her father to the register.
“Welcome to Fugly Bob’s. What can I get ya?”
“A Hideous Bob and a portobello-beef burger,” her father told the gangly teen managing the register before looking to Madison. “Want anything special for your birthday?”
“I’d like a Challenger, please.”
Her father shot her a frown before telling the teen, “She’ll have a junior bacon cheeseburger and fries.”
“But Dad—!”
“No buts,” he told her, his tone brooking no argument as he handed over his credit card. “Don’t make a scene, young lady. We’ll talk about this at the table.”
She fumed at the dismissal but stayed quiet. Once they were all seated, however, she promptly said, “I thought this was supposed to be a treat for me.”
“It is , Mads.”
“Then why wouldn’t you let me get a Challenger?”
Her mother shared a look with her father. They both looked every inch the beleaguered parents. “We’ve had this discussion.”
“You told me we’d talk about it when I’m older. I am older.”
“The point,” her father dryly informed her, “was to give you time to forget about this silly notion.”
“What? What’s silly about it?”
“What’s silly ? Mads. Sweetie . Grown men who have trained and prepared struggle to eat that burger.”
Grown men . “So I need to train.”
“That is not what your father said,” her mother said, jumping in. Madison opened her mouth to reply, but she spoke right over her. “Uh uh, discussion’s over. Eat your burger, and if you still have room for dessert after, we’ll get milkshakes to go, okay? Doesn’t that sound nice?”
Madison held her tongue and ate her burger, and on the way out, milkshake in hand, she thanked her parents for the treat.
And she also eyed the wall of pictures.
Madison wasn’t bad at computer class, but she wasn’t quite good enough to complete her daily assignments early enough to have more than five minutes or so at the end of class for freely browsing the internet. Her parents paid for their house to have a decent network connection, but the only computer in the house was a communal one, and she knew her father had parental monitoring software installed. She doubted it would flag her searching for information on how to prepare for eating contests, but all the same, she decided it was safest to just go to the library.
Unfortunately, it seemed her father was right about one thing. Proper preparation was very important to conquering food challenges, it seemed. She found sites outlining how to develop a strategy for the actual challenge itself as well as a training regime. She pored over them, debated what would work best for her, and began taking notes in one of her school notebooks.
A balanced approach of expanding her stomach through food and liquid looked the most promising. Fruits and especially veggies were the only practical choice for food, since she didn’t want to put on weight—Emma would drop her in a heartbeat if she got fat, she was sure—and sports drinks were apparently far better than drinking pure water if she didn’t want to tank her electrolytes. It would be an overhaul to her diet for sure, but she was confident her father wouldn’t bat an eye if she told him she was dieting. Perhaps sprinkle on a bit of faux concern over her nutrition, say they talked about it in health class.
Someone began to pull out the chair for the computer next to Madison only to suddenly stop halfway through the motion. She curiously turned from her research to see what was wrong and found Taylor Hebert staring at her.
“This is a public library. If you try anything—”
“Don’t bother,” Madison drawled.
Hebert frowned, her brow pinching together. “Huh?”
Madison debated for a moment whether to explain before deciding an abbreviated form of the truth would suffice. “They aren’t here, so I’m not going to be bothering with any of that.”
What ‘that’ was was left unsaid.
Hebert hovered, unmoving. Likely debating whether Madison was telling the truth. She was, of course, but it hardly mattered to her whether the other girl believed her or not. She had more important things to focus on, so when the awkward silence stretched on, she returned her attention to the task at hand.
Eventually the other girl pulled out the chair and sat down. Madison paid her no mind, focusing on her research.
For the challenge itself, it seemed the beginning was the most important part. If she took too long to eat, then her brain would begin signaling that she needed to slow down and, eventually, stop altogether. The goal was to eat as much as possible as soon as possible, taking smaller, easier to swallow without chewing bites. Front stacking the parts of the Challenger she disliked—the pickles, without question—would make it easier to push through her distaste, and saving the bun for last meant her stomach wouldn’t have to struggle through digesting the tough to break down carbs. Minimizing drinks, which weren’t part of the challenge, was ideal, but at the same time, the right beverages in the right order would make her job easier.
“What’re you working on?”
Madison looked up at the question, meeting Hebert’s curious, hesitant eyes. She hesitated as well but ultimately responded, “I’m going to do the Fugly Bob Challenger.”
Hebert blinked owlishly, the lenses of her glasses magnifying the effect. “I’m lost. How does this ”—she gestured arcanely at the computer and notebook—“having anything to do with the Challenger?”
“You can’t just stroll in and try to win a food eating contest without preparing. You’ll fail.” Madison still felt a bit chagrined from having tried to do the Challenger unprepared. Though she still didn’t appreciate her father’s interference. “You have to train your stomach by expanding it, make a plan for what parts of the food you’re going to eat first and what you might need... That kind of stuff.”
“Huh. I never knew.”
“Yeah, well. Getting back to it.”
Madison resumed taking notes. It took some time, but eventually she had a basic outline of what she needed to do and a plan for how to tackle actually eating the burger. She tucked away her notebook, logged off the computer, and turned to leave.
“Good luck.”
Madison stopped and turned to Hebert, befuddled.
The much taller girl’s mouth shut, and for a moment, Madison thought she wasn’t going to continue. “I mean, it... well, it sounds like a lot of hard work. So, uh. Good luck.”
“... Thanks.”
Neither of them seemed to know what to say at that point, so Madison eventually turned and left without another word. The rest of the day passed by quickly, and over dinner, she took the first step of her freshly formulated plan.
“Mom? Can I help you with grocery shopping? We were talking about nutrition in health class today, and I’m really worried about my diet.”
“Well now, isn’t this a pleasant surprise,” she replied with a smile. Her father also looked pleased as he continued eating his food. “I’m glad to see you taking such an interest in your health, young lady. Concerned about all of those cheeseburgers, huh?”
Well, she wasn’t wrong ...
The end of November quickly approached, and the civility from Madison’s chance encounter with Taylor Hebert at the public library carried over into their interactions at school. Madison was half worried at first that Emma would take offense, but she didn’t seem to feel any sort of way about it. That freed up Madison’s attention to fully focus on the Challenger.
“What’s with all the greens?” Sophia asked as she and Emma joined her for lunch.
Madison quickly chewed up the cucumber slice she had just popped in her mouth and did her best to contain the frown threatening to break out in response to Sophia's tone. “I’m training for the Fugly Bob Challenger.”
“You’re doing what ?” Emma said with a hint of disgust.
Madison’s lip twitched down before settling back into place. “I’m training for the Fugly Bob Challenger.”
“I got that when you said it the first time . I mean why are you doing it?!”
“I... want to? There are no girls on the picture wall, and I want to fix that.”
“You’re going to get ridiculously fat.”
“Not if she’s only eating stuff like that,” Sophia chimed back in, eying the plastic baggie full of chopped celery and cucumber Madison was holding.
Madison was pleasantly surprised that Sophia was being the voice of reason for once. Ordinarily she went along with basically anything Emma suggested. “Exactly. Sophia gets it. Most vegetables are mostly full of water.”
“I’m only saying you won’t get fat from eating that stuff,” the other girl clarified as she pulled out her own lunch, “Doing the Challenger is still a stupid idea.”
Madison took a long swig from her large bottle of Gatorade Zero to give herself time to wrestle down the urge to chuck celery at them both. She ultimately settled on utilizing the one surefire way she knew to deflect their attention to a different topic. “So did you two see the jacket Hebert wore today?”
“Ugh, it looks like she fished it out of a dumpster,” Emma sneered, her expression quickly darkening into something far more sinister. “And actually, that reminds me of a great idea I had...”
She began outlining her idea for pranking Hebert when they all returned from break.
Afraid she was going to puke, Madison stopped eating.
That Saturday, the first day of winter break, Madison decided to go shopping to celebrate, so she took her binge eating vegetables on the road. Two buses and two bags full of consumed veggies later, she was at the Market. Brockton Bay was a far, far cry from a small city. The chances that she would run into a particular person by sheer chance were already slim, but to have it happen twice in the same week…
Nevertheless, she ran into Taylor Hebert—quite literally—while rounding a corner in the stalls.
She dropped the, thankfully closed, third bag of veggies she had just retrieved from her backpack and stared in disbelief. Hebert did likewise, and for a solid minute, an awkward silence stretched on between them.
Taylor moved first, stooping to pick up the bag of vegetables. “Uh, sorry about that.”
“All good,” Madison found herself saying as she accepted the proffered bag.
For a brief moment the awkwardness returned, but once more Hebert spoke up. “How’s the training going?”
She’d remembered ? A warm feeling spread through the surprised Madison’s chest.
“Oh, uh, pretty good,” she said, as she tried to parse what had just happened. She waggled the bag in her hand, drawing Hebert’s eyes to it. “Third one.”
“Today?”
“No, just for now. It’s the...” She hesitated, unsure whether to be honest. “... ninth today.”
Hebert’s eyebrows rose, and Madison tensed in preparation for a snide comment. Emma and Sophia had been peppering her with them nonstop whenever they had been together. She was quietly relieved—scratch that, very relieved—school was out and they had no plans to meet up for the moment. She doubted she could handle another week of that behavior without snapping.
“That’s good, right? If you can keep up that pace all day, I mean.”
Madison stared.
Hebert fidgeted under her gaze. “I mean, I don’t really know anything about it beyond what you mentioned. I just figured, that’s a lot of food, so you must be having some success with stretching your stomach?”
Madison continued to stare. Hebert remembered. Did she... care ?
“I’ll, uh, just—”
“That’s right.” The other girl’s mouth clicked closed, cut off mid-rant by Madison’s sudden reply. “I’ve still got a bit to go still, since I’ve got to eat five pounds of food, but I’m making progress.”
“So good then.”
A smile found its way onto Madison’s face. “Good, yeah.”
“Well... good.”
Madison’s smile widened just a bit at the ridiculousness of that reply. “Thank you, Taylor.”
Taylor coughed, her cheeks rosy from the cold, windy day. Her eyes flicked to her wrist, and she said, “I’ve got to go, but good luck with your prep, okay?” and scurried off before Madison could so much as tell her goodbye.
Or point out that Taylor wasn’t wearing a watch.
Madison stared at her phone, her vegetables and large Gatorade Zero temporarily abandoned in favor of fighting down the bile building in her gut.
Not because of her stomach expansion work. Because of the text she had just received.
It was ridiculous. It had always been ridiculous. She had played along because it seemed a small price to pay for popularity, but it had never stopped being ridiculous, the lengths Emma went to bullying her childhood friend. Madison had never managed to piece together what precisely had caused the rift between Emma and Taylor, and at this point, it no longer mattered. She should have drawn the line at the flute—she realized that now—but better late than never.
Never until that moment had Madison been more grateful that her father had stubbornly insisted on keeping a phonebook in the house or that Taylor had such a unique last name.
Should she call or go in person? The former had a built-in degree of separation, a layer of protection should Taylor take things badly. Not to mention Taylor might not even be home. Madison might get all the way to her house only to find the other girl wasn’t there.
Calling was the smart thing to do.
Fortunately, Taylor was not only home but answered the door when Madison knocked.
“Uh. Hi?”
Perhaps unfortunately. Madison had been so swept up in her own thoughts and fighting down the sick feeling in her stomach on the multiple bus rides over that she had entirely failed to decide on what to say when she arrived.
“Hi,” seemed like a good place to start, though it was obviously lacking in the substance department.
When the awkward silence settled into place between them, it almost felt comforting. At least that hadn’t changed.
“How did you figure out where I live?” Taylor eventually asked, breaking the silence.
“Phonebook.”
The corner of Taylor’s lips twitched. “I thought we were the only people who still had that sort of thing, to be honest.”
The corner of Madison’s lips twitched as well. “Yeah, I’m not sure why my Dad keeps it around.”
Taylor laughed. Just a brief chuckle, but it was there. It should have relieved the tension between them. It might have for Taylor, in truth, but it only made it worse for Madison.
She told herself she needed to just dive in, get as much of it out of the way as soon as possible. If she didn’t, it would just get harder and harder to go on until eventually she couldn’t.
It helped, thinking of this like eating a burger. It was a little sad, really, how much it had come to dominate the way she thought, but that aside, the logic still held up.
“So... why are you here?”
C’mon, Madison. Just... just do it. Jump in.
“Madison?”
“I’m sorry.”
Taylor’s face hardened, a sneer settling into place. Had she really laughed, not a minute ago? “You’re sorry ?”
Don’t stop. If you stop, you’ll fail. Keep going . “Yes. Everything I did, all the bullying... I’m sorry . And you need to know... Emma is... she’s planning to...”
She faltered, tripping over the words.
She almost stopped.
Madison shoved her cell phone into Taylor’s hands, her eyes on the other girl’s shoes so she didn’t have to watch as that expression grew worse.
“There’s no pin.” Madison blurted, forcing the words out. Unsure what else she should say, she mumbled one last, “I’m sorry.”
She left.
The school called. Madison spent the remainder of winter break grounded. All privileges, including her ‘special diet’ were revoked. Christmas was a terse affair, and though she did get a present, it was impossible to not compare it against the previous year, when she had gotten a half dozen and the holiday had been cheerful.
When school started back up in January, Sophia was nowhere to be found, and Madison began her four week after school detention. There was neither a locker filled with used pads and tampons nor anyone being shoved into such a locker—or any locker, that she was aware of. There was, however, still bullying.
This time, Madison was the target.
Somehow, against all odds, Emma had escaped with three days of detention, where she was required to write an apology letter ‘to her dearest, oldest friend’ Taylor that Madison was forced to proofread for her as part of her own punishment.
Calling it a slap on the wrist didn’t do it justice, and it certainly did nothing to deter Emma from pursuing revenge.
Madison’s locker was untouched, likely because it was too obvious of a target under the circumstances, but she was tripped multiple times on her way to homeroom, leaving her nursing her bruised knees. Someone, probably Julia, left gum in her seat in Mr. Gladly’s class and peppered her with spitballs from behind throughout class. The girl she sat next to in literature class ‘accidentally’ spilled her juice over Madison’s backpack while Emma smirked at her from her seat a few rows up. On her way to biology, she somehow stepped in loose dog shit in the middle of the hallway, and cleaning it off made her late, prompting Ms. Henderson to stop class to lecture her in front of everyone.
Whispering and snide comments followed her wherever she went, whatever she did. “Bitch.” “I heard she got caught having sex in public over break.” “Total skank.” “I swear she’s always in the bathroom forcing herself to puke.” “Traitor.” “O.M.G! Did you hear about the locker prank she was planning?!”
There was no point in going to a teacher. Taylor’s experiences before the break had certainly driven that home. So Madison endured it. Day in and day out, every day for three weeks. Best she could tell, Taylor was actually being left alone for once, and Madison did her best to ignore the ugly, sour jealousy she felt when she thought about that. Taylor deserved to not be targeted after what they—after what Madison —had done to her for so long.
That didn’t make it any easier to be the new target.
Madison foolishly allowed herself to hope when nobody bothered her for the first half of the day that Friday. She should have recognized the signs and called her parents and begged to go home early. When Madison tried to slip past Mrs. Skinner into her classroom for literature, Emma and four other girls made a big, eye-catching display of storming up to the teacher about Madison punching Emma after lunch. Madison tried to deny it, but it was five against one, and Mrs. Skinner ordered her to go to the principal’s office.
The icing on the cake was Taylor’s art class was next door, and she had stopped to watch the show.
Tears pricked at Madison’s eyes as she sat outside the principal’s office, waiting for her mother to arrive. It had all fallen apart, and she had no idea what to do about it. Could she go to Emma and throw herself at her mercy? Beg her to take her back? The thought made her sick to her stomach, bile rising in her throat, but she couldn’t keep doing this.
She couldn’t stand being so alone .
The door leading into the main office opened, and Ms. Henderson stepped in, her expression stormy. For a moment, Madison thought Emma had convinced the woman of some other imagined crime Madison had committed.
Taylor Hebert followed her in.
Madison stared, uncomprehending as Ms. Henderson said something to the secretary, ordered Taylor to sit on the bench next to Madison, and left.
“Taylor?”
The other girl turned and looked her in the eyes. She hadn’t done that since that day.
Taylor shrugged. “I figured if you were going to get in trouble for punching Emma, then somebody should actually punch her.”
Madison stared. “Oh.”
“I’m probably going to be grounded for at least the weekend... but see you Monday?”
Madison laughed, and Taylor laughed too. The secretary shushed them with a dark look. They laughed some more, and they were threatened with detention for a week.
“Apology accepted,” Taylor whispered when they had both settled down.
Madison didn’t cry. She didn’t.
They waited on judgment together in silence. It wasn’t awkward.
Bullying of Taylor resumed Monday with Emma leading the way, her swollen, black eye hidden by makeup but still apparent to anyone who knew what to look for. It quickly became clear to Madison that all of the focus had shifted back to Taylor.
The petite Madison had to throw her whole weight into knocking over Emma while on her way to Mr. Gladly’s class with Taylor. Accidentally, of course.
“So how did the Challenger go?” Taylor asked her between bites of her pita wrap as they hid together in the third floor bathroom.
“Didn’t happen,” Madison quietly replied as she fiddled with her PB&J. “I was grounded all break.”
Taylor frowned. “Are you still grounded?”
“No, but I’m still in the dog house. Pretty sure Mom wouldn’t buy me the extra vegetables.”
Their conversation moved on to other, less emotionally fraught territories from there as they worked on feeling out the new dynamic between them, and they managed to make it through Monday despite the bullying. Tuesday passed much the same.
Wednesday, Taylor broached the topic of the Challenger once again. “Do you still want to do it?”
“Yes,” Madison replied without hesitation. She didn’t need to think about it. She wanted her picture on that wall.
The other girl nodded, clearly having expected that answer. “Come by my house after school tomorrow, okay?”
Madison wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, but she agreed nonetheless. She was just happy to not be alone.
Later that afternoon, the two of them passed Emma and some other girls on their way to Mr. Gladly’s class. Emma made a snide comment later about Taylor’s mother, and when that got a reaction out of the taller girl, she doubled-down with a comment about Taylor crying herself to sleep for a week.
Madison expected Taylor to be angry but shrug it off like normal.
Instead, she started to cry.
Madison loudly asked Emma why she was hiding being half raccoon as she grabbed Taylor’s hand and dragged her into World Issues class before the other girl could retaliate but not before someone shouted, ‘Loser lesbians!’ after them.
Thursday afternoon, Madison rode the bus home with Taylor and followed her into her house through the back door into the kitchen.
Half of her fridge was chock full of fresh vegetables.
“My dad works for the Dockworker’s Association, and one of the guy’s wives works on a farm out past Captain’s Hill. I, uh, asked my dad to call in a favor. You’ll have to come back for more later, but you’re covered for the next three weeks or so.”
Madison struggled to find words. “Taylor, I... You’re talking about a lot of food. You should keep it.”
“I don’t like celery that much, thanks.”
Madison snorted. “Taylor—”
“It’s important to you, right? The Challenger. You were working hard to prepare last month and sounded upset the other day when you said you didn’t get to do it.”
“Well... Yes...”
“Then take them.”
Madison couldn’t stop the smile that wormed its way onto her face. It was nice having someone support her. “Thank you. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”
Taylor chuckled. “If it’ll convince you to take the veggies, then sure.”
Madison hauled as many of the vegetables home as she could manage. She would have to return for more later
Madison quickly got back into the swing of her preparation, and by the following Monday, she was more or less at the level of stomach expansion she had been at before being grounded over break.
“When do you think you’ll be ready?” Taylor whispered over lunch together as they hid backstage in the auditorium.
Madison quickly swallowed whole the small bite of cucumber she had just taken. “Pretty soon. I think two weeks should be enough.”
“Sounds good. I’m sure you’ll be fine,” the other girl remarked before taking a bite of her homemade chicken melt.
Madison popped another small hunk of cucumber into her mouth and swallowed as she debated whether to ask if Taylor would be there. It was the sort of thing a friend would do. And they were friends, right?
She hesitated for a moment, poised to pop another lump of cucumber into her mouth, and wrestled with her self-doubt. “You’ll come? To cheer me on?”
Taylor’s chewing slowed, a strange look in her eye, and an embarrassed flush crept over Madison’s face. Had she overstepped? Taylor had seemed interested—had gone out of her way to help with her preparation, which was very sweet of her—so Madison had thought surely ...
Taylor swallowed. For some reason she was starting to get red in the cheeks too. “Two weeks from today, you said? The Monday after next?”
“Yes...?”
The quiet in the auditorium was deafening as Madison waited for Taylor’s reply.
“Yeah. I’ll be there. We can go after school?”
Madison breathed out a sigh of relief. “Of course. And Taylor... thank you.”
Long after they had finished lunch and returned to the awful slog of a day at Winslow, Madison was still scratching her head trying to figure out why the other girl had hesitated. She knew she should know why, but she just couldn’t put her finger on it. Had she actually been uninterested and trying to figure out a polite way to turn Madison down? Had she been trying to remember whether she had other obligations? Something else?
She finally figured it out a week later when she called Fugly Bob’s to make sure there wouldn’t be problems doing the Challenger the following Monday.
Emma had been spreading rumors that Madison and Talyor were lesbians... and Madison had asked Taylor to come with her to a restaurant on Valentine’s Day .
She blushed every time she met Taylor’s eyes the rest of the week.
“Are you busy this Sunday?”
Taylor paused, her sandwich halfway to her mouth, and lowered it down to her lap. Madison refused to look her in the eye. She’d already had a tough time trying to keep her cool this week when interacting with her friend—Taylor was just her friend, her comrade bullying victim—and she was certain she would spontaneously combust if she actually dared to look Taylor in the eyes while asking to visit her house .
“I don’t have any plans,” the other girl replied curiously. “Did you have something in mind?”
“Well, uh. All the stuff online says I’m supposed to do a ‘max out’ meal the day before the challenge...”
“Oh. Right, I remember reading that.” She’d looked into the topic? Did that mean something? Should it mean something? “A bit less than a full day beforehand, right? Eat until you can’t anymore?”
Madison numbly nodded. “Right. Eighteen to twenty-two hours beforehand. I figure I’ll aim for the middle, go for twenty hours.”
“Do you... need somewhere to eat?”
At least this time, Madison’s blush was justifiable. It was embarrassing talking about her family issues. “My parents... they wouldn’t approve. They’d probably stop me because it’s... well, unladylike .”
Taylor huffed out a small laugh. “I’d offer my place, but you’d have to meet my dad.” Madison’s traitorous face grew hot, but if Taylor noticed, she didn’t say so as she continued, “He and I are... Well, things haven’t been great since... since Mom died.”
That was really sad. And also sounded incredibly awkward. “I understand. I’ll figure something out.”
“There’s a park with a few picnic tables not too far away from my house,” Taylor abruptly added. “They’re, you know, not well kept up, but they’re better than nothing. I could help you carry everything over and cheer you on.”
“Great,” Madison did not squeak.
Two days later, Madison knocked on the door to Taylor’s kitchen, and the taller girl opened it a moment later, her arms laden with grocery bags. They awkwardly orchestrated a hand off of all of them to Madison, and when Taylor ducked back inside to grab the rest, Madison swore she saw a glimpse of a thin, balding man in the upstairs window. When she looked more intently though, no one was there, and Taylor came out a moment later with her arms once more loaded up with bags.
They talked about everything and nothing as they lugged everything over to the park. A book Taylor had just finished reading. A movie Madison wanted to see next month. Mr. Gladly’s latest inane efforts to be the ‘cool’ teacher. Comparing the awful ways Greg Veder had come on to each of them before.
It was nice— very nice—being able to talk freely without worrying about being discovered by Emma or one of her lackeys.
They reached the park before too long, and Taylor pulled out pork chops seasoned with lemon and pepper with a medley of corn and peas on the side for herself. It looked tasty, but Madison didn’t dare partake. She needed to fill herself to maximum capacity, but she also needed everything to be out in time for tomorrow.
Madison reached into the bags, expecting only the vegetables she had been eating the past couple of weeks. Cucumber, carrots, tomatoes, cauliflower, lettuce—anything that was relatively easy to eat raw once washed, since she didn’t have access to a kitchen. And while she did find that, there were also tupperware containers full of what looked like a mix of diced steamed veggies.
“You’re supposed to eat as much as you can as quickly as you can, right?” Taylor remarked when she saw Madison’s surprise. “I figured it would be easier for you to push yourself if it was steamed. We, uh, don’t have a steamer, but it’s actually not hard to do it with a colander, a pot, and some water. If you don’t like that, then there’s still plenty of what you’ve been eating. Oh! And I didn’t know if you liked melon, but I, uh, got you some cantaloupe and honeydew for at the end when you’re straining to eat more... Uh...”
Taylor’s rapid-fire speech trailed off when she noticed Madison was staring.
“Is... Is that alright?” she asked, suddenly sounding so unsure of herself.
Whatever vestiges of doubt had been left in Madison bled away. Taylor cared . It was so obvious that she wondered how she hadn’t properly noticed before. Was this the chatterbox side of Taylor that Emma had derided?
It was adorable. She was adorable.
And Madison had helped crush that for over a year.
“Why?”
Taylor blinked, her brow pinching together ever so slightly and her expressive mouth curling into the barest hints of a pout. “Why? I did it without asking you, and we’ve only just— I mean, I wasn’t sure if—”
“Taylor,” Madison gently interrupted, her heart somehow swelling with adoration and shame at the same time. “I did... a lot of bad things to you. I don’t deserve this. You have every right to hate me. So why are you being so kind ?”
The other girl’s head owlishly tilted just a bit to the side. “Well yeah. You were awful .”
Her frankness shocked a coughing laugh out of Madison. Taylor’s lips quirked into a grin for a moment before becoming serious again. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it. When you stopped bullying me in November, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. When you started being polite, I was only nice back because I hoped it would encourage you to not start back up. When you showed up at my house and said you were sorry... I thought that was it. You were lying, obviously, so somehow you were setting me up for something. Maybe you would claim I stole your phone or something. All I knew for sure was that those texts corroborated what I had been telling the teachers and tracking in my journal. I couldn’t figure out what trap you had planned... so I decided to chance it.”
She chuckled, but there was no humor behind it. “You want to know what’s funny? Even when Sophia didn’t show up again and you had all that detention and were the one being bullied, I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. For your crazy Rube Goldberg plan to finally pan out and leave me even worse off than before. Eventually I told myself I should enjoy it. That I should be happy you were finally getting what was coming to you. But I couldn’t do it. So many people watched me be bullied without lifting a finger to help. I couldn’t be that kind of person. And somewhere along the way? I realized you had become the closest thing I had to a friend.
“So I, uh... I stopped doing nothing.”
Madison had been hanging on Taylor’s every word and was so swept up that a snort of laughter bubbled up out of her before she could even think to stifle it. “Was giving her that black eye as satisfying as I imagine it was?”
Taylor’s expressive lips curled up into a proper grin this time. “No comment.”
“You’re my friend too, Taylor. And I’m... I’m sorry it took me so long to stop and my apology was utter garbage.”
Taylor’s expression dimmed for a moment before brightening back up. “Let’s call it heartfelt.”
Madison grinned. “Heartfelt garbage, got it.”
They shared a laugh.
“I’m pretty sure my porkchop is stupid cold by now,” Taylor remarked with a furrowed brow and a scrunched up nose as she prodded the meat with her knife and fork.
Did the other girl even realize how adorable she was when she made that face? Madison was half tempted to invent scenarios just to elicit the expression.
“If it makes you feel better, we’re in the same boat,” she replied, hoping Taylor would think the wind was the reason for her heated cheeks.
Taylor’s head tilted owlishly again, her grin smoothing out into a smile. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”
Madison coughed and pulled one of the tupperware containers of steamed veggies over while fumbling with the fork still in the bag. “Geez, the wind out here is something, huh?” she blurted. Her grip on the fork tightened so much she feared she was going to bend it. Stupid stupid stupid ! So stupid! How much more obvious could she be?!
Taylor said nothing at first, and for a brief moment, Madison thought she might keel over and die of embarrassment on the spot. A half a second later, Taylor agreed. “Right? It’s kinda crazy, really. We should eat up and get back inside.”
Madison leapt on the excuse to change topics and started in. She ate. And ate. And ate .
The steamed vegetables were too large to just swallow, but the pieces were soft enough from being steamed that she could easily bite off chunks small enough to swallow without really needing to chew. She spared a brief moment to say ‘thank you’ in her head to Taylor for being so thoughtful but didn’t dare stop eating. She took a quick swig of water to clear her mouth then kept at it. She couldn’t stop tomorrow, and that meant she couldn’t stop today.
She was so busy inhaling food that she quickly lost track of how long she had actually been eating. But she reassured herself that was okay. The point of the max-out meal wasn’t to pay close attention to time. It was to eat .
Fatigue eventually began to settle in. All the taste had disappeared, and her tongue, jaw, and arm were tired from the unceasing, repetitive motions. Little by little, her previously blistering pace slowed to a crawl, and the urge to stop began to become overwhelming.
“You’ve got this!”
Madison froze, completely caught off guard. Her eyes flicked up to Taylor’s, which were watching her with so much intensity it was painful.
“Don’t stop, Madison! C’mon, you can do this!”
She jerked into motion, cramming another tasteless spoonful of peas and carrots into her mouth and swallowed on reflex.
“That’s right! Keep it up!”
Madison redoubled her pace, and Taylor tore the lid off another container of veggies, sliding it into place as Madison finished off the one she was working on. She kept eating and eating, and eventually Taylor slid another container into place, and Madison scooped up a spoonful without even looking, and—
Pure, unadulterated bliss lit up her tongue like fireworks, and she was moaning in pleasure before she could even think about censoring herself, much less actually do it.
She almost stopped, her cheeks on fire.
“Don’t stop, Mads! Go! Go!”
Her spoon was moving, her thoughts awhirl. Orange and green, but not carrots and peas. Cantaloupe and honeydew. Mads? Had Taylor called her Mads ? And oh god, her tongue was singing , a perfect dissonance with her stomach’s swelling sedition. But she couldn’t stop. Stopping meant failing, and Taylor was cheering her on, and—
A hand grabbed hers.
Wild-eyed, Madison twitched. Her spoon fell onto the aged, uncared for wood of the picnic table. Empty .
“Mads?”
Madison tried to take a deep breath, and she swore she felt her lungs push against her bloated stomach. “Tay?”
“How do you feel?”
“Full,” she blurted. A distant part of her complained that was a stupid answer. She was stupid for saying it, and stupid for having done this to herself.
It sounded a lot like Emma.
Taylor coughed, not quite managing to hide her smile behind her free hand. “That was the goal.”
Her free hand. Madison realized the other girl was still holding her hand.
“Which do you want first: The good news or the bad news?”
Madison blinked. What. “Bad.”
“It took you an hour and ten minutes to finish everything.”
The time limit for the Challenger was only an hour.
She started to cry. No warm up, no warning. Just instant tears. Could she push back the challenge? Did she need to cancel altogether?
“Madison,” Taylor gently interrupted. “You didn’t ask what the good news is.”
She couldn’t bring herself to ask. It didn’t matter. She hadn’t stopped, but she’d failed anyway. Her parents had been right to stop here. Why had she ever thought she could do this? That she deserved to have her picture on that wall?
“You ate eight pounds of food.”
Madison’s heart skipped a beat, her tears intensifying but with laughter mixed in.
The Fugly Bob Challenger was only five pounds.
Madison was certain she had never peed so much in one day in her life. Hiding her distended belly from her parents would have been difficult enough without the unending trips to the bathroom. With them, it was quite possibly a literal miracle.
She had to go as soon as she and Taylor finished the far, far more difficult return trip to the other girl’s house. Fortunately, her father’s car hadn’t been in the driveway when they arrived, so she hadn’t needed to bother with trying—and undoubtedly failing—to stealth her way into the Hebert household’s first floor bathroom.
Taylor had offered Madison one of her hoodies to help hide her suddenly swollen stomach, and Madison had taken her up on it without hesitation, albeit with her heated face undoubtedly obvious. The bumpy bus ride home was horrendous with her bloated as she was, and her misery was compounded when some girls she didn’t recognize got on the bus, noticed her holding her bulging belly, and started joking with each other within her hearing range about ‘the knocked up slut.’
She already had the entirety of Winslow set against her. It seemed fitting to be branching out.
Her mother had questions when she got home.
“Where did you get that hoodie?” “I spilled something on myself, and my friend lent it to me to cover it up until I got home.”
“Are you feeling okay? You look pale.” “I think it was something I ate.”
“You should go lay down. What do you want brought up for dinner?” “No food. Just water. I’m just going to rest.”
Two truths and one lie. At least the lies were in the minority.
She went to the bathroom. She rested. She drank water constantly. Only a bit at a time, but constantly.
Rinse and repeat ad nauseum.
She couldn’t stop. The water would help her process and digest everything. She needed to empty out.
Taylor called her house to check on her.
“How did you get my number?” “We have this thing called a phonebook.”
“How’re you feeling?” “The bus ride home was so bad .”
She stopped drinking water an hour before bed. She still had to get up three times in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.
The next morning she got up early and fended off her parents’ concern.
“You can stay home today, if you’re still not feeling well.” “No, no. I’m okay. Besides, I have plans after school.” “Okay, have fun.”
Admittedly, she had been tempted by that offer, but she didn’t want to leave her friend in the lurch with the bullies. And they did have plans to go to Fugly Bob’s together after school.
Madison drank some more water and stopped at a smoothie place on the way to school to get a meal-substitute smoothie. It wasn’t until she got to school and she saw Taylor’s look of surprise that she realized she had worn Taylor’s hoodie again.
She was wearing a t-shirt underneath, so she could take it off. She’d only be a bit chilly.
She liked the warmth though, so she kept it on.
She went to the bathroom between every class, and Taylor ran interference with Emma without needing to be asked.
The bell rang, she went to the bathroom once again, and she got on the bus with Taylor.
Her heart thundered in her chest when Fugly Bob’s came into view.
“You’ve got this.”
That didn’t actually help her thundering heart, but she appreciated it all the same. “Thanks, Tay.”
Taylor smiled, which also did not help. “No problem, Mads.”
Madison abruptly realized they had switched to using pet names for each other sometime over the weekend, and she hadn’t noticed.
That very much so did not help.
She used the bathroom one last time while Taylor gave the staff her order.
Madison was as empty as she could possibly be. And there was an empty spot on the Challenger wall with her name on it.
Eight half-pound patties, cooked medium rare to order, with sixteen strips of bacon paired with eight slices of cheese dividing them. A single knife held the towering pillar of meat and the lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, ketchup, and mustard together between two innocuous buns.
Some of the patrons in the restaurant paused their meal to watch in surprise as one of the staff set the gargantuan, five pound burger in front of her, a fifteen-year-old five foot four slip of a girl, while another placed the three drinks Madison had requested on the table: A glass of water, lemonade, and a diet coke. Taylor held the knife handle for her and readied her timer while Madison slipped her earbuds into place and queued up the hour-long playlist she had prepared before passing that to Taylor as well.
Madison took a deep breath and removed the two sky blue pins holding back her hair, tying it all back and out of her face with a simple brown hairband.
“You’ve got this,” Taylor whispered.
Madison was ready.
She took a deep breath, placed her hands on the burger, and nodded to the staff member.
“Begin!”
Taylor carefully pulled the knife out, and Madison immediately began dissembling the burger and popping the pickles into her mouth, swallowing them before the taste had much chance to hit her tongue. Music filled her ears, drowning out the sounds of the restaurant. Her least favorite part—done.
She tore through the rest of the toppings next, allowing brief pauses here and there to take quick, almost furtive sips of water to ease the passage of the roughage down her throat. The next easiest pieces to digest—done.
She thought more people in the restaurant might have begun watching, but didn’t dare move her eyes away from the burger to confirm. She inhaled the first two patties, along with their paired cheese and bacon strips in what felt like the blink of an eye. First quarter of the burger—done.
She swished the last of the water in her mouth for a second before swallowing, plonking the empty glass on the table, and tearing into the next two sets of patties, cheese, and bacon. She could feel herself slowing slightly, but she wasn’t in trouble yet. First half of the burger—done.
Her pace began to drag as taste fatigue crept in, and she fought to keep it at bay with the lemonade, the non-carbonated beverage going down easy and rejuvenating her taste buds. It was definitely tougher than earlier, but the pairing with the sweet lemonade helped her push through. First three quarters of the burger—done.
Her stomach complained bitterly as she started in on the last of the meat and cheese. Good god, it was awful . She almost stole a glance at the timer Taylor was balancing upright on the table but resisted at the last second. Stopping for the lemonade was bad enough already. She refused to slip up this close to the victory line. The last of the lemonade disappeared into her before she was done with the meat and cheese, and her speed suffered for it, but she muddled through, gulping down the last, tiny bite of beef. Everything but the buns—done.
Madison reached for the first half of the bread with shaky fingers and groaned as the first coarse chunk of it hit her tongue. She was positive she had never been more repulsed by bread a day in her life than she was in that moment. Piece by agonizing piece, she ripped away at the bread and swallowed them down. She popped the last of that half of bread into her mouth and grabbed the diet coke, taking a swig of the swill and only just barely managing to let the substance trickle down her throat. She belched, expelling some of the gas that had been filling up her stomach, which had been the whole point. Still, strategy be damned, ordering diet coke had been a mistake. She detested diet drinks but had thought the carbless beverage would be the better bet.
She was wrong. No more of it. She’d have to do without.
Only one half of bread left, but she had stopped. Her stride, her rhythm—broken. Her hands shook as she reached for the lone remaining piece of bun and fumbled it. She cried out, tears pricking her eyes as it tumbled off the table.
Taylor snatched it mid-air. The timer laid face-down and forgotten on the table next to the discarded knife.
How much time did she have left? What song was playing? What was the order of the playlist again?
A hand at her ear. Cheers began to mix in with the music, but one voice was closer than any other and drowned the rest out.
“ You’ve got this .”
Taylor put the bread in Madison’s hand.
“Don’t stop, Mads!”
Madison gripped the bread and started biting at it.
“C’mon, you can do this!”
She tried to lose herself in the rhythm to ignore the awful taste and the coarse texture scraping her tongue.
“That’s right! Keep it up!”
Bite, chew, swallow. Bite, chew, swallow. Bite—
“Don’t stop, Mads! Go! Go!”
Bite, chew, swallow, bite, chew, swallow, bitechewswallow, bitechewswallow, bitechewswallowbitechewswallowbite—!
A hand grabbed hers, a crowd roared, then she was being tugged into warm arms.
Taylor’s arms.
“You did it, Mads! You did it!”
Madison numbly wrapped her own around her friend. “I did it?”
Half the restaurant was cheering cacophonously, and so was some of the staff .
“Mhm,” Taylor hummed, leaning in to be heard over the crowd. Her lips tickled Madison’s ear. “You did it.”
A staff member took her picture. Their picture, since she wrapped her arm around Taylor and refused to let go. "I couldn't have done it without her, so take her picture ."
Taylor’s dad drove them home. Apparently she had told him what was going to be happening, so Madison wouldn’t have to endure a bus ride like yesterday. “Not normally how I meet someone,” he joked.
Halfway to Taylor’s house, Madison discovered she had lost her hair pins at the restaurant. She realized she didn’t miss the bright colors as much as she thought she would.
When the car’s engine went quiet in the Heberts’ driveway, Madison realized it was getting late and she hadn’t told her parents when she would be home. Taylor told her not to worry. Apparently she had asked permission for Madison to stay the night when she called the night prior, before the phone had even been handed off to Madison.
Madison didn’t notice she was holding Taylor’s hand until her dad started discussing sleeping arrangements with Taylor, stressing he didn’t want to find her and her girlfriend sleeping together.
Girlfriend?
“You won’t,” Taylor rejoined with a roll of her eyes. “I’ll take the couch, and she can take my room.”
She wasn’t denying that Madison was her girlfriend. Why wasn’t she denying that Madison was her girlfriend?
Madison really, really needed to use the bathroom when Taylor’s dad finally made his way upstairs, but some things were more important than mutinous digestive systems.
“Why did you—? Are we—? Taylor?!”
“Mads?”
“Your dad thinks I’m your girlfriend!” Madison hissed, her face so hot she was afraid it was about to burst into flames.
Taylor’s brow pinched together in confusion and not an insignificant amount of worry. “Wha—? But I thought—? I was so sure I was reading things right though! Was this really not a date?!”
Madison gaped like a fish, and Taylor stared at her, wild-eyed and disconcerted.
It still made no sense to Madison, how this amazingly sweet girl could care about her so much. She didn’t deserve it at all. But for some reason Taylor wanted her...
And she wanted Taylor back.
Madison kissed her then all but sprinted to the bathroom. Only then did she realize that it probably wasn't the best idea to kiss her girlfriend within an hour of wolfing down five pounds of burger.
It wasn’t the best first date, but it was definitely a memorable one.