After I Lost Weight They Knelt And Begged For Forgiveness Chapter 01
The day before my high school reunion, the girl who’d bullied me for three years dropped a video into our class group chat.
The video showed my 220-pound high school self trapped inside a bathroom stall.
A sheet of paper was taped to the back of my varsity T-shirt.
【NO FEEDING THE PIG.】
The group chat exploded.
【Holy shit. She’s actually coming?】
【Think the hotel chairs can hold her?】
【After all these years, she probably can’t even fit through the front door.】
Jenna Hayworth, the queen bee who’d led the whole thing back then, tagged me directly.
【Sienna, everyone wants to see you. You have to come.】
Within a minute, someone had started a betting pool on whether I’d actually show.
Jenna put down $2,000 that I wouldn’t.
Ryan Whitmore—the boy I’d secretly loved for three whole years, former varsity quarterback and Lincoln High’s golden boy—threw in his bet too.
【If she actually shows up, I’ll hug her in front of everyone.】
【Call it my apology for the way things were back then.】
The group chat lost its mind.
I stared at the video that had woken me from nightmares more times than I could count.
My knuckles went white.
None of them knew.
I’d already gone from 220 pounds to 100.
And none of them knew I’d just signed with the very company Jenna would kill to get into.
Quietly, I put down $10,000.
Betting that I’d be there on time.
Then, in the middle of the flood of laughter and jeering, I sent a single message.
【I’ll be there.】
…
For a solid fifteen seconds after the message went through, the chat went dead silent.
Then the entire group lit up like someone had struck a match.
【???】
【Wait. Sienna actually put down ten grand?】
【Where’d she even get ten grand? Did she borrow it?】
【So who’s taking the money at the end? Ground rule: no backing out.】
Jenna was the first to jump in.
【Sienna, don’t be reckless.】
【We’re all just kidding around. If money’s tight for you, pull it back before it’s too late.】
She was still the same Jenna.
Every word wrapped around a blade, delivered with a face that pretended to care about me.
For three years in high school, this was exactly how she operated.
She’d have someone dump my lunch straight into the trash, then giggle behind her hand.
【Oh my God, I’m just worried you can’t control yourself. I’m helping you diet.】
She’d toss my gym clothes into the boys’ bathroom and force me to spend the entire day in something wet and reeking.
She’d corner me in the girls’ bathroom, force me onto a digital scale, and make me read the number out loud in front of a crowd.
Then, finally, she taped that 【NO FEEDING THE PIG】 sign to my back and had the whole class line up to take pictures.
Now she was dredging that video up again and dropping it into the group.
Just to remind everyone.
That no matter how many years had passed, I was still the same joke she could push around whenever she felt like it.
I pulled up the betting rules.
Jenna had put down two thousand that I wouldn’t come. Everyone else had thrown in another six-something in scraps.
I was the only one who’d bet ten thousand that I would.
I typed slowly.
【Relax. I can afford to lose it.】
Jenna sent back a laughing emoji.
【Good to know. I was worried you’d chicken out when the moment came.】
Someone chimed in.
【Jenna, chill. Maybe she’s been doing great these last few years.】
【Even if she’s broke, how hard can it be to scrape together ten grand? Just skip a couple of meals. LMAO.】
The screen filled with laughing faces.
I was about to close out of the chat when a DM slid in.
Ryan Whitmore.
Back when I was still hopelessly in love with him, he had a bad stomach, so I’d bring an extra bowl of oatmeal to school every morning and quietly stock him up on Gatorade.
Later, he taped the love letter I’d written him across an entire row of hallway lockers and asked the whole school, laughing:
【Guys, if she sat on me, would I even survive?】
The whole hallway laughed so hard the desks shook.
Now he was messaging me.
【Are you actually coming?】
【We were all young back then. Kids do stupid stuff. Don’t take it to heart.】
I stared at those words and almost laughed.
So that’s all it took for a bully to grow up—to wave away everything he’d done with two little words: We were young.
【Also, that thing I said in the group about hugging you? I was just trying to lighten the mood.】
【Don’t read into it. I have a girlfriend now.】
I finally wrote back.
【Noted.】
Like he was afraid I still had feelings for him, he immediately added:
【She’ll be there tonight too. Keep your distance. I don’t want her feeling uncomfortable.】
I didn’t reply.
I’d just set my phone down when the doorbell rang.
My agent, Lauren Vance, hauled two massive suitcases through the door and frowned the moment she saw me.
“Don’t you have a high school reunion tomorrow?”
“That’s your reaction? Anyone watching would think you were heading downstairs to pick up a UPS package.”
She unzipped one of the cases. A dozen gowns hung inside, none of which had made a public appearance yet.
I gave them a quick glance.
“Too much.”
Lauren almost laughed out of pure frustration.
“Tomorrow night at eight sharp, you’re getting your official signing announcement. The launch party is on the rooftop of The Sterling Hotel.”
“You were planning to show up in a hoodie?”
She pulled out a silver satin gown, held it up against me, and shook her head.
“No. Too sweet.”
Then she picked out a black velvet dress.
Nothing complicated about it. The waistline was cut to perfection.
“This one.”
“Tomorrow night, I guarantee every single person who ever looked down on you is going to question their entire existence.”
I turned toward the full-length mirror.
The woman in the reflection was slender, her features sharp and cool.
From 220 pounds to 100.
It had taken me five years.
No one knew what those days had been like, the days when I couldn’t even bear to look at myself in the mirror.
And no one knew that Stellar Entertainment—the company Jenna had failed to get into three times—had just placed one of its top-tier talent deals in front of me.
Lauren pressed the day’s itinerary into my hand.
“Contract signing in the morning. Wardrobe fitting in the afternoon. Seven p.m. at The Sterling.”
“Eight sharp. Official announcement across every platform.”
I looked down at the schedule.
The reunion was on the third floor of the hotel.
My signing gala was on the roof.
One of them was desperate to drag me back into the past.
The other was waiting to walk me into an entirely new future.