VIII
How many evenings had Trent spent keeping vigil outside Sarah’s doorway? Given some time alone with focus, and perhaps a calculator for good measure, there was no doubt Trent could easily sort it out. In the grand scheme of things, Trent understood that his vigil was a paltry matter – something that he would scarcely remember a few months from now, let alone years from now. Already he found the feverish intensity of his worry and concerns hard to recapture in his own mind – the memory was well on its way to becoming mundane. Yet what Trent did still recall was the manic desire to just throw open this door and see Sarah, to speak with her, and to sate his own desperate worries for her health and well-being. A goodly portion of his vigils had consisted of Trent daydreaming about throwing open Sarah’s door, and finding her gleeful at his valor rather than angry at his indiscretion. Obviously he never quite grew courageous (or perhaps desperate is the better word?) enough to act on the impulse, but that daydream persisted all the while.
‘So why am I not throwing open this door right now?’ Trent asked himself, staring blankly at the closed door – the previously molten ramen noodles cooling rapidly in his hands. His first thought was that it had simply become a habit – deeply ingrained via tenacity and resolve rather than lengthy routine. But that wasn’t the reason. Trent knew the reason. He was scared.
Part of that fear was that, despite his jubilant relief at Sarah having finally come around, Trent had absolutely no idea what he would say to her when he first went into the room. He hadn’t felt so uncertain and feeble with his words since the early stages of their budding relationship – when he felt like he needed to make her last at least once a day to hold her interest.
Another part of that fear was that the rumors he had been hearing might be true. Maybe Trent would throw open the door, all ready to celebrate and make merry, and find that even though Sarah had emerged from the thick of whatever this sickness had been, she was nonetheless changed by it. Maybe whatever had been happening to her breasts truly had gone into overdrive and her body would be ruined by it. Again, visions of The Blob danced through his head and he imagined great masses of veiny flesh enveloping Sarah’s body like tumorous growths.
But the greatest part of his fear was simply the emotion he felt underscoring all the others: wounded anger. Though Trent was elated at having received word from Sarah that she was through the worst of it, and even more ecstatic when she had bid him to come pay her a visit, he was nonetheless aware that these feelings were somewhat hollow and muddied by the frustration and resentment that had been snowballing inside of him for the long weeks of his vigil. ‘Why won’t she see me?’ ‘Why Yumi and not me?’ ‘Why doesn’t she trust me?’ ‘Why, why why…’ and so on. Trent was afraid of how he might react, despite his relief, and despite the stark realization this experience had afforded him: that he really did love this girl.
After so many days spent fantasizing about throwing open Sarah’s door and barging in like Luke Skywalker, Trent surprised himself by unconsciously opening the door on an impulse during his stormy ruminations. Suddenly he was standing, doorknob still in hand, with the threshold of Sarah’s dorm room partly opened. Then she spoke.
“Trent? Please tell me that is you.” Sarah’s voice was a bit weak, a bit raspy, and a lot quiet. But it was unmistakably her own, and Trent was relieved anew to find that it filled him with a welcome warmth and mirth.
“I am happy to say that it is.” Trent stepped into the room. Sarah reclined in her bed, bundled snugly among her blankets. Her skin was sallow, and her hair looked as though a family of canaries might have taken up residence in it.
“Oh my, look at you.” Trent surprised himself by saying this with a lilt of good humor. She smiled at him, and those fears and doubts that had briefly held him captive at her door suddenly seemed more like shadow puppets on the wall. He smiled back at her.
“Oh my, look at me.” Sarah responded, with a resigned sort of humor in her voice. She maintained eye contact, and Trent saw something burning in there.
“Do I ask how you’re feeling? I probably should have brought some topics for small talk with me.” Trent teased. Sarah’s smile widened, and she closed her eyes for a moment.
“Ask me whatever the hell you want I guess. I feel fine.” She caught the incredulous look on Trent’s face and then added, “Okay, that’s bullshit. But compared to how I was feeling, I feel incredible right now.”
“Yeeesh, was it really that bad?” Trent had intended this to be a sincere question, and only caught onto the snarky way it could be interpreted when Sarah’s eyes shot open and she gave him a good-humored look of shock.
“The stones on you, man.” Sarah said with a tone of mock indignation.
“That is not what I meant.” Trent felt his cheeks blush.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trust me, I can FEEL what a trainwreck I look like right now. Like I’m thinking I’ll end up taking a two separate 30-minute showers – one to scrub myself clean, and then another just to untangle my hair.”
“Shit, you might need to up those to an hour honestly.” Trent said this with a grin. Sarah’s eyes narrowed in response.
“Easy now, it’s only charming when it’s on accident.”
“So sorry.” Trent raised his hands like an outlaw being arrested – his favored sign of peace. He became vacantly aware of the bitter stench permeating the dorm room.
“Well are you gonna hug my neck or what?” Sarah said, laying her head back against her pillow and spreading her arms in open invitation. Trent obliged happily enough, stooping down and wrapping his arms tightly around and clasping his own forearms behind Sarah’s back.
Lifting her slightly off the bed in the process, Trent was shocked at the unexpected twinge of pain he felt in his back. Sarah felt like dead weight in his arms – considerably heavier than he was accustomed to. A strange softness pressed slightly into his lower abdomen as he hugged Sarah against him, and for the briefest moment his mind allowed him to believe that pressure was just her wadded blanket caught between them. But then The Blob announced itself more properly in the form of a heavy shifting around the periphery of his vision. For a moment Trent could do little more than stare at the bulging shape pooled in Sarah’s lap.
“Oh no.” Sarah’s eyes were likewise locked onto her own lap, and when Trent shifted his gaze upward he found that her eyes were swimming with tears. “Oh no, oh no, what the fuck is this?”
“Is that…” Trent trailed off, his mind felt as though it was being pulled in several different directions. “Is that your, uh…” Words failed Trent, as he felt obliged to simultaneously figure out what was going on, while also sparing Sarah’s feelings as he saw that she was apparently just as shocked as he felt. Sarah seemed not to hear him either way. Her hands ripped at the blanket with feverish intensity, and in one sweeping motion, the blanket was tossed aside to the floor.
Kermit the Frog’s face was distorted into a rictus as Sarah’s night shirt stretched ponderously over the expanse of her bosom. The fabric, already threadbare with years of service, appeared to be barely holding together – perhaps more out of habit than anything else. Trent felt quite certain that it would take little more than a jostle to bust a seam or perhaps cause a tear somewhere around the over-taxed perimeter of the shirt. The hem of the shirt was pulled up and bunched as though Sarah had simply tossed and turned so much in her sleep as to make it askew, but Trent knew – could plainly see – that the shirt had not been “pulled up” by restless sleep.
Her breasts were too large for the shirt. That was all. Trent diagnosed the problem with the matter-of-fact casualness that a mechanic might diagnose a tire with worn-out treads. It was obvious by the fact that the swells of her breasts stretched the countenance of Kermit the Frog until he was hardly recognizable; by the fact that the hem of the shirt had plainly been stretched out of shape by the bulging mass of Sarah’s tits; by the fact that the fleshy orbs of said tits poured out of the bottom hem of the shirt; and very much by the fact that bottom hem of the shirt, already stretched nearly to the limit, appeared to be cutting into the swells of Sarah’s boobs as they extended out from the confines of the shirt. The result was that the lower reaches of Sarah’s bosom bulged out from the shirt like muffin tops out of a baking sheet.
‘Her uncle gave her that shirt.’ Trent’s flummoxed mind latched onto this rememberance in its desperate search for rational purchase. ‘She loves that shirt because her uncle gave it to her.’ Along with the thought came a ludicrous sense of purpose as Trent marveled at the fact that somehow the shirt had survived thus far through the bizarre ordeal, and it seemed to Trent like making sure the shirt survived all the way through was a damn noble undertaking. First Sarah placed her raised her hands, which had been laying limply at her sides, and placed them gently on top of the bulging shelf of her chest still covered by the shirt, and then she traced the bulk of each breast bringing her hands to the swells of fleshing pushing out of the confines of the shirt. ‘Jesus Christ, her hands are so small.’ Trent was stricken by the image. Then Sarah made to lift the massive breasts from their perch atop her lap, and this snapped Trent back to conscious reality.
“Whoa, don’t!” Trent darted over to Sarah’s bedside, arms outstretched cautiously.
“Oh no.” Sarah muttered again to herself in a pitiful whimper as she succeeded in doing little more than making her dainty hands nearly vanish in the softness of her bosom. Trent wondered idly if they were as heavy as they looked.
“Hey, let’s get that shirt off so it doesn’t tear or anything.” As he spoke, Trent registered how very much like a line it sounded. ‘Hey baby, why don’t you take off your clothes and stay a while?’ And yet, Trent also registered how very little like a line it felt. His mind was hazy, and it wouldn’t be until later that Trent realized that his fixation on preserving the shirt had been some sort of coping mechanism. Regardless, Sarah still didn’t seem to be hearing him at all. Instead she sat, boobs resting heavily in her lap, hands pressing lightly into each one, and a dazed expression on her face.
“Sarah. Hey. Sarah, look at me.” Trent first snapped his fingers, then clapped his hands lightly near Sarah’s ear before finally gently turning her head around to face him.
“Sarah, just look at me.” Her eyes cleared up a little and she looked into Trent’s own. “Let’s get that shirt off so it doesn’t get ruined okay? You don’t want it to get ruined.” Trent spoke solemnly, and gazed fixedly into Sarah’s eyes while he waited to see her reaction. For a moment he thought she was still tuning him out, but then she nodded. She wriggled around a little to gather up the hem of her shirt, and then made as if she were about to peel it up over her head, but then she stopped and looked up at Trent.
“Wait, you won’t, like, laugh or scream or anything?” Sarah’s eyes were still swimming in tears, but they hadn’t begun to spill quite yet.
“What the hell? No? Are you serious?” Trent barked vexed laughter despite himself. “Why in the world would I possibly laugh or scream at you?”
“Well fucking look at me! I might laugh or scream at myself!” Sarah rounded on him, genuine frustration burning in her face and her voice.
“Okay, well then shame on you. Don’t be so judgmental.” At first Sarah just glared at Trent, but then she surprised him by laughing.
“Judgmental? Are you fucking serious?” Sarah’s laughter seemed genuine, but it was tinged with a sort of mania that Trent didn’t care for. The tears finally began to run down her cheeks.
“Oh, what the fuck is happening?” She said this last with a tone of utter perplexity, and her eyes shifted back down toward her own chest.
“I don’t know what the fuck is happening. But let’s just take it one step at a time, okay?” Trent bent lower and kissed Sarah’s head.
“Let’s get that shirt off before it gets ruined. You love that shirt, and the last thing you need right now is to ruin it for no reason.” The smile Sarah yielded nearly broke Trent’s heart, though it had flashed across her face for only an instant before she resumed peeling the shirt over her head.
There was a foreboding sound of rending threads, and so Sarah was forced to painstakingly roll the hem of the shirt up and over the enormous swell of her boobs to avoid tearing it. Once the hem escaped the wider expanse of Sarah’s chest, it was easy enough to pull off the rest of the way. As Trent held the shirt up to neatly fold it and set it aside, he saw how badly stretched the lower regions of it had become. The shirt had always technically been too small, at least for as long as Trent had known Sarah. Apparently it had been a gift when Sarah was younger, and once she had grown ‘too old’ or ‘too cool’ to rock Kermit the Frog then Sarah had conscripted the shirt to serve near full-time as her designated sleeping shirt.
Turning back towards Sarah, Trent was frankly dumbstruck by what he saw. The twin bulges of Sarah’s breasts hung ponderously from her chest and pooled in a heap atop her lap. Their heavy softness was evident by the manner in which they spread wide at the points where they met the very tops of her thighs. They looked somewhat malformed, no longer bearing the pretty perkiness to which he had been accustomed, but he couldn’t readily determine if that was owed to deformity or just the effect of being pressed into her lap as they presently were. A great, rasping sob racked Sarah’s torso, and Trent tore his eyes away from the massive breasts as they began to jostle and shake in rhythm with her continued sobs.
She didn’t appear to be crying, or at least not the bawling tears that usually accompanied sobs. Though her cheeks still shined with streaks of moisture, little of it was new, and Trent felt momentarily frightened because Sarah’s sobs sounded more like choking than crying – as though she were gasping for breath after being held under water for too long. Then Trent realized that she was hyperventilating, and he sprung up, looking around madly for a bag to breath into. It had been so long since anyone had been routinely coming and going from this dorm that there was absolutely nothing on hand.
“Shit.” Trent said, raising his hand to rub his forehead. “Shit. Fuck. Shit.” This did little to remedy the problem. Then he moved back over and sat on the bed alongside Sarah, putting his arm around her. “Sarah, cup your hands and breath. See what I’m doing?” Trent cupped his hands together with his arm still wrapped around Sarah’s shoulder, so that his hands were held out just in front of Sarah’s face. “Cup together like this, and breath into your hands.” Sarah raised her hands to her mouth, cupped them together, and then began to breath raspily into them. “Good.” Trent said soothingly, now try to hold your breath for 10 seconds.” Sarah continued breathing in rapid bursts for a moment, then she took a deeper breath and held it. “Good. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Sev-“ Sarah’s gasping breath interrupted Trent’s counting. “That’s fine, hey, let’s try again.” Sarah took another deep breath. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Good, not breath out slowly.” Sarah exhaled more smoothly. “Okay, now again.”
And so they repeated a few times until Sarah had calmed down and gotten her breathing back under control. Trent kept his arm wrapped around her shoulder and pulled her close to him as they sat in silence for a while – both of their minds racing. Finally Sarah broke the silence.
“I don’t know what in the world I’m going to do.” Her voice was flat, and she kept staring vacantly toward the foot of her bed.
“You don’t have to do anything except eat.” Trent felt confident that he had never sounded more like his own mother than in that very moment.
“I mean, what in the fuck am I even going to say to people?” Sarah looked at Trent now, nonplussed. For a moment Trent considered spilling the beans that she really wouldn’t have to say much because it seemed that most everyone already knew what had happened – though they probably didn’t really believe it just yet. But then Trent thought better of it.
“You’ve got a quick wit, I’m sure you’ll think of something.” He gave a wry smile, hoping against hope that it might be reciprocated. Instead, Sarah just rolled her eyes and looked over at the now-cold bowl of noodles Trent had brought with him. ‘Would’ve liked a smile better, but an eye roll is still better than the nothing I was getting’ Trent mused.
“Have you ever had cold Ramen?” Sarah asked, still staring at the bowl. Trent glanced over at the bowl as well.
“Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.” He responded. “I can make you a fresh batch if you’d like. Or I can get something else instead?”
“I dare you to eat some.” Sarah’s voice was still flat, and she continued to stare vacantly toward the bowl. Trent didn’t answer at first, instead staring at Sarah with a bewildered expression on his face. It seemed to Trent that she felt his stare, because soon her vacant expression contorted into a jeering smile.
“Uh, no. I think I’m good.” Trent responded finally.
“Pussy.” Sarah broke up after trying to keep a straight face for a few seconds, and wrapped her arms around Trent’s torso for a hug as she laughed. Trent hugged her back, and laid back against her pillows. There was a softness mashing against a shocking majority of his torso, followed by an even more shocking weight as Sarah’s right breast lay partially atop his side as she huddled up against him. Finally Sarah’s laughter died down a little.
“Sorry, I made myself laugh.” She said as she got herself back under control.
“I gathered.” Trent responded, still amused himself. Then Sarah lifted her head slightly and looked up at Trent’s face with a serious expression.
“I love you.” She spoke the words with such sincerity that it made Trent feel somewhat untethered from reality – as if he were floating.
“I love you too.” He didn’t think it sounded so sincere coming from him, but he hoped very much that she knew he meant it. “I missed you.” He added. Sarah smiled softly.
“I missed you too.” Then she turned her head to lay against his chest and hugged him tighter, the bulk of her breasts made the hug less familiar but no less endearing, and Trent returned it gratefully enough. They lay intertwined for several minutes more – they weren’t sure how long. Trent had nearly nodded off to sleep when Sarah’s voice woke him up.
“Pizza.”
Trent looked around in a daze, only partially awake.
“Um. What?” He said, reaching around her head to rub his palms against his face.
“I want pizza.” Sarah said after Trent lowered his hands and re-engaged their hug. Trent looked down at her, and smiled.
“Then let’s get pizza.”