Loading promotion info...
The Hockey Captain's Chubby Babe
Novelix
new
Completed
"I lost almost a hundred pounds for the boyfriend who promised he'd finally stop hiding me. Then I went to the airport to surprise Tyler and watched him kiss another girl. That was when I learned the truth. For the past year, Tyler hadn't even been answering my messages. He'd given his private account to his hockey teammate and told him to deal with me instead. I should be angry. But the guy behind those late-night texts remembers my birthday, makes sure I eat, and claims he wanted me even before I lost the weight... What is going on?"
Chapters (5)
第1章
I lose almost a hundred pounds in one year for a boyfriend who's too ashamed to admit I'm his girlfriend.
That boyfriend is Tyler Keane.
And today, after a year in Sweden, he's finally coming home.
I stand outside international arrivals with a bouquet pressed against my chest, checking my reflection in my phone for what has to be the twentieth time.
My hair looks fine.
My makeup hasn't smudged.
The black dress I bought last week fits exactly the way I wanted it to.
Still, my palms won't stop sweating.
Before Tyler left for his exchange program, he promised me one thing.
When he came back, we'd stop hiding.
No more pretending we were just childhood friends.
No more walking past each other on campus like strangers.
No more secret dates where none of his hockey teammates could see us.
I believed him.
Tyler and I grow up three houses apart.
In elementary school, he chases off boys who make fun of my weight.
In middle school, whenever I fall behind during gym class, he slows down and pretends he's just tired too.
That's probably when I start loving him.
But the older we get, the more people Tyler has around him.
And the stranger he acts around me.
When we're alone, he'll eat the food I bring him and spend hours stretched across my couch playing video games.
At Northlake University, it's different.
If his hockey teammates are around, he barely acknowledges me.
Sometimes he walks right past me.
When I finally ask why, he shrugs.
“The guys are assholes. If they know I like you, they'll never shut up about it.”
And somehow, I believe that too.
So when Tyler leaves for Sweden, I decide I'll give him one less reason to hide me when he comes back.
I quit soda.
I stop eating dessert.
I run every morning and every night.
At my worst, I pass out after a workout because I haven't eaten enough all day.
When I wake up, the first thing I ask is whether the workout still counts.
Stupid.
I know that now.
But for the entire year, I only have one thought.
When Tyler comes home, he'll finally look at me and be proud to call me his girlfriend.
The airport doors slide open.
A stream of passengers spills into the terminal.
Then I see him.
Tyler.
He's a little more tan than he was a year ago.
His dark hair is longer.
He's pushing a suitcase with one hand and wearing the black jacket I bought him for his birthday.
My heart jumps.
I take a step forward.
“Ty—”
A girl in a white dress runs past me.
She throws her arms around his neck.
Tyler catches her without hesitation.
Then he lowers his head and kisses her.
Not a friendly kiss.
Not a quick hello.
He kisses her like he's done it a hundred times before.
My fingers go numb around the flowers.
I know her.
Hailey Smith.
She's in the international studies program at Northlake.
Pretty.
Popular.
The kind of girl Tyler never pretends not to know.
Hailey laughs against his chest.
Then she looks around.
“So where's that chubby childhood friend of yours?”
My stomach drops.
“Didn't she come pick you up?”
Tyler lets out a laugh.
“She doesn't know I'm back today.”
“She messages you every day.”
“Yeah. It's exhausting.”
I stop breathing.
Tyler checks his phone like they're discussing the weather.
“If our parents weren't friends, I would've stopped dealing with her years ago.”
Hailey laughs.
“That's brutal.”
“You want brutal?”
Tyler slips one arm around her waist.
“Before I left, I gave one of my teammates the login to my backup Instagram account.”
Hailey blinks.
“For what?”
“So he could answer Stella for me.”
My fingers tighten around the bouquet.
Tyler smirks.
“I told her that was the account I'd be using while I was overseas.”
Hailey stares at him for a second.
Then she starts laughing.
“No way.”
“I'm serious.”
“And she never noticed?”
“Why would she?”
His voice is careless.
“She sees a reply and gets happy. That's all she cares about.”
The bouquet slips from my hands.
It hits the floor at my feet.
Neither of them hears it.
My phone vibrates.
I stare at the screen.
A notification appears from the private Instagram account Tyler gave me a year ago.
The same account I've talked to almost every night since he left.
The same account that reminds me to eat breakfast.
The same account that remembers when I have exams.
The same account that calls me baby before bed.
A new message appears.
**Morning, baby. You awake?**
Another one follows.
**Did you eat yet? Don't tell me you're doing coffee for breakfast again.**
I stare at the words until they blur.
Tyler is standing twenty feet away from me.
His arm is around another girl.
He hasn't even looked at his phone.
Which means the man who's been calling me baby for the past year...
isn't my boyfriend.
And suddenly, there's only one question left.
Who the hell have I been falling in love with?
第2章
I sit in my car and open our old messages.
Not Tyler's real account.
The private Instagram account he gave me before leaving for Sweden.
Now that I know one of his teammates has been behind it the entire time, everything suddenly makes sense.
At the beginning, the replies were terrible.
Short.
Cold.
Exactly like Tyler.
**How's Sweden?**
**Fine.**
**Did you eat?**
**Yeah.**
Sometimes I send three messages and get one word back.
Sometimes he leaves me on read for days.
I never question it.
Tyler has never been good at texting.
Even when we're together, he'll ignore his phone for hours.
So I keep messaging him.
I send pictures of my lunch.
Complain about classes.
Tell him when I can't sleep.
Tell him when I miss him.
I do most of the talking.
Then one night, after he leaves me on read again, I finally type something I immediately regret.
**I know I'm annoying.**
I stare at the message for a full minute.
Then I send another.
**I just miss you.**
And then:
**Please don't be mad at me, okay?**
An hour passes.
I lie in bed staring at my phone, already embarrassed.
Then the screen lights up.
**You're not annoying.**
I sit up.
Another message appears.
**I'm sorry. I'll do better.**
I remember reading those words over and over.
Because Tyler has never apologized to me like that before.
After that night, everything changes.
The account starts replying faster.
He reminds me when I have early classes.
He asks if I made it home.
He remembers that my stomach hurts around my period.
If I tell him I haven't eaten all day, he gets mad.
Once, I send him a picture of a coffee and tell him it's basically breakfast.
He replies immediately.
**No, it isn't. Go eat something.**
I laugh when I read it.
I even save the message.
At the time, I think Tyler is finally starting to care about me.
Then I reach my birthday.
Tyler's real account doesn't send me anything.
No post.
No text.
Not even a stupid emoji.
I spend the whole night pretending I don't care.
Then at exactly midnight, the private account sends me a message.
**Happy birthday, Stella.**
A second one follows.
**I hope this year is kinder to you.**
Then:
**And I hope you stop being so hard on yourself.**
I remember crying.
Not because I was sad.
Because I thought Tyler had finally seen me.
Really seen me.
That night is also when I decide I'm going to lose weight.
I tell myself that if Tyler is finally trying, then I should try too.
Maybe if I get prettier, he'll stop hiding me.
Maybe if I lose enough weight, he'll finally introduce me as his girlfriend.
Maybe when he comes home, everything will be different.
My throat tightens.
I scroll farther.
Morning messages.
Good-night messages.
Reminders to eat.
Random pictures.
Stupid jokes.
Every soft thing I spent a year collecting like proof that Tyler loved me.
None of it came from Tyler.
Not one word.
I grip my phone tighter.
God.
How pathetic was I?
I spent a year changing my entire body for a man who couldn't even be bothered to answer me himself.
And somewhere out there, one of his teammates has been pretending to be him.
I should be furious.
I am furious.
But beneath the anger, something else keeps bothering me.
Why did he keep doing it?
Tyler clearly only asked him to answer me once in a while.
So why did this guy remember everything?
Why did he remember my birthday?
Why did he care whether I ate?
Why did he know when I had exams?
Why did he keep calling me baby?
I look down at the profile picture on the account.
Nothing useful.
No face.
No name.
Just some generic shot of an ice rink under stadium lights.
I swipe out of Instagram and open my camera roll.
It takes a while, but eventually I find the picture.
One year ago.
Before the running.
Before the dieting.
Before I start avoiding every camera pointed at me.
I'm wearing an oversized sweatshirt.
My cheeks are round.
My stomach pushes against the fabric when I sit.
There's a plate of fries in front of me and a milkshake beside it.
I'm smiling so hard my eyes almost disappear.
I stare at the photo.
For the first time in months, I don't delete it.
Instead, I open our messages again.
My thumb hovers over the send button.
If this guy has spent the past year pretending to like me, this should end it.
I attach the photo.
Then I type:
**Morning.**
I pause.
And add:
**Still want to call me baby?**
Then I hit send.
第3章
One minute passes.
Then five.
No reply.
I stare at the screen and laugh under my breath.
Of course.
It's easy to say you like someone when you've never really seen them.
Maybe now that he's seen what I looked like before, he's finally done pretending.
I move my thumb toward his profile.
Delete.
Before I can tap it, my phone vibrates.
A photo appears.
I freeze.
It's a mirror selfie.
His black shirt is pulled up just enough to show a hard stomach and a strip of skin above gray sweatpants.
His face isn't in the frame.
But one arm is.
And on the inside of his forearm is a tiny dark mole.
Another message appears.
**You showed me yours. Felt unfair not to show you mine.**
Heat rushes straight to my face.
I type back immediately.
**Who asked you to send me that?**
The reply comes fast.
**Didn't you just ask if I still wanted to call you baby?**
I stare at the screen.
**And?**
Three dots appear.
Then:
**I do.**
Another message follows.
**You could gain another hundred pounds and I'd still call you baby.**
My throat tightens.
For one horrible second, I almost cry again.
I should delete the photo.
Instead, my traitorous thumb taps save.
I stare at the screen.
Fine.
Maybe attractive men are just better at lying.
My thumb moves toward the delete button again.
Knock. Knock.
I jump.
Someone is standing outside my driver's-side window.
Tyler.
My heart stops.
He must have recognized my car.
For one second, panic takes over.
I already humiliated myself enough today.
I'm not letting him see how much he hurt me.
I wipe under my eyes, take a breath, and lower the window.
“Hey—”
Tyler freezes.
His eyes move slowly over my face.
Then my hair.
Then the black dress.
His expression changes.
“Sorry.”
He takes a step back.
“Wrong person.”
I just stare at him.
He doesn't recognize me.
Tyler turns away.
Then he stops.
His eyes move back to the car.
His brows pull together.
“Wait.”
He looks at the license plate.
Then back at me.
“Isn't this Stella's car?”
I say nothing.
He leans down slightly.
“Are you a friend of hers?”
A laugh almost escapes me.
He grew up three houses away from me.
He knows what my laugh sounds like.
He knows I hate mushrooms.
He knows I sleep with the window cracked even in winter.
He knows exactly how I take my coffee.
Or at least, I used to think he did.
And now he's standing two feet away asking if I'm my own friend.
“Tyler!”
Hailey's voice cuts through the parking garage.
She walks toward us quickly and slips both hands around his arm.
Then she kisses his cheek.
Her eyes stay on me.
“The car's here.”
She looks me up and down.
“You promised we'd celebrate alone.”
Tyler barely reacts.
He's still staring at me.
For half a second, I think he might finally figure it out.
But Hailey tugs his arm.
“Come on.”
He looks at her.
Then back at me.
His stare lingers.
Still nothing.
No recognition.
No Stella.
Just a stranger in a black dress.
Hailey pulls him away.
Tyler goes with her.
He looks back once.
I raise the window.
Then I catch my reflection in the rearview mirror.
Different hair.
Different face.
Different body.
I lost almost a hundred pounds because I thought that was what it would take for my boyfriend to finally claim me.
And after one year apart...
he doesn't even recognize my face.
第4章
When I get home, Mom is waiting in the kitchen with a gift box in her hands.
“Tyler stopped by.”
I pause.
“He did?”
She smiles like nothing in the world has changed.
“He said some friends are taking him and Cole out tonight since they're finally back from Sweden. He wants you to come too.”
Cole.
The name catches in my head for half a second.
One of Tyler's hockey teammates.
One of the men who could be behind that Instagram account.
Mom holds the box out to me.
“He brought this for you.”
I look down.
It's a box of letter chocolates.
Each piece has a different letter printed on top, so you can spell names or little messages with them.
I liked a post about these months ago.
I remember sending it to the private Instagram account.
**These are cute.**
That was all I said.
And somehow, he remembered.
For one stupid second, something warm rises in my chest.
Maybe Tyler did remember me.
Maybe not everything was fake.
I open the box.
Then I stop.
Six spaces are empty.
My phone buzzes.
An Instagram Story notification appears.
Hailey Smith.
I tap it.
A photo fills the screen.
Four chocolates sit in her palm.
H.
A.
I.
L.
E.
Y.
Tyler's hand is resting around her waist in the background.
And on his wrist is the watch I gave him for his birthday last year.
The caption reads:
**Someone brought me a little gift the second he landed.**
I stare at the screen.
Then back at the half-open box in my hands.
The warmth disappears.
Tyler didn't remember that I liked these.
He bought them for Hailey.
She took the letters she wanted.
And whatever was left came to me.
That's all.
I look at the empty spaces in the box.
Six missing chocolates.
Six letters.
Six tiny little reminders that even when Tyler gives me something, I'm still getting whatever remains after someone else comes first.
Just like this entire year.
He didn't want to answer me.
So he handed me off to his teammate.
He didn't want these chocolates.
So he handed me what Hailey didn't take.
Mom leans out from the kitchen.
“Do you like them?”
I close the box.
“No.”
A tear drops onto the gold lid before I can stop it.
Mom looks at me more closely.
“Stella?”
I wipe my face quickly.
She steps toward me.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
I lift the box.
“I just don't want them.”
Her brows pull together.
“You used to love chocolate.”
“I don't anymore.”
That part, at least, is almost true.
I turn and walk outside.
The trash bin is beside the garage.
I lift the lid.
Then I drop the entire box inside.
It lands with a soft thud.
For a second, I just stand there staring at it.
I spent one year trying to become the kind of girl Tyler Keane wouldn't be embarrassed to love.
I changed what I ate.
How I looked.
How much space I took up.
I changed almost everything.
And after all that...
he still can't even give me a whole box of chocolates.
第5章
I'm still staring at the trash bin when Mom comes outside.
“Stella?”
Her eyes move from me to the gold chocolate box.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“You threw away Tyler's gift.”
I wipe at my face.
“I'm dieting. I don't need chocolate.”
She doesn't look convinced.
“Did you two fight?”
“No.”
That's not technically a lie.
You have to actually have a relationship for a fight to count.
I walk past her and go upstairs.
A few minutes later, the doorbell rings.
I almost ignore it.
Then my phone vibrates.
The private Instagram account sends me a message.
**Go check your front door.**
My heart stutters.
I hurry downstairs.
There's a package sitting on the porch.
Gold box.
Same brand.
Same letter chocolates.
But this one is sealed.
Untouched.
Every piece is still inside.
I carry it upstairs and take a picture.
**Did you send this?**
The reply comes almost immediately.
**You liked them a few months ago.**
Another message appears.
**Thought they might make you feel better.**
I stare at the screen.
At first, this guy was only supposed to answer me because Tyler couldn't be bothered.
He had no reason to remember what kind of chocolate I liked.
No reason to remember anything about me.
My fingers move before I can stop them.
**Why are you so nice to me?**
The typing bubble appears almost instantly.
Then:
**Because I like you.**
I stop breathing.
For a second, I wonder if I'm reading it wrong.
I type back.
**Even when I was over two hundred pounds?**
His answer comes so fast it almost feels like he was waiting for the question.
**You could gain another hundred and I still wouldn't care.**
Then:
**I'd still be able to pick you up.**
A laugh escapes me.
It comes out wet because I'm crying again.
But this time, I'm actually smiling.
For the first time all day.
I look down at the unopened box in my lap.
One man gives me leftovers.
Another remembers something I mentioned once months ago and makes sure I get the whole thing.
I don't know who he is.
I don't know why he's been pretending to be Tyler.
And I definitely don't know if I should trust him.
But I know one thing.
He's one of Tyler's teammates.
Which means he'll probably be at dinner tonight.
I pick up the box and walk downstairs.
“Mom?”
She looks up from the kitchen.
“Yeah?”
“Where are they going tonight?”
“Who?”
“Tyler and Cole. The welcome-back dinner.”
Her eyebrows rise.
“I thought you weren't going.”
I grab my keys off the counter.
“I changed my mind.”
Mom gives me a look.
“Why?”
I glance down at my phone.
The last message is still sitting on the screen.
**Because I like you.**
I close Instagram.
“There's someone I need to meet.”
Tonight, I'm walking into a room full of Tyler's hockey teammates.
And one of them has been calling me baby every night for the past year.
Tonight, I'm finding out which one.
