1. The Ugly Truth

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Bella watched from the bedroom door as her high school sweetheart, the man she had known for twenty years and had been married to for fifteen of them, threw his clothes in assorted bags. She wrung her hands in misery, not quite believing this wasn't some strange nightmare. She'd had ones like this before over the years, and she silently willed herself to wake up. It wasn't working.

Finally, he was done. He yanked on the strap of one bag viciously, pulling it over his shoulder and grabbing the handles of the other bag.

"James," Bella croaked, "why are you doing this?"

He stopped in front of her, looked her up and down, and sneered. It was part laughter and part disgust, and she recoiled from the look on his face.

"Have you looked at yourself lately?" he said with contempt. "Bella, when we first got together you looked amazing—"

"I was fifteen," she said, cutting him off unceremoniously.

"Now look at you?" he continued, overriding her. "I barely recognize you anymore! You know, I tried to be a good husband. I tried to be supportive as I watched you turn into the Goodyear fucking Blimp, but I can't do it anymore. Just thinking about laying a hand on you makes me sick. I'm done."

Bella stood there stunned. She grabbed at her shirt and pulled it away from her body, feeling as if it hugged every pound she had gained over the last seven years. "Why are you saying these things to me?" she whispered in distress as she fought to keep the tears pooling in her eyes from running down her face. "Why are you being so mean?"

"It's not mean, Bella. It's honesty. Being mean is letting you continue to get fat without telling you how gross it is."

Bella lost the fight. The tears started to fall unbridled, and James pushed past her into the hall and started down the stairs.

"Wait!" she called after him desperately. "I can lose it! I can get back into shape!"

James halted on the steps and looked up at her as she leaned over the balustrade. "It's too late," he said as he turned away from her and headed down the stairs again.

"James!" she yelled out after him, hating the panicky breathlessness of her voice. "Come back!" she cried as she ran around the landing, trying to catch him. He was already out the door and had shut it behind himself.

Never the most graceful kid in school, Bella's ankle twisted halfway down the staircase as she tried running after him. With a scream, she stumbled, managing just barely to catch herself before she fell headlong down the stairs. She took the rest of them slowly, having heard James start up his car. There was no way she could catch him now.

Slumping down on the bottom step, she tried to catch her breath, but after the emotional outburst, the running and the adrenaline pumping through her system after the near fall, she just couldn't. Bella tried to draw air into her lungs in desperate gasps, but it wasn't working. She felt as if she would never get enough oxygen, which added another layer of panic, making things all the more difficult.

Tears were still running down her face, her lungs were screaming in her chest, and her ankle and wrist throbbed from being wrenched. This was not a good day. Bella still had enough presence of mind to bend over and stick her head between her knees so she could try to get a hold of herself and stop hyperventilating. Her midsection hit her thighs a lot sooner than they used to, and everything James had said up in the bedroom came back to her in shattering blows.

It was true that over the last six or seven years she had let herself go. Between aging, her metabolism slowing down and finding solace in food whenever she and James fought, well, it was no wonder she had packed on a good seventy pounds. It had been gradual enough. Every year, her pant size increased by a size or two, and suddenly, she could hardly recognize herself anymore. She felt as if she had been swallowed whole by this fat version of Bella.

Her breathing finally slowed and became more normal. Her heart stopped beating quite so fast, and even her wrist and ankle had numbed a little, but she couldn't stop the tears. They still came, filling up and overflowing in a torrent that spilled on to the carpet at the foot of the stairs. She remained bent over, her arms trapped under her upper body and her hands fisted in self-loathing. Bella's mouth opened, and she became aware that she was now keening. It was a sharp and desolate sound that couldn't even be classified as a cry. It was more primal and like nothing she had heard before. In some far off way, she was mesmerized by the sound but didn't quite comprehend it was she who made the noise.

Bella reared up and screamed. She let one after another rip out of her throat as she pounded her fists against her thighs. She somehow stumbled up onto her feet, her leg buckling as she put weight on that twisted ankle. Throwing up a hand, she supported herself using the wall and walked toward her kitchen.

The tears had stopped, but the screaming continued, only now it was anger that had taken over. Her ankle was a flare of white-hot pain. Surely it was sprained, if not broken, but still, she kept going. She threw open her cupboards and started sweeping out all of the junk food that had been piled in there. Bags of chips, boxes of cupcakes, all manner of candy, and other unhealthy food rained onto the floor. Her fridge was next as she yanked out Jell-o treats, fattening dips, and cartons of take out food chock full of calories. Her freezer was no better, and frozen pizzas, french-fries, waffles, and pancakes got dumped to the ground at her feet.

Bella's screaming had subsided into grunts and pants as she grabbed and threw, grabbed and threw, all of the junk food piling around her. Kicking boxes of food out of her way, she went over to her kitchen drawers and yanked out a few garbage bags. She didn't care that her wrist was killing her or that her ankle couldn't handle any weight put on it. The pain galvanized her, and she fought past it as garbage bags made loud thunderous noises when she snapped them open. They were systematically filled with all the food she had been living on over the last few years.

The purging took quite a while, but it was worth it. Bella dragged two garbage bags of food out to her front porch and then limped back into her house. She made her way into the living room and called Jacob. As she listened to the ring of the phone, her face was dry of tears, and she didn't feel like screaming anymore. She was eerily calm in her now empty house.

"Yo, Bells!" Jake answered in his usual enthusiastic way, and she smiled for the first time in what felt like eons.

"I need a ride to the hospital," she said without preamble.

"Jesus, what did you do to yourself now?" he asked in loving exasperation. "And why isn't James bringing you?"

"I'll meet you outside in fifteen," Bella answered and hung up the phone.

Jacob was at her door in ten minutes, and he helped her into his car. She tried not to grimace too much, but the pain had finally caught up to her and was punishing her for her antics in the kitchen. Her lips set in a line, teeth ground together, she waited for Jake to get into the driver's seat.

"Hey, Bells?" he asked quietly. "Did you know you have two bags worth of food sitting out on your porch?"

"Take whatever you like," Bella replied, looking out of the windshield. "I don't need it anymore."

~ 0 ~

As she sat on the ER gurney, Bella studiously tried to avoid the penetrating gaze of her best friend of thirty years. It wasn't working very well. There were only so many places you could look in such a small space while trying to avoid a hulking mass like Jacob Black. Finally, she just dropped her gaze to her hands in her lap and watched her fingers twist in the fabric of her gray t-shirt.

"You're going to have to tell me eventually, you know," he said to her in a stern voice.

Flipping her eyes back to his face, she answered him in a monotone. "James left me because I'm fat."

"Fuck off," Jacob said in a dismissive way. It wasn't until he really looked at Bella that he realized she wasn't joking. "You serious?"

Bella simply nodded once and smiled tightly. She watched as Jacob's heavy brows drew inwards and down, and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a feral snarl. That look was never good. Jacob was generally mild-mannered and genial, but there were a few times in his life where he let forth his inner beast. This seemed to be one of them.

"Are you serious?" he asked again, his anger distorting his voice so that it was deeper and somewhat dangerous sounding.

"He's right, Jake," Bella said softly. "I mean, look at me. I'm gross."

"Bella, you're being ridiculous!"

"No, I'm not," she insisted. "You're really going to sit there and tell me I look great? That James is blind? That I'm just curvy? Come on, Jake! Really?"

"Fine," he spat out. "You've gained weight. Yeah. But that's an okay reason to dump someone you've been with for twenty years? You're telling me, if it was the other way around, you'd have left James if he gained weight?"

"Well…no," she conceded. "But it's different!"

"Why is it different?" Jacob demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

"It just is," Bella insisted. "Women are wired differently. We aren't as visual as men. We can look past stuff easier."

"That's a crock of shit."

"It is not! It's scientifically proven," she said, pointing a finger at him. "So, no, I probably wouldn't have left him for gaining weight." She paused for a moment and then grinned slightly. "But I should have left him for having a small dick."

Jacob's mouth popped open, and the next thing Bella knew, they both burst out laughing, easing the tension in the room tremendously. She watched as he howled with mirth, and her shoulders shook from the force of her giggles. Tears started to form in her eyes, and she swiped them with the back of her hand.

That's how Dr. Carlisle Cullen found them when he pushed aside the dividing curtain.

"Well, it looks like a party is going on back here," he said, smiling at them both.

Bella's laughter subsided into jerks and fits, and she refused to look at Jacob for fear of starting up all over again. Instead, she focused on the gorgeous, blond doctor in front of her, sighing internally. She'd bet Carlisle Cullen didn't have a small dick. It was almost too bad that she was fat, old, and he was happily married, or else she may have done something stupid. Like try to find out if she was right, Jacob's presence notwithstanding.

"I'll wait for you outside, Bells," Jacob said, standing up and nodding at Carlisle.

"So, what brings you in today, Bella?" he asked, looking over her file. The thing was as thick as a bible.

"The usual suspects," she answered, waving her wrist and ankle in the air.

"Hm, what was it this time?"

"Almost took a spill down the stairs. As usual," she replied dryly. She'd lost count how many times that had happened. Usually, it was under better circumstances. Like her just being clumsy and not because she was chasing her husband down the stairs while trying to get him not to leave her. Bella felt the tears threatening, and she looked up toward the ceiling to try and get them to stop.

Carlisle sat on a rolling stool and maneuvered himself between Bella's knees. He reached for her hand first, feeling the bones as he watched her face for reaction. "Possibly a mild sprain; it doesn't feel broken." Rolling backward, he reached for her ankle and did the same sort of manual check. "Same for the ankle. I still want to get you up to X-ray to make sure there aren't any hairline fractures or something I missed."

"The usual," Bella sighed again and smiled at the handsome doctor ruefully.

After having X-rays done, she was relieved to see that neither of her appendages was broken. Watching Carlisle's golden head bent over her foot as he wrapped her ankle kept Bella somewhat occupied. She couldn't wait to get home so she could pop a Vicodin and maybe take a nap. She was already exhausted.

"You know, Bella," Carlisle said carefully as he tightened the tensor bandage, "if I didn't know better, I'd wonder if you were a victim of domestic abuse."

"No," she said, shaking her head and in a wry tone said, "James wouldn't lay a hand on me."

She laughed bitterly at the irony of the statement. Not only did James not lay a hand on her in anger, he didn't lay hands on her in any other way either. His words from earlier came back in a flash. She couldn't remember the last time they had been intimate, which made so much more sense now. She had just dismissed it as failing libidos and busy work schedules. Now she knew the truth.

"Yes, well, if you need to talk to someone…"

"I think I do," Bella replied. "But not for domestic abuse."

"Okay?"

"I…uh…I want to try and lose weight. But I don't really know how to go about it."

"Oh," Carlisle's eyebrows shot up. "Well, that's generally something you'd talk about with your family doctor."

"Right. I guess I'll make an appointment with Dr. Gerandy. Thanks."

"Wait a second," Carlisle said, swiping back his lab coat and reaching for his wallet. He mumbled as he rifled through it before yanking out a business card. "Here it is!" He exclaimed triumphantly, waving it around before handing it to her. "My cousin works as a personal trainer at the fitness club downtown. Once your ankle and wrist heal up, why don't you give her a call?"

"Tanya Denali?" Bella said, reading the name on the card. "Is she new around here?"

"Yes, she is. She came down with a friend to visit and somehow ended up meeting Tyler Crowley who was just opening up the fitness center. They hit it off, and he offered her a job."

"Okay. Well, thanks!"

"You're welcome," he said, giving Bella a dazzling smile, which made her sigh like a lovesick schoolgirl with a crush. "So, I think we're done here," he continued, giving her ankle a gentle pat.

Carlisle offered Bella his elbow and helped her off the table. She put weight on her foot gingerly and was rewarded with a lick of pain shooting up her calf.

"Take it easy," he said, grasping Bella's elbow. "Here, let me hand deliver you to Jake."

"Thanks."

They shuffled their way along until they reached the waiting room. Jacob saw Bella right away, stood up and strode over. He thanked Carlisle and then helped her out to the car where they sat in silence for a while.

"He didn't do that to you, right?" Jake asked in a low voice.

"Not directly, no."

"What does that mean?" he growled, and she could see his head turn toward her in her peripheral vision.

"I chased after him and tripped going down the stairs."

Jacob sighed and stared out of the windshield again. "You should have just let him go and good riddance."

"Yeah, well. Hindsight is 20/20," Bella said, continuing in a defeated tone, "can we go home now? My ankle really hurts."

"Sure, sure, Bells."

Jacob pulled out of the hospital parking lot and drove slowly to Bella's house. She noticed he paid special attention to the road, avoiding potholes so he wouldn't jerk her around too much and cause her more pain. She should have told him not to bother. She was one big bundle of exposed nerves at the moment, and a few bumps in the road wouldn't have made much of a difference. She remained quiet, however, because she knew this was Jacob's way of taking care of her and her silence meant she appreciated his effort.

~ 0 ~

Bella was awoken with a start when someone started banging on her door. She hadn't wanted to manage the stairs with her ankle, so she had taken a pill, lay down on the couch and passed out. She thought she was going to cry some more but hadn't. The dissolution of her marriage had been a long time coming. She had just been too scared and ashamed to admit it.

Truth be told, she had been miserable over the last few years. Instead of doing the right thing and leaving James, she had turned to food for comfort, swallowing empty calories much like she swallowed his verbal abuse, suspected infidelity and stony silences. She had been too afraid to just kick the no good bastard out because he was all she knew. All she had ever known. And now he was gone.

Like Jacob had said, good riddance.

Now she had the kick in the pants she needed to move on with her life.

The knocking started up again, and Bella scrubbed her eyes and sat up. "Just a minute!" she yelled toward the door as she reached down for her crutches. Her ankle was feeling somewhat better, but she figured she'd better not take a chance. As she thumped over to the door, she swore a blue streak under her breath. This had better be good.

"Ange?" she said, looking out and seeing her BFF standing on the porch with her hands behind her back.

"Jake called me. Is it true? Is he gone?"

"Yeah," Bella answered. "He's gone."

"Whooo hoo!" Angela yelled out, pulling two bottles of wine – one white and one red – from behind her back. "Let's celebrate!"

Bella stared at her friend in disbelief as she stumbled backward against the hallway wall. Angela bounced past her with wine in tow and headed to her kitchen. Getting her wits about her, Bella closed the front door and thumped after her friend who was busy hunting for the wine bottle opener. Two glasses were already set on the table waiting.

"My husband leaves me…and you want to celebrate?"

"Hell yes!" Angela answered, her back to Bella as she uncorked both bottles of wine. "I've been praying for this day for years! Except, I was really hoping you would be the one to kick his sorry ass out. It really sucks he hurt you, but Jake's going to make him pay for that shit. Him, Embry and Quill will be trolling for his sorry ass tonight. He better have left town, that's all I have to say," Angela babbled. Then she turned to Bella, a bottle in each hand. "Red? Or white?"

Unable to keep up with the crazy, Bella sank down into one of her kitchen chairs and just stared at Angela, stupefied.

"I'm on Vicodin," Bella finally managed to stammer out.

"When was your last pill?" Angela asked, frowning slightly.

"About six hours ago?"

"Oh, you're fine!" she exclaimed happily. "So, no more Vicodin for you, tonight. Just Ibuprophen and the nectar of the gods! You'll be feeling no pain soon enough."

"Fine," she sighed. "White."

"Yes!" Angela said as she tipped the bottle over Bella's glass and filled it to the brim.

Just over an hour later, much like Angela had said, Bella was feeling no pain. In fact, she was limping around the living room where they had moved to be more comfortable, drinking wine straight from the bottle.

"And you know what he says to me?" Bella said, turning to face Angela and throwing her hand out to catch herself on a chair. "He says I'm fat! And that he can't even stand to look at me, much less touch me. Fucker! Well, how the hell did he think I got fat? It was his goddamn fault! Whenever he was an asshole to me – which was a LOT – I ran to food and ate myself into an oblivion!"

Angela merely sat there nodding through the tirade, owl-eyed and swaying slightly.

"So, now?" Bella continued to rant, "now, I'm old and I'm fat! I gave that piece of shit the best years of my life, and then he up and leaves me. Fucker!"

"You're not old," Angela replied, wagging her head, her hair whipping to and fro. "And you can lose weight!"

"That's right! I can lose weight!" Bella crowed. "And I'm gonna be hot!"

"Yeah, hot!" Angela agreed loudly.

Bella went over and flopped down on the couch. "Why didn't you tell me, Ange?" she asked in a small voice. "Why didn't you tell me before that you all hated him?"

"He was your husband, Bella," she sighed. "What were we supposed to do besides support you?"

Bella burst into tears again. Not because James was gone – he could rot in hell for all she cared – but because of her lost youth, spent on a man who was undeserving. And her lost self-esteem, which he had hammered at until it was virtually non-existent. She cried because she felt that most of her life had passed her by and she had spent the last fifth of it in misery.

Angela reached out and hugged her friend. Bella was rocked back and forth, her hair was stroked and soon her tears had subsided. She remained where she was and fought off a wave of fatigue that came out of nowhere. Her jaw unhinged in an almighty yawn.

"Time to go to bed, Bella," Angela said, as she pushed her back, grabbed her arm and hauled her off the couch.

Bella didn't remember much after that, except them stumbling up the stairs and her being led to her bed. She remembered rolling over during the night and feeling for James. When she realized he wasn't there and never would be again, loneliness crept up and tried to suffocate her. But then she remembered what he had said to her before he left, and she swore to herself she'd rather live the rest of her life alone than one more day with him.

After that, Bella slept the peaceful dreams of one who had resolved to change.

Welcome to my Fatella and Trainerward fic! Ok, I know I promised some fluffy times and this, well, this was kind of angsty – I think I'm allergic to pure fluff! lol – but I do promise it will get lighter as we go along :)) I decided to write the story in 3rd simple, alternating between Edward and Bella. There will be no pattern to the chapters, however. Some will be only one character, some will have both, some will alternate several times throughout. I wrote it this way so that I didn't have to worry about annoying POV tags.

Next, this story will be every chubby girl's wet dream. While I'm all for realism in my fics, there will be times when events may push the envelope. If you can't suspend your disbelief, this is not the fic for you! LOL… That being said, there won't be any electrical sparking going on when Fatella and Trainerward meet for the first time. They are wearing rubber soled shoes after all ;))

Enjoy! I hope to hear from you as this tale spins out!

Chapter Song Rec: Such a Lonely One by Prairie Oyster