Chapter 19: Forced Socialization

For the first time in a long time, Sam woke up feeling exhausted. Carly and the others had kept them out until closing in the Honey Café, at 1 o’clock in the morning. She’d promptly collapsed into sleep when she got back.

She’d planned to wake up early and get her morning workout routine in, but she was about an hour and a half late. Oh, well, she might as well get breakfast anyway.

“…Snrrk…”

Oh, and Mary hadn’t greeted the morning herself yet, either. Sam was shocked.

“Hey, Mary, come on, it’s time to wake up,” Sam said, hopping out of bed and throwing on a change of clothes. “It’s time for breakfast.”

“Buwah… huh? …Breakfast?!” Mary sprung awake immediately, her eyes shining with excitement. Sam had to smirk. In spite of all the girl’s proclamations earlier in the year about needing to starve herself, she had reached the point where eating was one of the things she looked forward to the most.

“…Someone’s pretty eager,” Sam dryly noted. “So, how are you feeling? Anything feeling sore?” Last time, Mary could barely move without wincing in pain the next day. But she seemed almost energized.

“…Hey, yeah, now that you mention it, I feel great!” Mary chirped, stretching a little. “I’m not sore at all, wow!”

Sam swelled with pride. “Well, what can I say? I know what I’m doing. See what a few stretches before a workout can do?”

“Aww, gee, thanks Sam!” Mary giggled, climbing out of bed and getting changed. “You know, it really means a lot, you helping me out like this! It feels nice, actually getting in shape.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that. Ready to lift weights when we’re done eating?”

Mary paused halfway into her shirt. She felt a little sick to her stomach.

…

“So I can really get whatever I want?!” Mary asked. The two girls were on their way to the cafeteria, and Mary was already starting to drool. Her eyes were shining with excitement.

“What? No, don’t be ridiculous, how did you get that from what I said?”

“W-Well, you said that we wanted to eat a lot of carbs, right? So I thought…”

“High carbs, but LOW fat, remember? LOW fat.”

Mary huffed. “Well, I mean, I could use a little bit of fat, right? That’s what you’re always telling me? I’m too skinny?”

“Well, that depends, do you want to build muscle or build artery blockage?”

“One breakfast pastry isn’t going to kill me!”

“Maybe not, but the heart attacks might.”

“SAM!”

“Fine. One. And no cinnamon rolls, it better be a fruit tart or I’m adding a ten kilometer jog to the schedule.”

Mary’s jaw dropped and she just stared.

Sam narrowed her eyes.

“…Fine. I’ll eat the stupid banana oatmeal,” she grumbled.

“Good girl.”

Mary dutifully followed Sam into the cafeteria, right up until she saw where the line was.

“Pancakes?! You never said I could eat pancakes!” Mary was so shocked that she completely forgot about her shyness.

“They make ‘em with whole-wheat flour here. Nice and healthy, as long as you don’t eat too many. Just don’t get any syrup.”

“Why have I been eating cruddy oatmeal and bran cereal all week if I could eat stuff like this!?”

“Mod-der-rate,” Sam emphasized. “I was pretty sure you’d end up overeating if I fed you stuff like that right away, so I had to carefully monitor your diet.”

Mary imagined herself bloating up like a balloon and made a face.

“…Yeah, I probably woulda,” she admitted.

“Remember, two pancakes max. And no chocolate chips.”

Mary made another pouting face but she went along with it.

“And I still get my breakfast omelet, right?”

“Yeah. You need to bulk up after all, and that’s got all the protein you could want.”

“Fine, okay. Anything else?”

Sam raised her eyebrow thoughtfully. “…How do you feel about yogurt?”

Mary’s face lit up with glee.

…

“BLEGH! This isn’t yogurt!” Mary wailed. “It’s gross and nasty chalk sludge! I hate it!”

Sam sucked on her spoon with a smile on her face, smirking across the table at her roommate. “Mmm, that’s the stuff…”

“When you said ‘yogurt’ I was thinking, like, blueberry flavor or whatever, not… ugh, I don’t even know WHAT this is!”

“Low-fat plain Greek yogurt. A perfect breakfast dessert.”

“So they’re the ones to blame!” Mary fumed. “How dare they ruin yogurt like this, the monsters?!”

“…Yeah I don’t think you can blame a whole country just because YOU don’t like the taste of healthy food.”

“It doesn’t have a taste! It has, like, the opposite of taste! It tastes like no flavor!”

The look in Sam’s eyes was one devoid of all sympathy. Mary sighed, and looked down to her plate.

“…The pancakes aren’t as good as I remember,” she glumly added, picking at the fluffy disk. “I like them with chocolate chips…”

Sam sighed. “Okay, here.” She took spooned a couple of raspberries from her plate over Mary’s pancakes and began mashing them. “See? Perfectly healthy fruit spread.”

Mary looked at the bloody smear Sam had scribbled over her food. It looked… actually, forget look, it smelled delicious She took a bite and her face lit up. “Ohm! Ough, thish ish amashing!” She shoveled the rest of the pancakes into her mouth, emptying her plate in seconds.

“Okay, I’m gonna go get more.”

Sam grabbed her by the collar and yanked her back into her seat. “Nope. No seconds.”

Mary groaned. Oh, well. She still had her omelet. That was the best part of every breakfast, because everything tasted exactly how it was supposed to! She cut out a piece brought it closer to her lips, ready for that first succulent bite-

“Oh! Mary! And Sam! Good morning you too!”

Mary’s fork froze centimeters from her mouth as she heard Daniel approach.

“Hey,” Sam muttered, friendly as usual. It was still better than Mary, who was fumbling for the right thing to say.

“Oh! Um, D-Daniel, guh-good morbin’!” She managed to mumble out, her face bright red.

Daniel smiled sheepishly. “Sorry to interrupt, just, I, um, thought I could join you? You know, if you’re cool with it?”

“If I said no would you leave?” Sam asked. She was downright polite about it. Daniel turned a sheepish red.

“Y-Yeah, I guess…”

“Well, then- OW!”

Sam’s expression twisted into a disbelieving glare. Did Mary just kick her in the shin?!

“Are you kidding me?”

Mary stared at her fork like the food was going to run away. She popped it into her mouth and then grabbed some more. If she was eating she didn’t have to face the demon sitting across from her.

“…Fine, you can eat with us,” Sam sighed, turning to her own meal. It was just one breakfast. And patience was her strong suit, she could put up with this.

“Oh, great, thanks guys. I’ve been kind of feeling awkward, not having anyone to eat my meals with, you know?”

“Sounds like paradise,” Sam muttered under breath.

Mary, at least, tried to be a little more sociable. She’d actually been able to hold conversations with him last night, and some of them even had sentences! She could totally do this!

“So, um… you don’t… have any friends to eat with?” She tried to sound comforting and friendly, but it came out as a squeak. “That must be hard… but you’re such a friendly guy in class!”

“What can you do?” Daniel shrugged. “I’ve just never been that good at making friends.”

“I wonder if that’s because you suck at reading the room,” Sam muttered under her breath again.

Mary frowned and gave her another kick in the shin. That earned a glare from Sam. She gulped, but held her ground.

“Be nice!” She pleaded. She didn’t want Sam to drive off Daniel, he was nice, and, like, one of the only friends she had at school.

Maybe.

Were they friends? Mary hoped they were friends, her only other friend was Sam, after all, and sometimes it felt like Sam wanted to strangle her.

…Like right now, for instance.

Luckily for her, Daniel wasn’t so easily scared off. “So what are you guys planning to do today?” He turned to Mary. Was… was he asking her? Usually when people came to talk to them, especially boys, Sam was always the center of attention.

Mary felt her face heat up as she began to think of an answer. “W-Well, I guess… um… we’re going to the gym to work out after breakfast…” She was about to ask if he wanted to come, but she managed to catch herself before she made a big fool out of herself.

“Oh, what a coincidence! See, well… I-I was going to the gym myself,” he admitted with an awkward laugh. “Then back to my room to study for that psych test.”

Mary went pale. That’s right, they had a psych test on Monday. She’d been so swept up in Sam’s training regimen this past week, she’d completely forgotten to keep up with classes!

All of a sudden, death by overworking seemed like a tempting prospect.