Kallie Tell
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Campus Pigs- Chapter 1
🕑 Added 2024-10-30 06:32:50 +0000 UTCSo excited to post a full chapter for this continuing story! Be on the lookout for chapter 2 very soon!
“It's not fair,” wailed Lindsey, face streaked with mascara-stained tears. “It's not fair, it's not fair! Draw again, it's not fair!”
The circle of 11 women stared down at the hysterical girl in a near tantrum on the floor, their faces an even mix of sympathy and irritation.
“I can’t,” Lindsey whined, before bursting into another soundless wail. “I can’t,” she repeated, panic skewing the pitch of her pleas. “My mom is gonna kill me. And I do soccer. I'm gonna get kicked off the team, please, please!” she rushed out.
She turned to a short woman sitting pristinely upright and dressed in hot pink from her wide headband nestled in her short blonde hair to her strappy sandals which revealed perfectly polished pink toenails.
“Abigail please,” she implored, swiping at her running nose as she begged the woman on literal hands and knees. “Abby c’mon, I can't, you know I can't.”
The woman sighed as all eyes swung towards her, a hint of disgust encroaching upon her neutral expression.
“You know the rules, Lindsey. We all know the rules, well before we got here. It's a yearly tradition, a tradition that Phi Lamba Zeta has always taken very seriously.”
Lindsey's loud sobs had quieted to a whisper, and she rubbed her nose again with her sleeve as she looked up at the commanding, almost disinterested woman who looked down at her in disdain.
“Phi Lamba Zeta has followed the same traditions for the last 50 years, as long as this sorority has been on Kingsley State Campus, and we aren't breaking them for anybody. Especially not a first year. She frowned. “Let me lay out some facts for you sweetie,” she said, anger thinly veiled behind each syllable. “It's October 1st, and every sorority and fraternity on campus is doing exactly what we're doing. You wanted to be in this sorority, you agreed to abide by all our set standards, you know the contest takes place at the same time every year, and you,” said Abigail, taking a step closer to the near inconsolable woman, “You drew the short straw.
“I’ll quit,” cried Lindsey, voice faltering.
“You won’t,” Abigail replied calmly as the other women looked on with morbid horror and curiosity, glad to be anyone but Lindsey. “Or you’ll be enjoying a nice, long social probation. About four years long. If you get cast out by a campus sorority you’ll never make a friend again, you and I both know that. Have fun adding all your professors on Facebook.”
Lindsey muffled a sob with her hand, her tears falling with renewed rigor.
“The first weigh-in is tonight,” Abigail continued, setting her mouth in a flat line. “Phi Lamba wins the campus pig contest every year, and nothing about this year will be different, not while I’m president.”
She turned to the woman on her right who straightened to attention immediately, deferring near reverently to her intimating leader. “We’re leaving,” she told her, then pointed into the crowd of women surrounding the spectacle. “You, make sure she doesn't eat anything till tonight. We want her starting weight as low as possible. And you,” she said, flicking her eyes back towards the young woman still a miserable tangle of long limbs on the floor.
Lindsey looked up at Abigail, her wide eyes rimmed red.
“I hope you’re hungry piggy. We have a lot of work to do.”
Abigail strode off, the muted pock of her wedged sandals striking a rhythm that Lindsey instantly harkened to a death march. Ellie, the sorority’s mousy-haired vice president and Abigail's trodden-down henchman, scurried after her in the otherwise oppressive silence in which everyone avoided Lindsey's gaze.
“I’m gonna quit,” Lindsey offered weakly into the silence.
She looked up to find each girl's face contorted into a mask of pity, either gnawing their lower lips, picking at their nails, or shifting from foot to foot.
“I’m serious, I’ll quit,” Lindsey reiterated unconvincingly.
“Social probation is pretty bad, Lindsey,” a voice offered quietly.
Lindsey scoffed without looking up, immediately recognizing the gentle lilt of her longtime friend. Karina was a sweet, naive girl whose booksmarts often seemed to exist as a contrast to her distinct lack of street smarts. She was kind-hearted and painfully sincere, so much so that those who didn't know her occasionally mistook her sweet nature as sarcasm. Karina wouldn't know sarcasm if it walked up and slapped her in the face, and even if that were to occur, she would immediately assume it was a misunderstanding.
Karina had the kind of heart that impacted her eyes, making her see everyone else through the same lens that they saw her. She would likely be the target of some minor ridicule if she wasn’t so beautiful, her voluminous waves of strawberry blond hair framing a doll-like face complete with a perfect pink pout. Her very being radiated innocence, a trait that made sense when she and Lindsey met in elementary school but had become more and more out of place as they aged, finally bordering on mildly irritating as they encountered more and more of the real world. Kingsley State is a notorious party school, and when your best friend is so trusting that you spend all your nights out looking after her, the responsibility begins to take its toll.
“Well, is social probation worse than blowing up like a fucking whale?” Lindsey shot back angrily.
“Oh,” intoned Karina quietly, the hurt in her voice evident.
Lindsey rolled her eyes and looked up, knowing without seeing that Karina eye’s had filled with tears the moment she raised her voice. Karina’s sensitivity was a blessing and a curse. It was like a hypersensitive empathy. She could always parse out what other people were feeling, but at the same time immediately internalized those feelings for herself, with any negativity whatsoever manifesting as sadness. She was the type to cry at every internet video, every sad commercial, and in every romance movie, comedy or otherwise. Lindsey had known Karina for nearly as long as she’d known herself, and was able to predict and anticipate everything the bubbly girl did.
“Karina, stop,” She instructed, the anger in her tone slightly softened. “This isn't the time.”
Karina nodded quickly, swiping at her eyes with the back of her sleeve.
Lindsey dropped her hand in her hands, wanting to curl up in a ball on the floor and go to sleep. She was exhausted, and not just because she and the other girls had stayed out till 4 am the previous night at the Mu Gamma annual Green Day party to celebrate the last day of September. The entire house had their weekly Sunday 7:00 am meeting, directly after Abigail finished her morning yoga and directly before she went for her run. The sorority had strict standards surrounding exercise, and most of the girls attended a few classes a week at the student gyms to fulfill the requirements. Abigail however, always went above and beyond, and her lithe, toned figure was the result of daily cardio and a strict diet.
“How we look reflects Phi Lambda,” she’d always say, giving each girl the once-over at their Monday night check-ins.
The constant check-ins, meetings, rules, events, and chores were starting to take their toll on Lindsey, even after just a few months. She was sick of feeling so controlled, but she knew Abby was right; social probation wasn't an option. She would have a miserable time, and more than that, likely be forced to transfer schools. Kingsley State had always been her top choice, she and Karina had worked hard and prayed endlessly for admission, and her parents had already paid a hefty sum. Transferring wasn't an option, but neither was living completely friendless after getting kicked out of the school’s most elite sorority.
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” Lindsey murmured into her hands. “I'm gonna get kicked off the soccer team.”
Her throat clenched as a sudden thought flew into her mind.
“Oh my god, Brayden is gonna totally dump me,” she wailed.
Vicky, whose bone-straight black hair, perfectly clear, pale skin, and petite frame made her resemble a K-pop star, cleared her throat.
“Wellllll,” she began, drawing out the word. “I mean, you aren't really dating Brayden. Not officially. So you can't really get dumped if you aren't even…,” she trailed off, feeling the vitriol in Lindsey's burning gaze.
“I’m just saying,” Vicky grumped.
“Just like you’re not dating Tyler?” MJ interjected.
“Yea, well neither are you!” Vicky snapped, turning towards the statuesque brunette with alabaster thighs honed by years of volleyball.
“I’m dating him more than you are,” Mj retorted, taking a step towards the shorter girl.
“Alright, everyone, just stop. Ok? Stop.” Courtney, the group's event coordinator and the de-facto leader whenever Abigail was out of the room stepped between the two warring women, putting a hand up in front of both of them.
“Stop,” she repeated. “Lindsey's right. This is not the time or the place. This happens every year, but it doesn't make it any less stressful for the person who draws the straw. You all need to show a little respect. She’s doing this for us, so we don't have to. And yes, you don't have a choice,” she said, offering Lindsey a hand to help her up, “but you know we’ll all support you, in any way we can.”
Lindsey ignored the invitation to stand, glaring at Courtney through weepy eyes. She liked Courtney, she liked the vast majority of the girls in the sorority, but she didn't want to do this for them. She didn't care about tradition or sorority pride, she didn't care about the other girls’ respect, she cared about the fact that the last winning campus pig dropped out after packing on a whopping 100 pounds in the contest’s 6 months.
The winning pigs that didn't drop out have until the beginning of the next semester to starve themselves back down to size in order to earn readmission into the sorority that forced them to fatten up in the first place, and if they couldn't, they were removed. Most former campus pigs aren't involved in Greek life at all, and waddle around campus constantly lugging the wobbling reminder of their time as a member. One former Phi Lambda member was even rumored to have weight loss surgery over break, the only campus pig in history to return to her previous slim figure.
In the last 5 years, almost no campus pigs had managed to get back down to size, meaning there were no former pigs in the current sisterhood at all. Lindsey occasionally saw those former pigs on her crowded campus and always looked away as quickly as she could, the horrible thought of becoming the next one to stretch out her sweatpants striking genuine fear into her heart.
Courtney dropped her still-empty hand awkwardly.
“It's not as bad as you think,” she offered lamely.
“It's exactly as bad as I think,” Lindsey burst out. “It's exactly as bad as I think and none of you even feel bad, you’re all just glad you’re not me.”
She dissolved into sobs again and Karina dropped down next to her, wrapping her in a tight hug that Lindsey begrudgingly leaned into.
“It’s gonna be ok,” Karina murmured quietly into her weeping friend's strawberry-scented, yellow-blond curls. “Everything is gonna be ok.”
The other girls began to add in their affirmations, the room a rumbling murmur of appeasement.
“You can lose all the weight, I'll help you,” offered MJ.
“And you get to eat whatever you want for so long, I bet that’s so fun,” reasoned another voice.
“Yea, and for a while, you’ll just be thick, you’ll get bigger boobs,” Zoey added.
“God Zoey, you're such a dumbass. Who cares about bigger tits when you’re fat, you can't even wear crop tops.”
“Jesus, Chloe shut up,” Zoey fired back at her twin, scowling. “You totally can wear crop tops, you’ll just look bad,” she consoled unhelpfully.
“Both of you shut up,” Courtney instructed the ditzy twins. “Right now, we just need to be there for Lindsey.” She frowned. “Imagine how you would feel if it was you. We need to be nice.”
She joined Karina in dropping down to Lindsey's level, placing a hand on her back as she spoke.
“Listen. I’m in charge of the budget, and everything that you need is gonna come from us. You won't have to spend a cent, ok?”
Lindsey looked into the motherly senior’s face again, much less angrily this time, and saw only genuine care and concern.
“I’ve been doing this for 4 years,” Courtney went on. “Before I started we were barely winning the contests, we’d be just a few pounds ahead and it would be a fight the whole time. I reworked the budget so that winning is all you have to focus on. We provide all the food, all the new clothes, the rides around campus so you don't burn too many calories, everything. I know it sucks to be chosen, but we all know it sucks even worse to lose. If you lose, you did it all for nothing. If you win, you get the prize money, we get the sorority budget bonus, and, most importantly, we remain the top sorority on campus. Free event privileges, private sections at games and rallies, all the best parties, we only get that when we remain on top. And you’ll be able to lose the weight. I promise you can. You know Tiffany did.”
Lindsey chewed at her nail, considering. Tiffany was a Phi Lambda legend, the only girl to ever win campus pig and senior class representative in the same year. She’d absolutely exploded, stuffing her face full of junk until she was a bloated, unrecognizable caricature of herself, then lost all the weight in record time and was a slim size two in time for her graduation. This was only 4 years ago, but the only girls in the sorority who actually knew Tiffany personally were Abigail and Courtney, both freshmen at the time and now the two senior members of the group. Tiffany was doing well after graduation, and the last time Lindsey had checked her page, she was posting workout tutorials for her 50k followers. She was one of the few campus pigs to inspire weight loss surgery rumors, but surgery or not, she looked fantastic.
Lindsey sighed. Courtney was right, of course. The humiliation of losing compounded with a newly fattened body would be worse than just getting fat, especially knowing she let down her sisters. Despite the stupid fights and all the rules, she had grown close to these girls and cared about them. She’d also always wanted to join Phi Lambda, always wanted to be a part of the super exclusive group of beautiful girls that seemed so poised, put together, and perfect on social media. Lindsey frowned, realizing that in all her high school years of stalking the sorority's pages, she’d never once seen a fat girl, not even a plump one.
I guess the campus pig never gets posted, she thought grumpily.
“Whatever,” she said finally, buffing at her tears with her sleeves. “Whatever. It's not like I have a choice.”
“That's the spirit,” said Courtney with a pity-tinged smile. “You got this.”
Lindsey sniffed and blinked.
“I really can't eat anything till tonight?” she asked in a wavering voice. “I’m starving.”
Everyone looked over to Audrey, the quiet, thoughtful girl Abigail had pointed to and placed in charge of ensuring Lindsey didn't eat until the weigh-in. Audrey was a notable standout in Phi Lambda, not just because she didn't rush until her junior year, but also because her personality, interests, and goals couldn't be more different from the average Phi Lamba girl.
She was quiet, although not shy, and seemed to observe and discern everything through wide, dark, calm eyes. She had little interest in posting on her story, attending parties, and chasing after boys, and the girls of Phi Lambda likely would’ve overlooked her during rush if she weren't impossible to overlook. Audrey was gorgeous, strikingly so, and often left people so mesmerized by her looks and her mysterious aura that they found themselves pining after her. She had the attention, and if she desired it, the affection of every boy at the school. She was slender with long, graceful limbs and a proverbial mountain of black, tightly coiled curls that she often tied off in a simple bun, the curls that fell free framing her modelesque face. Her glowy caramel skin was perfectly blemish-free and she almost looked unreal, as if somehow airbrushed to hide imperfections in real-time.
She was the kind of beauty that opened any door, but she didn't brandish it the way many would. She clearly didn't enjoy being the center of attention, and instead used her hypnotic presence to do whatever she liked without consequence. She was the only sorority member who didn’t receive strikes for her habitual skipping of events and parties, and she was notorious for her Irish exits. She didn't seem to connect with the other girls closely, even her chatty roommate Margo, and Lindsey didn't quite understand why she wanted to join the sorority in the first place. Shy, subservient Ellie made sense to her, but quiet, stoic Aubrey was a mystery.
Aubrey shrugged.
“Boss said no eating,” she replied casually.
She often took up that cavalier tone when addressing sorority duties, but she was also a woman of her word. If she said she would do something, it meant she planned to do it.
“Guess we’re hanging out for the rest of the day,” she said to Lindsey, offering a hand that, this time, Lindsey readily accepted out of shock and a bit of pleasure.
Audrey was so unknowable that attention from her felt like a treat, like a confirmation of value, and Lindsey was no more immune to it than anyone else. They stood facing each other for a second, and Audrey cracked a half smile.
“You got homework?”
Lindsey nodded.
“Me too. Come to my room,” she said, turning heel and walking out of the dining room.
They all watched her leave, the typical Audrey effect taking hold as they found themselves unable to look away, and finally, all attention turned back to Lindsey.
Karina gripped her hand tightly.
“Everything is gonna be ok,” she promised in a voice that was clearly as firm as she could muster.
Lindsey sighed feeling the tears in her eyes renew. Everything was not going to be ok. She was going to get very, very fat.
