Disclaimer:
This is a pure work of fiction. Any resemblance to real people or events in this story is totally coincidental.
Warning:
Slow Build. Enjoy
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My name is Chelsea Varga and if you saw me now, you'd never guess that this wispy, 33year old, 5'4, chubby, dirty-blonde haired, timid, near blind, 190llbs, fat assed, titted and bellied soccer mom was once an Olympian. I can't help but laugh at myself in contempt whenever I remember that sometime in the eternally distant past, I... me, yes the same one writing this now, once won the Bronze medal in Olympic gymnastics. To put that into perspective, I was once the third best female gymnast on the whole fucking planet. My sister Marcia was the first on that same day.
Yes, I have a baby sister who's an Olympic gold medalist. How's that for crazy? We both started training when I was 12 and Marcia was 8. And if there was anything like a perfect child, it was her. She easily excelled at anything she tried. Don't get me wrong, she's no slacker though, she's a severe hard-worker. But she just seemed to have that magic touch that just made it all fall in place for her. She had a forcefulness, audacity and self-belief about her that just compelled people to let her have her way. Marcia always wanted to win. And she wouldn't settle for less.
I on the other hand was more on the timid and concilatory side. I was mom's favorite and Marcia was Dad's. I think he saw in her, the son he never had.
It didn't come as a surprise to me when Marcia won gold even though it was her first ever appearance at the Olympics (and my second.) I was truly happy for her. Since then, she's gone on to win 2 more Olympic medals; silver and gold respectively, 5 world titles and countless national trophies. After she retired, she went on to start a super successful sporting assessories line and many charities. The last few times we saw, she'd just had her first baby Lance whom I adore. We used to talk every now and then though, but it seemed that as time passed, we just had less and less in common. I love her to bits though, and despite her seemingly aloof exterior I know she loves me too.
For me though, that bronze medal at age 18 proved to be the highlight of my career. For me, such success was too much for me to handle as an 18 year old and immediately after that, I quit gymnastics and sports altogether to the horror of my dad and coach. Mom was more understanding though, but dad was less amused. Although he grew more accepting, I still feel he's never fully forgiven me.
I don't blame him though; when it seemed like I'd finally begin to reap the rewards for the endless amounts of time and effort, I just walked away from it all.
But the fact was that I was petrified of falling short of the height I'd reached. I'd been shy of a medal in the last Olympics. But not winning a medal at all hurts different if you've won one before and I didn't think I could bear that. Until now I still can't shake that feeling that I failed my coach, country and especially my parents.
After my fifteen minutes of fame though, my life just seemed to sink into deeper and deeper levels of mediocrity. Whenever (and that's pretty often) I feel my self esteem sinking to abysmal depths, I watch old footage of my past gymnast days.
But I don't dare watch my Olympic or any other pro performances though, those always make me feel like an imposter and a coward. I only watch those of me as an amateur. I find it more soothing and relatable to watch me as a fault ridden toddler than as a pro teenage gymnast.
When I was younger, I used to be able to muster enough courage to watch videos of me as a dazzling, full-figured expert teenage gymnast girl. And on some rare occasions of otherworldly boldness I could even watch that cursed footage of me as an eighteen year old grinning ear to ear while yelling lies about hearing bombs bursting in air and watching ramparts alongside Marcia. But those got harder to watch as I got further and further away from what I used to look and feel like back then, until I eventually stopped watching them altogether because all they did now was shred my already tattered self image. I'll never be that girl again.
Fast forward eight years and I finally get another chance to get something right. I met and fell in love with My college sweetheart Dennis Varga who is now a 36 year old successful dentist and the most blameless man I've ever met. I never even revealed to him that I was once an athlete. He found out shortly after our only child Samantha was born courtesy his YouTube recommendation and at that point, we'd been married three whole years and known each other for four. Can you believe what a slimeball I am?
I'd never seen him look at me with such awe when he found out. Nor can I remember him fucking me as passionately as he did that day and other days around that period. That was the highlight of our sex life.
Before that period, our lovemaking was pretty decent and fairly regular but nothing close to fireworks. While I loved his newfound lust for me, I couldn't shake off the feeling that he fucked me while thinking of somebody else, even though that somebody else was me. So I surprised myself by begging him to never watch videos of my youth again, snd was even more surprised when he agreed not to or at least, so it seemed. Gosh I suck.
Since then though, things have kinda teetered down quite a bit. And I'm not even about to blame Dennis because despite his pretty busy schedule he makes time for us. I just wish I was more adventurous. But I totally love and respect my husband.
Anyways, fast forward seven years later and now I'm a high school librarian and let me just say sex isn't on the top of our priority list. Maybe 12th or 15thish...you know, it's there but just really really rusty.
I really do not need to work though, Dennis makes more than enough money. But with Samantha away most of the time at school and for ballet classes, I really needed something to take my mind away from my bouts of self-loathing and to give me a chance to feel like I can achieve something myself, at least once more. So I thought; what better way to forget about being an eigtheen year old than hanging around a bunch of eigtheen year olds all day. Right?
Well, that's not quite how it happened. More like: too many compliments from Dennis about my cooking had me believing I was Colonel Sanders.
But then, the restaurants I applied at weren't as upbeat about my skills. It also didn't help that I had never worked before in my life and really had no job experience.
Then Dennis suggested I apply at one of his Clients' school as they needed a librarian and books have always appealed to me.
Again Dennis beat me to it. I got the job and although Dennis swears he played no part, i still feel it was all him. God, what would I be without this man? (I think it also helped though that Mr Singh, my husband's client seemed to suck at hiding his secret fetish for heavy bitches. Ha.)
Work at Chennayams High was pretty routine and uneventful like I liked it. Kids nowadays cared more about selfies than about self-help. Cheerleading and basketbalI was what Chennayams cared about. Needless to say, I avoided those arenas and their participants like the plague and thankfully they seemed to return the favor. I went by almost invisibly. I got to work first and left last, partly out of an old habit and in part a conscious attempt to limit the number of people I ever came across. The library was empty most times which was a true shame as it was the most well stacked high-school library I'd ever been in. It'd seem only Mr Singh ever drops by. But even he, never stays to read. He justs says hi in his usual awkward, geeky way and leaves with an armful of books for the next month or so it probably takes him to finish them.
Everything was going great until Mya; the school's star cheerleader stepped into the library for the first time. Without intending to sound like a cynical bore, I wondered what a girl like Mya was doing anywhere near a pile of books. Now before you think I was just stereotyping, here's a little about Mya: Up until then, this was the first time i'd seen her up close and alone. I'd only ever seen her from afar, on the school posters and flyers and on the internet whenever I entered curious, jealous stalker mode. And she was always surrounded by other cheerleaders or boys or just someone, doing one scandalous thing or the other. And visiting this nightclub or that resort. So I couldn't help but be surprised to see her here and alone for that matter.
Mya had a reputation I was quite privy to. I am not judging but let's just say: if men sowed oats literally, Mya'd make Mr Quaker's fields blush. But really, could you blame her? The girl had it all and the world was her oyster. She'd dated literally everyone on the basketball team as her Facebook profile seemed to suggest. She'd been traveling the world since she was a toddler courtesy her media mogul dad and fleet of rich boyfriends. Again, thanks to Facebook's inability to keep a secret.
Girls like that just didn't visit the library; not necessarily because they were dumb, but because they didn't need to. Or did they?
