"So, what happened when I left you?" Jess quizzed after Beth squeezed into the back seat of Jessica's dad's car.  

Beth placed her college bag on the seat next to her and looked in horror at the seat belt. Backseats of cars presented her with numerous problems. She could never share a backseat with more than one other human being. A third party would invariably find themselves pressed up against her with their lungs slowly being compressed. The next was leg room but as Beth looked down, she was thankful that Jessica's dad drove a large Insignia and with Jessica being so short, her seat was pulled forward, allowing plenty of room for Beth's oversized legs and knees. The final issue was the one currently presenting itself to Beth. The seat belt. Always too short and always difficult to heave around her frame and without the ability to see where she was trying to plug it in because her stomach or hips would obliterate seeing the seat beside her, she opted for her usual tactic in these incidences and held the belt across her body. 

"So ..... what HAPPENED? I looked back and he was walking towards you with eyes like saucers! Oh, this is my dad, Frank. Dad, this is Beth my friend I was telling you about. Totally saved my life on Saturday and has a killer set of vocals." 

Beth smiled at her father who had turned to check on her progress with the seat belt so he could pull off from the curb. A bus was approaching behind them and as they'd picked her up yards from the bus stop, he made a quick polite greeting and slowly pulled out to join the rest of the traffic on the busy Bridge Street. 

Jess looked back expectantly and smiled encouragingly at Beth. 

Beth however was more interested in how Jessica's conversation with her parents had gone. The only text she'd had from her Saturday evening read "Here goes. Wish me luck. If they kick me out, can I live with you? LOL! x"  Beth had replied with a "Good luck!" but had heard nothing back. She was surprised when they turned up as promised at the bus stop that Monday morning just as Jessica had said they would. 

Beth tilted her head towards Jessica's father and mouthed "How did it go?" 

Jess smiled, "Daddy, Beth has just inquired how our conversation went Saturday evening. As you know, Beth is the only person I've confided in, apart from Michael the Moron obviously so she's anxious to learn of how my parental units responded to the news that their daughter unit malfunctioned and went and reproduced with a lesser species."

Jessica's candid exchange with her father surprised Beth and she glanced nervously at the back of Frank's head to gauge his response. Rather than fury at Jessica's apparent frivolous attitude he laughed weakly. 

"Well Beth, I am very grateful that my daughter here spoke to you. It sounds like you gave her quite the tonic she was looking for because my wife and I have our daughter back, it seems. She has been sullen and withdrawn and far more moody of late and Tina and I have been worried about her. Then she bounds back in the house Saturday afternoon, a little later than usual with "BIG NEWS" and proceeded to tell us the entire sordid story."

Beth glared in amazement at her dad's almost upbeat tone and looked back at Jessica who appeared to be picking at lint on her skirt with a dreamy look in her eye. Beth took this as confirmation that this was to be regarded as a normal exchange between Jess and her dad.

Suddenly Jess interjected, "Ah, now dad. You've not told Beth the best part."

"Yes, well Beth. About two weeks ago I was doing the recycling. No one else bothers in our house so it falls to me to go through the bins to ensure we've been recycling all that we can. An onerous task, I grant you but after a week of dealing with snotty teenagers and the shit their parent's produce, having to sift through my own family's shit is a step up and rather therapeutic. Anyway .... imagine my surprise when I discover a Clearblue box? Used! Now ... I was faced with a dilemma as you can understand Beth. I had the snip about four years ago, you know what that is, Beth?"

Beth nodded, dumbfounded. 

"Ah yes, well.... oh for God's sake woman, pull over! Choose a lane, any lane! Just get out of mine!! Where was I, ah yes. The snip - well I knew one of three things. My wife had somehow conceived miraculously by some divine intervention or something or that she was having an affair or finally, my daughter was in trouble. I provided my wife with the box that evening and she denied any wrong doing, or liaison with the Holy Spirit, leaving only one conclusion. So Tina and I have been waiting for her to confide in us for about two weeks. It wouldn't have been right for us to confront her. We taught both our kids that we are always there for them. So ... we waited ... and waited ... and then thank God, she spoke to you and she came to her senses!"

Jessica smiled warmly back at Beth, "So we sat and talked and talked and talked about it and talked some more ... and we agreed for me to see a counsellor this week. She will explain all of my options and what to expect if I keep the baby, give it up for adoption, which I don't think I could do and mum was the same, or if I want an abortion. I'm lucky, Beth. I'm not very far gone so I found out really early on so I have lots of time to make a decision. One thing has been decided though," and Jessica looked directly back at her dad, "Michael is going to have to pray he doesn't bump into my dad or ... how did you put it, Daddy?"

Beth saw Frank's jaw set and his grip tightened on the wheel, "He will be eating from a straw for the rest of his pitiful existence!" he spat out through gritted teeth. 

"So ... for the love of God, Beth. What happened when I said goodbye and you saw ... oooh la laaaaa, Miles!" Jessica's tone was friendly and mocking. Beth's cheeks lit on fire, egging Jessica's gentle teasing on, "Come on hot cheeks, spill the beans!"

Beth started playing with the strap of her school bag, running over the stitching with her nails and examining the chips in her varnish. Her eyes started stinging and tears started to well up, "Oh, it was awful, Jess. I was so humiliated."

"What?" Jess exclaimed, turning as far back in the front seat as she could towards Beth. "But ... he looked so happy to see you. What happened?" 

"My mum happened." Beth said solemnly. "Miles and I had just gotten over the awkward hellos and my cheeks were finally returning to normal colour when he started talking about the after party from the joint singing event thingy. He wanted to know if I was going, blah blah blah and then my mum came from nowhere. Oh Jess. It was like a scene from ... Oh God. I don't know. I just wanted the ground to open and swallow me up. If Miles speaks to me ever again, I'll be lucky. Oh God, we've got music first thing ... he's there! Oh god..." and she trailed off, mumbling about how she wished she could be adopted or an orphan. 

Jess laughed, "Surely it couldn't have been that bad?"

"She was wearing a hideous orange lipstick and announced to us as she prized her way in between me and Miles that she'd been "having fun in Superdrug trying on the sample lippies". It was awful," Beth groaned. Jess giggled at Beth's impression of her mother.

"Yes, I did catch some of your mother in the changing room, remember? She's quite a character!"

"Roald Dahl's Mrs Twit is "quite a character" Jess, my mother is a bastard train wreck. God. I swear she is singly the most insufferable person I know!"

"But she's your mum, Beth and that's her job. To embarrass you and to love you more than any other human being can." Frank offered, suddenly joining the conversation. 

"You've not heard the worst of it, I'm just getting started," Beth began, seemingly enjoying the anecdote a little more now she was sharing it with a generous and forgiving audience.

"She proceeded to pull out of various shopping bags the spoils of her sale-bashing. It appeared to Miles and I that she'd bought most of the Plus Size rack in the Cancer Research charity shop and held each horrible, massive affront to all that is fashionable in this world up against me. Exclaiming with each one, "No that won't fit, no that yellow makes your skin looks jaundice, no that print and fabric will actually accentuate your back boobs " and so on. You see my problem?"

"Oh god," Jess giggled, "what did Miles do at this point while you were being sized up against your mum's finds?" 

"Oh, he thought it was all highly amusing. He stood there admiring each item, even venturing an opinion with some of them. This only encouraged my mother, who by this time had cottoned onto the fact that I was talking.. Dum! Dum! Duuuuuumm! To. A. BOY!" 

"Oh crap ... then what?" Jess excitedly asked but with her hands up against her face, peering through her fingers as if she was sat watching a horror movie. 

"Oh Jess. I'm glad you asked because it's at this point my cheeks became radioactive and Miles started looking uncomfortable because in the space of about thirty seconds my mother had asked him, not only his name, but where he lived, what his parents did, what subjects he did at school, whether he'd known me long, did he know I had asthma ... " 

"Wo! Stop there!" Jess halted, "Whether he knew you had asthma? What's that all about?"

"I know! What the fuck, right? I think by this point she'd got herself on this question train and couldn't get off it, so the questions kept spilling out of her. I thought at one point, when she'd actually asked him what his favourite colour was that she'd ask him what he thought about South Korea's foreign economic policy. She's fucking insane!" 

"Ha ha!" Frank burst out into a loud rapturous clap of laughter, "oh you do have a wonderful turn of phrase, Bethan, it's Bethan right? No wonder Jess likes hanging around with you, you're funny!" 

"No, it's Bethany, Mr .. um Frank. I've always thought that was too pretty a name for ... well a petite name for someone who is anything but ... so Beth seemed to fit."

"Nonsense, Bethany," he scolded as he turned into the end of the school's road "Beauty is fading, but personality, wit and courage of character leave an indelible mark of beauty on someone. More aesthetically pleasing and lasts a hell of a lot longer when you're trying to impress an individual. Nearly there girls, I'll park up the road here."

"So, what happened with Miles then?" Jess asked impatiently, annoyed a little at her dad's interruption with his spontaneous wisdom sharing.

"Well, we just stood there for a bit. All credit to Miles, he answered every one - his favourite colour is purple and he did know I had asthma but didn't feel it necessary to ask me about it as he too was permanently attached to his inhaler."

"Aw, that's sweet. His and hers inhalers!" Jess teased whimsically. "And then what?"

"Oh Jess, just as he started talking about the party thing again, mum starting going on about how I'd been looking for something to wear that day, but couldn't find anything to fit me because most shops only go up to a size 18. Oh God ... I'd forgotten this part ... she told him that I always found it hard to get clothes to fit and I wouldn't wear a dress because I didn't have ankles." Beth buried her head in her hands at the recollection of her mother's final humiliation. 

"Oh Beth, what happened then?"

"Well, he was really sweet actually, thinking about it," Beth said, tilting her head to one side getting lost in the memory of Miles' response. "He pulled up his top, patted his belly and exclaimed to mum "you think it's easy getting a shirt over this bad boy that isn't going to fire buttons at people every time I stretch?" "

"Aaah!" laughed Jess, "that's brilliant!" Even Frank chuckled as he pulled over the car to let them out. 

"Yes, but mum didn't see the funny side of him flashing his tummy at her and she practically dragged me away before I could even say goodbye."

"Oh, I wonder if he was going to ask to take you to the party ... or do that, 'see you there' thing they do." Jess speculated mindlessly as they both got out of the car. 

They said their goodbyes to her father and walked down the road towards the school gates. 

"I wouldn't know what boys do, Jess. You forget. Boys don't like girls who are say ... of my size. Or who can probably eat more than them on a date."

Jess tilted her head to one side and shot Beth a sympathetic smile. Her smile froze as her eyes spotted something behind Beth and Jess froze.

"You seen a ghost?" Beth asked and turned to see what Jess was glaring at.

There they were. In all their uniformed perfection, like dolls in a row ready to be selected from a shelf. All perfect clothes and fixed grins. They were looking their way and Lucy was a little in front, seemingly having appointed herself their leader. 

"Oh God." Beth gulped. "I almost forgot. It's pay back time. I really went for them on Saturday, Jess. What am I going to do?"

Jess raised her chin in defiance. "Nothing," she announced, "they'll be more mad at me and I couldn't give a flying fuck!" 

"Language please!" shouted Mr Swales. The two girls hadn't seen him walk past them through the school gates.

"We do nothing, Beth. Stick by me, we have every lesson together today, so I won't let anything happen, ok?" and she linked arms with her. 

Beth looked down at Jessica's tiny arm interlinked in her own. Her upper arms looked like thighs compared with the slender arm of Jessica's peaking out from it and at once their stark differences came to Beth like a slap in the face and the absurdity of their friendship never seemed so real until that moment.

"How do you know we have the same lessons?" Beth quietly asked as they approached the school gates.  Just beyond them, Lucy and the clones were waiting.  

"I checked our schedules for today. I wanted to know we'd be facing this together. Sorry, bit stalkerish, isn't it?" Jess giggled, clutching Beth's arm a little tighter. 

"Into battle, we go then!" Beth weakly announced whilst quietly reminding herself about how empowering it was in the coffee shop to use her own self loathing against them. Not actually liking herself very much gave her all the power she needed against them. Because their opinion of her no longer mattered. All Beth needed to concentrate on was liking and accepting herself.  Their irrelevance suddenly made her smile and she tightened her arms grip around Jess's. 

"Come on then!" she announced, "The Princess and the Porker rides back into town!" and arm in arm, with Jess laughing at their new titles, they walked towards the group to finally complete their social demise.