You Were My Queen All Along.

“Hey guys! Today we’re going to be doi-” Marie gave a long pause as she looked to the figure that was standing in her doorway. This was her everyday life. She would try to make her daily vlog for her YouTube channel and at that second, her stepsister, Ivy would be standing there trying to mess her up. Now you might be wondering, why is she making YouTube vlogs? Well, Marie wasn’t really normal, she was only 16 years old and excessively wealthy with about 1.3 million watchers on her daily basis, well that was if she got to make her daily vlog or confession to the followers. 

Ivy looked at her and rolled her eyes “Mom said she needs you, and that you better not be making your stupid vlog right now. We are getting ready to leave.”

“Well, I need to stay here….” She said as she leaned forwards and shut her GoPro off. 

“Why do you need to stay here for? You never leave the house and we have school today and you know your not allowed to stay home.” 

Maria groaned at the thought of having to go with her step-mom, she didn’t like her at all and it was also vice versa. She was only staying with her father because she absolutely had to. CPS, Child Protective Services, said that her mother wasn’t capable of being a healthy and stable mother, though they weren’t lying, she wanted to be with her mom. Her mom didn’t treat her like complete and utter trash. 

Today was January 4, the new year had just started but she was already thinking about her new years resolution. For years, she had been wanting to convince herself into working out and losing weight, though that was what gained her all of her followers. Most of her “fans” were haters, even though it got her money, it gave her horrible self confidence. 

Maria pulled on her school uniform, and then went into the bathroom to check her weight on the scale, which she did everyday. Surely, it was higher than it was the day before, 329 lbs, yesterday she’d been 326. She was extremely disappointed. ‘I have to get something done about this.’ She jogged down the stairs, out the door, and climbed into the backseat of her step mothers car. 

As the car drove, Ivy was on the phone with her boyfriend, gossiping about girls that she wasn’t very fond of, who was practically the whole school. She was with the captain of the basketball team and she was the cheerleading captain, perfect couple, right? Wrong. Perhaps, they were the most toxic couple in the century, constantly fighting and yelling at each other, but they claimed that they were in love.

Maria never really had a love life in her time yet, considering really no one wanted to be with the fattest girl in school, that would be a really low standard for someone. Though, she really had no friends, or even love-life history, she always had her boy best friend, Malik, who went by Milly, he was always by her side and never left her side in school. She was secretly in love with him, but she felt that he wanted nothing more than friends. 

As her mom pulled into the highschool, Saint Noahs, it was packed with incoming students and along with teachers ready to teach. She crawled out of the car, seeing milly sitting on the curb, holding his own hand. His black curly hair looked all messed up and his brown eyes sparkled in the morning sun, almost like he was crying. When Maria looked closer, she realized that he was really crying, taking his hand and looking into his eyes, ‘bloodshot like always’ she thought to herself. “What’s going on?” She asked, completely confused and concerned. 

“He’s g-g-gone!” He burst into tears, whaling at the thoughts rushing through him. 

“Malik, who’s gone?”

“My dad!” The pain in his voice enforced something serious happened over the weekend. 

“What happened to him?” 

“O-o-o-over- ov- overd-” He was stuttering, unable to get the words out. 

Understanding what he was saying, he pulled him into the tightest hug she’d ever given to him, she’d always been to shy to enforce an actual hug. He sobbed into her, melting into her hold on him. Then, here strutted his girlfriend, poppy. She was extremely snotty and rude to Maria, always, jealous of the relationship between the girl and her boyfriend. 

“Ohhh my goddd! Baby! What’s wrong?!” She exclaimed as she technically pretended Maria wasn’t sitting right next to him. 

Upset, Maria stood and walked in, in her mind, she wanted to punch that girl right in the face, but in reality, she wouldn’t get judged if she wasn’t so fat. This was how her mindset worked, perhaps if she was skinny, she would be even more beautiful than every other girl and maybe she would have a chance with Milly. Then he wouldn’t be treated like complete trash by his girlfriend when people weren’t watching. 

This was the last straw, she had to do something about her weight. For the rest of that day, she thought about what she was going to do about losing it. Her new years resolution would now have to be solved. For three years, that had been her resolution and she never got down to it. Instead of eating lunch, she filmed in the school bathroom for her vlog channel. Today, it was a different type of video, she reached out to her fans and asked what she could go to lose weight.

After she filmed, she uploaded the content to her school laptop and walked back to the school yard where she saw Milly, completely alone, curled up underneath the tree. Her heart broke and she went to him and sat next to him, laying her head on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, bubba..” She whispered. She waited for a response but it was completely silence. After a few minutes, she sat up, taking her head off his shoulder to look at him. Completely broken. Tears dried to his face as he went to wipe the current ones. He melted into her, laying his head on her shoulder instead, letting a soft whimper leave his lips. 

She gently grabbed his hand and intertwined their fingers together, as she began to think about if this was them all the time. The main reason she had to change. 

“Please come over and stay tonight.” He said in a begging tone.

“You know I will.. My outfit still over there?” 

He nodded in response.

“Okay.. I’ll come over with you.”

After a couple hours, they were in his room, his mom had left and it was just him there by himself. His mother was never home, she never cared about what was right for Malik. He was sitting in his gaming chair as she sat on his bed. “Milly?” she finally spoke out. 

In response, he turned around, smiling at her, “Yes?”

“I gained three more pounds since yesterday.. I need your help losing weight.”

“We can go for a night walk around the city?” he suggested

“Please?”

He nodded and put a shirt on considering he didn’t have one on from the beginning. He never had one on when she was around. When he put one on, they walked down the stairs and out the door. Going down the street, they began to walk until they hit the main part of the city. It was absolutely gorgeous at night time. This was the best part of New York. 

After about three hours of walking the city, Milly finally was starting to get exhausted, to the point where he wasn’t going to make it home. Concerned, Maria sat him down on a nearby bench where there was a group of males standing closeby, each and every one of them stared at Malik in great alarm, the group began to whisper amongst the others. One nodded and walked closer. 

Frightened, Maria gently began to pet his arm. He started to get defensive even though he was exhausted. “What the hell are you doing in my face?” he shouted at the one who was getting in his face. They’d done nothing wrong to these men to make them act this way towards them.

She felt him tense up, as though he was about to start swinging. The one grabbed Malik up and shoved him against the brick wall behind them. As she watched, she realized Milly was effortlessly fighting, and winning. ‘wow’ she thought to herself. 

After the guys were finally done and scared of him, she had him walk home with her. Later on in the week, she snuck out with milly every night to walk the city. She was on a properly planned diet. When she checked her weight on the second week of her workouts, diet, and healthy go abouts, she came to realize that she lost weight. 299.2 lbs. 

Shocked, she rang Malik. “I lost weight!” she exclaimed.

“That’s good.”

“I know! and its all thanks to you!”

“your welcome.”

“hey what’s wrong?” 

“nothing.” he said and hung up the phone. 

Heart broken, she desperately attempted to call him back, no answer. She got extremely mad at him, how could he do this? She got so mad and didn’t even think as to why he was doing this anymore. 

She headed down the stairs and decided that she would walk down to the city by herself. ‘I don’t need him’ she constantly drilled that into her brain. 

It was now a month and two weeks later, she’d still not heard anything from her best friend, worried, she went downstairs after checking her weight ‘195 lbs.’Nodding, she put on her running shoes, and began her stroll towards his home. What if something happened to him? She wasn’t there for him when he needed her the most. Damn it..

She’d been so focused on herself, that she didn’t think about him. The door was unlocked and she heard the water running up in the bathroom. Thank god, he's okay. She walked up to the bathroom and knocked. “Malik?” 

The door opened to reveal him, his eyes were red like blood, like he’d been crying for weeks with no stop. She looked at him and hugged him “hey…” she whispered

He sniffled and hugged her back “hey… you look amazing..” he teared up like he was going to start crying again. 

“Thank you..” she whispered and ran her hand through his hair and kissed his cheek softly. 

He looked at her. “Listen… i need to ask you something…” He said.

She looked at him puzzled but content to listen to what he had to say to her. She sighed and realized that maybe it was gonna be a speech as to what had been happening in the last six weeks. But what he had to say completely shocked her. 

“Listen, Maria.. You’ve always been so gorgeous and you didn’t need to lose weight to be perfect. In my eyes, you have always been good enough. Poppy was just forceful with our relationship and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and get someone beating me up. I broke up with her the day you called me and she was very mad at me. I was so afraid that I had lost you. My got you look amazing.. You did your dream.. You got it done.. I’m so proud of you. Can you give me the chance… And be my girlfriend?” 

She put her hands over her mouth and nodded, hugging him crying. “Of course I will” 

*Two Years Later* 

“I do” Maria says as she slides the ring onto Malik’s finger, smiling uncontrollably. This was what she had always wanted. 

“Do you, Malik, take Maria to be your lawfully wedded wife?” 

“I do..” He slides the ring onto her ring finger, crying a little as he did so. 

“You may now kiss the bride. Congratulations.” 

He leaned in has he wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing her on the lips gently. 

“I love you” He says afterwards. 

“I love you too.” 

* Authors Note* 

Hello everyone, 

I wanna thank everyone who read this story. This is my first time entering a writing contest and I have worked the hardest I could to make this the best I could. The moral of this story is that even if your body isn’t the supermodel body that you see featured in the Times Magazine or the cover of Vogue, you are still gorgeous and that you don’t have to be built of plastic to deserve a crown. Ladies, if you are unproud of your body, fix your crown and realize how beautiful you are. Flaws make you perfect. :)