Fluffy and I became the best of friends. Despite having an enclosure, he almost never spent any time in it. He was always wrapped around my arm unless he wanted to slither around which wasn’t often. He was quite lazy, so he much preferred being on my arm, or cuddled up in bed with me. Every night, we slept together. Mum especially hated that because she feared Fluffy would eat me, when he did quite the opposite and protected me. If I ever had any nightmares, he was there to wake me up, and if he was ever having nightmares, I did the same for him. We were there for each other no matter what. Even if he kept stealing my precious food despite him being supposed to be living on a diet of rodents.
Although I could never seem to make friends with people, I no longer felt I needed to with Fluffy by my side. A snake was able to do what these people couldn’t. He learned how to handle my moods, and even how to calm me down from them or pull me away from situations before I lost it. Something nobody else ever bothered to do. In return, I was able to learn to do the same for someone else. Not something I ever did since I never got the chance to. For being a snake, he had some funny moods too. If he was hungry, he would sulk until someone gave him food. Of course, that led to him being overweight, which I could never seem to fix for him. He had already grown in length, so his being fat only made him bigger and “scarier” looking. When he was shedding, he needed a lot more attention, especially if he got stuck in his shed. He was also incredibly cuddly and constantly needed his bottomless cup filled with more cuddles. In short, he was a needy snake.
* * * * *
Many years went on. In those years, my bond with Fluffy grew more and more. He reached his full size, making him a pretty large and hefty snake. Lifting him was definitely hard, but I liked to think I developed the muscles to do it over time. His size did scare people off, but that never stopped me from bringing him with me everywhere I went. If they didn’t let me bring him with me inside a store, then I took my business elsewhere. We were a package deal and it would always be that way.
When I turned 2, I got to move out into a lovely two story building in the middle of town. My parents got tired of me living with them and bought me a pretty nice place for myself. They wanted me out of the house so they could focus on my 7-year-old sister, Elizabeth. In truth, they just pitied me because everyone else was moving on with their lives and I was still stuck trying to manage my mood swings around people. However, there were strings attached. The deal was that if I did my best to maintain a good relationship with everyone in the family, then they would pay for everything, including a maid until I got a husband who could cover the bills. I guess they knew the chances of me finding a husband were slim and didn’t ever ask when they could stop paying for things. Not that I hadn’t tried to find someone. I had been trying, but I had the same luck finding a husband as I did finding a friend. Having a snake as a best friend didn’t make it any easier.
* * * * *
“Yet again, another fail,” I grumbled as I returned home from another failed attempt to date. “I don’t even know what I did wrong this time!! I was nice!”
Fluffy gave me a look and hissed softly.
“Okay, yeah, I may have gotten a little upset when he joked about my shitty spelling in the letter I wrote, but seriously?! It looked fine to me!”
As if to spite me, Fluffy dropped to the floor and slithered over to a nearby pencil and paper. I watched as he wrote out the letter word for word, but with everything spelled correctly. With a goofy smile, he looked back at me with the paper in his mouth, showing off his perfect spelling.
“You think you’re real funny, don’t you?”
He nodded confidently. I rolled my eyes and went into the kitchen, looking for something to eat. The minute I found something, Fluffy speed slithered over, expecting at least 30% for himself.
“This is mine,” I mumbled out as I chewed. “I deserve it after the shitty day I had. Besides, you don’t even pay rent.”
Unimpressed, he gave me a look that said “you don’t either.”
“No. You had a big chunk of my lunch already.”
The snake wasn’t about to take no for an answer and pulled his trump card: puppy dog eyes. Dramatically, he acted sad and starved. Surely nobody could refuse food for this sad and starving snake, right? Well… Yea, he was right. I groaned and snapped off a piece of the pastry I was eating and let him have it.
“Now you can’t say I don’t feed you.” I raised a brow, watching him swallow the chunk whole. Yea, I know. Snakes aren’t supposed to eat pastry. But it was hard to not give in, and it hasn’t hurt him in any other way besides his thickness after 6 years of it.
Quickly, I finished off the pastry and grabbed a second. Emotional eating was becoming a bit of a problem for me lately, but I never seemed to care enough to do anything about it. I suppose that was probably why I was chubby. Then again, most of my family was. Being as wealthy as we were, we ate quite well. That showed on our figures. Of course, my sisters had these perfect bodies where they had all the curves, so they looked curvier than they did fat. Me? No, I just looked fat. I did have a bit of an hourglass shape that showed if my weight ever dipped under 140 which hadn’t happened since I got sick a few years ago. When I gained the weight back it went away because my body just refused to store fat in more preferable places, like my hips. Instead I got an awkward rectangle shape that while I didn’t hate it, I didn’t love it either. It wasn’t like I was unhealthy though as this was where I felt best. As long as I felt good, I didn’t see any point in changing.
“Ugh…” I sighed. “Well. What should we do for the rest of the day?”
I looked at Fluffy who simply turned his head and waited for me to reply.
“I suppose we could go visit Mum and Dad,” I mumbled. “Maybe see how Elizabeth is doing?”
Fluffy perked up. He LOVED Elizabeth, and she loved him. The two would spend hours playing together. For a snake, he was pretty good with kids, which was adorable to see. As for myself, I did have a bit of a soft spot for my younger sister. She reminded me a bit of myself. A bit short-tempered, terrible at spelling, and a reptile lover. Basically me in a nutshell.
After cleaning up a bit, Fluffy and I headed over to my parent's place. As usual, Elizabeth was very excited to see Fluffy and me. No matter how many times I visited, it always surprised me to see how excited she got to see me.
“Big sister!” Elizabeth ran towards me, attaching herself to my leg. Every time she saw me, this was the first thing she did, and it was pretty damn hard to get her to let go. I guess I know what Mum used to feel like now.
“Hey.” I smiled. “You keeping Mum and Dad busy for me?”
“Yep!” She beamed. “Hi, Fluffy!”
Happily, Fluffy let go of my arm and wrapped himself around her neck like a scarf. It always made me laugh when I saw her struggle to hold his weight. Gently, he nudged her cheeks which made her giggle a bunch.
“Come on!” Elizabeth grabbed me by the arm and started pulling me to her room. “I did some art! Come see!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” I laughed, letting her lead me to her room. Once we were there, she went and grabbed some papers off her bed and handed them over to me. I took them and looked at them. I was pleasantly surprised to see the art of the three of us doing things. Fluffy was nothing more than a solid green line with a circle for a head, and for some reason, we all had a different amount of fingers on our hands, but it was adorable nonetheless. Maybe this was why I loved Elizabeth so much. Unlike most people, she gave me a chance. We understood each other.
“These are really good.” I smiled, giving her a pat on the head. “Good job.”
“They’re for you!”
“Are they now?”
She nodded eagerly.
“Well, I guess I have no choice but to take them and add them to the rest of the art you’ve done!” I said dramatically. “Whatever will I do?”
“You have no choice!” She cheered before running out of her room. Fluffy was still around her neck, very much enjoying the ride. I chuckled to myself and followed her out to the living room where Mum and Dad were.
“Oh! Beatrice!” Mum looked surprised. “You didn’t say you were visiting today!”
“Last minute decision.” I shrugged as I sat down. “Fluffy influenced it.”
“Uh… Right.” Mum mumbled, giving Fluffy a look. After all these years, she was still hesitant about Fluffy. She couldn’t seem to get past the venomous part.
“How have you been?” Dad asked, keeping an eye on Elizabeth who was now trying to race Fluffy up and down the hallways.
“Decent, I guess,” I muttered. “Had another failed date today.”
“Oh?”
“The bastard thought my bad spelling was just hilarious.”
“And you snapped at him?”
“...Yeah.”
“Oh, Beatrice.” Mum sighed. “You have to stop letting that get to you.”
“I can’t help it!” I exclaimed. “Something about it just sets me off, and I can’t calm down!”
Mum sighed. “What did you say to him?”
“Uh… I don’t really remember.” I muttered. “I just remember how upset I was. I don’t think it was one of my worst moments, but probably not one of my better ones either.”
“This is something you really need to work on.” Dad frowned. “Surely you don’t want to be alone your whole life?”
“I’m not.” I shook my head. “I have Fluffy.”
“And meeee!!” Elizabeth shouted from down the hallway.
“Yes, and you.” I laughed a bit. “So I’m all set.”
“Right.” Mum couldn’t help but laugh a bit. “Well, if you’re interested, I know someone who’s got a son your age. He’s looking for a romantic interest.”
“I’ll give it one more try.” I nodded. “But if this doesn’t go well, I’m taking a break from looking for a while.”
“Understandable. I’ll talk to his mother and see if I can set something up for you two, then!”
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