What Happened to the Skinnyfat Novelist?

In 2023, I obtained my PB mile time. It was during this time, going into my senior year of liberal arts college, that I was definitively the ‘fittest’ version of myself. I lifted weights at the college gym at least five times a week–rotating workouts which targeted specific areas of my body each weekday. I was not a college athlete, had never been particularly ‘athletic’, and regarded people who wore athleisure with scorn. Instead, I was a philosophy major on a ‘subversive fitness journey.’ I envisioned myself competing against my true peers—gay-coded creative writing students—in road races, and winning, at least against the ones who identified as female. I sat in writing workshops with other students my age, who certainly did not work out or eat protein, who also hadn’t been published or “done shit” yet, with the satisfying knowledge that I was at least better looking, stronger, and faster than all of them.