Burns

Red sunburned skin scored the rounded edges of my shoulder blades, along the outsides of my forearms, across the middle of my face and topped it off with a giant patch on my head where thinning hair had failed to protect my scalp from the sun. With a generous allocation of aloe vera, I was able to make it through most of the day without noticing it until Gillian reminded me.

“Ow, what happened to you?” she asked, pressing a fingertip into a patch of afflicted skin and then removing it. She examined the white dot she'd left and softly counted passing seconds to herself as my skin pinkened and then reverted to an angry red.

“I flew too close to the sun.” I said, ignoring the unpleasant tingling.

“Twenty-two one thousand, twenty-three one thousand, twenty-four one thousand. Whew! You'll suffer for five more days by my count. Usually you're so careful with the sun. It was a girl, wasn't it?”

"I met Libby for lunch. Didn't know I was going to be sitting outside. She's getting married."

"Yikes."

"No regrets."