Girls' Weekend

Liz had been editor of the school paper. She’d reamed me over my admittedly mediocre story on the bulldog mascot contest winner.

“The article’s about a bitch. Doesn’t mean you have to be one,” I’d retorted. We’ve been inseparable ever since.

This is our last hurrah before her big day. As we drive up the coast to Myrtle Beach, I phone Home Depot using the car’s Bluetooth.

“Yes. Hi. I’m looking for some caulk,” I say. “It’s for my friend. She already has white caulk at home. What she really needs is some black caulk. Do you have any black caulk?"

Liz covers her mouth.

“We have several colors,” Home Depot Guy says.

“OK, so she can just come in, point to it and say, ‘Gimme that caulk right now?’”

Silence. “Uh … sure.”

Liz erupts in laughter.

* 

We check in and get dressed.

“Look how fast we can be ready when we don’t have to do our hair,” Liz remarks.

Señor Frog's is crawling with overgrown, tight-shirted college guys. About four vodka cranberries in, I look Liz in the face.

“Dump Kyle," I blurt.

“Kyle is …”

“An ASSHOLE," I yell just as the music pauses.

She shrugs. “But I need him right now.”

I return from the bar with three shots and a 6’2” ginger.

“Liz.” I smirk. “Brendan.”

“Hey.” She self-consciously touches her purple wig.

As Liz dirty dances with the underage hottie, she looks so healthy. Since she stopped the chemo, the color has returned to her cheeks.

“I’m done chasing this fucking rainbow,” she’d said.

Brendan escorts us across the street to our hotel. Liz kisses him hard but sends him on his way.

I remove my green wig—shaving my shoulder-length hair was actually kind of liberating—and hand her a gift bag. The T-shirt reads:

YES, THEY’RE FAKE.
MY REAL ONES TRIED TO KILL ME.

“When I get out of the hospital,” Liz smiles, flinging herself on the bed. “I might just get rid of my asshole too.” 

  

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This week's Trifecta Writing Challenge: The entry must be 33-333 words and include the word "rainbow" as defined below:

RAINBOW
[from the impossibility of reaching the rainbow, at whose foot a pot of gold is said to be buried] : an illusory goal or hope

Beautiful You

He eased her forward just a few inches so he could replace the freshly puffed pillows propping her up. Despite her protests, he flicked on the light. She reflexively put a hand on her head, which was dotted with wisps of hair but otherwise smooth as a globe. He grabbed her hand, kissed it and placed it back down by her side. He looked her over. Her button-down blouse draped inelegantly in the absence of her once ample breasts. There was a brown stain from this morning. The coffee she’d wanted so desperately hadn’t sat well; on its way back up, some of it sloshed out of the basin. She was too weak to even let him change her shirt.

"You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.

She shook her head. Her eyes moistened. Since the 5th grade, she’d obsessed over her hair. It was never long enough, thick enough, red enough. She coveted her sister’s wavy, voluminous locks. When she found that first gray hair, she became a lifelong hair dye devotee. She’d give anything to have that short, stringy hair today.

The hair bothered her worse than the breasts. She wore a prosthetic bra for the first several months. But it chafed at her incisions. She often joked about not having to lug around those heavy boulders anymore.

She couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t on a diet. Atkins, South Beach, juicing … that goddamned cabbage soup diet. Now her collarbone jutted out, threatening to pierce her skin if she moved too suddenly. She couldn’t gain a pound if her life depended on it.

They used to have fantastic, hot sex. Her friends hated her for it. She bragged about the time they did it in an abandoned warehouse parking lot on the way home from dinner. She’d been worried the sitter would notice their disheveled appearance. Now they only kissed awkwardly like old friends at an unplanned reunion.

"My beautiful bride,” he repeated, wiping a tear from her delicate, shiny cheek.

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trifecta weekly challenge: The entry must be 33-333 words and include the word "light" (defined as a source of light: as a.) a celestial body; b) candle; c) an electric light). Mine is 333 words.