Six Letter Word [Kaylor]

February 2017 (Part 1)

Author's Note: Use caution deciding where to read the next two chapters. 

I was so excited to board the plane for our own Bahamian island. So excited, in fact, I logged in the back of my mind to consider buying one of these someday, when Karlie and I were ready to take more time just for the two of us. When I was sure it would get use. Seemed silly, really, to buy yet another home, when it wasn't as though the two of us could really use all of the ones we had, but just the idea of going someplace warm, with beautiful crystal clear water and white sand beaches and exactly zero people outside family and the friends who were like family who knew where we were, well, it was very, very appealing. After two rounds of chemo, I needed the break. Christmas had been lovely, combining our two families, but it had also been busy and taken a lot of energy out of me, right before going into the next round of chemo. This time, we were going to just have fun, just the two of us. Nothing in particular we had to do, nowhere we had to be, and no one around demanding energy or attention. We had security coming with us, but they would be on the other side of the island, appearing in our lives only if they detected some sort of threat to us or if we asked them to go off island and find us food or something.

Packing bathing suits had been less exciting. I'd had to buy new, because all my old ones fell right off my bony hips, and trying them on had been a bit of a nightmare. I was aware, of course, of how much my body had changed since the diagnosis. My weight had been all over the place, up after surgery, down since chemo, my curves filling out and then disappearing entirely. I was back up, a little, not so far below my goal weight for treatment, but still below where I liked to be when I was healthy. But bathing suits leave nothing to the imagination. No matter what I tried on, I was always able to see something that wasn't how I wanted it. The bump from my port, the scars from its placement, the bruises from just lying the wrong way and my bones leaving marks from the inside out. After a couple I stopped looking in the mirror and just made note of the fit. Would it stay up? Did it cover the important stuff? Then I got it. Because if I was waiting for one to make me feel confident, I was pretty sure I was going to be looking forever. It didn't matter, after all, what I looked like in it, since only Karlie was going to see, and I knew she would tell me I was gorgeous no matter what.

I hated seeing Taylor torture herself over bathing suits. They're just fabric designed to get wet and cover the important bits. But I knew she was comparing what she saw in the mirror to the pictures from her last trip to the Bahamas, taken under very different circumstances. The photos she'd posted then, well, they'd made her look like she belonged on the cover of Sports Illustrated. She still looked just as beautiful to me, even now, with all the physical changes she'd experienced, but I knew she wasn't seeing what I saw. A strong, beautiful warrior whose scars only showed how hard she was fighting. She was seeing the way her hip bones poked out, and her ribs were too visible, and her scars were still fresh enough to be red. I was happy to see her put that drama behind her and let herself get excited for the trip. A whole week for the two of us to just relax. No work, no medical drama, nothing. I was cast free and had clearance to take off the brace if I felt comfortable, and she had absolutely no appointments the entire week. We could just be.

I had wondered if I needed to avoid the sun, with treatment still in progress. After all, being in New York in winter time, it hadn't really been an issue. But the team actually said the sun would probably be very good for me. The vitamin D would only help, and the psychological boost would likely be even better. The only thing I really had to be careful of was the spots where I still had redness from the radiation treatments, and even there all I needed to do was make sure to cover them in strong sunscreen, which I should be using all over anyway. I was looking forward to Karlie's strong hands rubbing in my sunscreen, maybe giving me a soothing massage as well. And returning the favor, since I had more energy than I had in a while. I imagined there would still be afternoon naps, but they would seem less out of place when we could both enjoy, cuddling up and relaxing together. It all sounded heavenly.