Burnt

Her second cold shower of the hour and still she felt baked. She’d been sunburnt before, of course, but this scorching intensity was something entirely new and unwelcome. It was as if the sun had somehow penetrated her pores and begun to boil her muscles. The slightest movement sent ripples of pain through her body and she’d convinced herself that even her bones felt hot. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she was being slowly cooked from the inside out: microwaved. Could that happen? she wondered as she stepped out of the shower onto the cool bathroom tiles. It seemed an equally grim and realistic possibility.

After a failed attempt at drying her red raw skin with a towel that felt like a scouring pad, she walked back into the hotel bedroom, her wet feet slapping on the bare floorboards. Collapsing on the bed, she lay on her back and stared up at the futile fan on the ceiling, wondering once again why she’d insisted she join Carl on his business trip to Delhi.

‘You know it’s going to be hot, don’t you?’ he’d said when she suggested it. ‘Really hot, Jenna.’

‘God, don’t patronise me, Carl,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen Slumdog Millionaire. Don’t you want me to come or something?’

‘I just want you to think about what it’ll be like. I’m going to be working. You’ll be on your own a lot.’

‘I can entertain myself.’

‘Fine.’

‘Fine.’

And so that was how she found herself in Delhi, neon red and nauseous after just two days. How had she been so stupid?

‘Oh my god,’ Carl said when he arrived back at the room, dropping his briefcase. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I fell asleep by the pool, she said. ‘I feel sick. Carl, I think I’m going to die.’

‘You’re not going to die,’ he said, sitting beside her and kissing her forehead, somehow finding the one spot that didn’t feel on fire. ‘Do you want me to hose you down?’

‘Don’t make me laugh,’ she said, ‘it hurts.’

‘It wasn’t a joke.’

‘Look at me,’ Jenna said. ‘I look ridiculous.’

He kissed her again. ‘You look beautiful. Obviously you look better when you’re not radioactive, but even now there’s a certain attraction.’

She failed to repress a smile. ‘Pervert.’

‘Lobster.’

‘Is there any after-sun left?’ she asked, nodding towards the bathroom.

‘I’ll go and see.’ He came back a moment later with a bottle that he placed on the bedside table as he knelt beside her.

‘What are you doing?’ Jenna asked, sure that her sun-fried brain was playing tricks on her and what she was seeing was a mirage. Surely he wasn’t about to propose. Not here, not now. She’d imagined this moment so many times before, but this exact scenario had never been one she’d pictured.

‘Maybe this isn’t the ideal time,’ Carl said, taking a small black box from his chinos, ‘but I wanted to ask you at a moment we’d both remember. And I don’t think either of us is going to forget this in a hurry-,’

‘Carl-,’

‘Let me finish.’

As he took the ring from the box, her heart thump, thump, thumped against her chest.

‘Jenna Andrews, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

She looked down at the finger on which he’d slipped a silver band adorned with a single sparkling ruby that matched the red of the rest of her body.

‘I can’t believe you’re asking me this now.’

His face fell, ’What’s wrong?’

‘Carl, I look like a knob.’

He sighed and took her hand in his. ‘Jenna, I love you. Burnt or otherwise. Are you going to marry me or not?’

She looked once again at the ring and tears welled in her eyes.

‘Of course I’ll marry you,’ she said.

And with that Carl kissed her again, on the lips this time, with a want and need that eclipsed all the pain of the sunburn. For now, at least...