Sunny Vacation Prompt (Part 1)

Celia woke up determined to pull herself together. She’d spent the past few weeks mourning the end of a post divorce relationship, crying entirely too much. She was sick of herself and was pretty sure if she didn’t get a grip her friends would be sick of her too. As she made herself a pot of piping hot black coffee she scrolled through her emails, deleting anything that was junk or spam. Something stopped her from deleting one that had a very spammy look about it at first glance: You’ve won a week-long all expenses paid trip to Aruba! She read the details, looking for a catch. To her surprise, it appeared to be legitimate, mentioning one of her friends by name.

Apparently Nancy had entered her in a lottery for the trip to a Caribbean singles resort. Nancy was such a good egg. After Celia had been unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend of two years, and she’d taken to her bed in self pity, Nancy had come right over with wine, which they’d drunk together in her bed, laughing and laughing. Celia had gone back to crying as soon as Nancy left of course. She spent the next few weeks whenever not at work alternating between writing indignant letters she’d never send to her ex, and reading self help articles and memes about narcissists sent to her by her friends. She knew it was important in her “healing journey” to “experience all [her] feelings” and avoid any contact with her ex Nick, so she wrote the letters in a journal and cried anew at the poignancy of her own beautiful words of hurt. She tried not to drink too much, and little by little her sadness lessened.

With her new resolve to move forward, what a coincidence that this free trip email had come. She decided she had nothing to lose. It was free after all! She called the number at the bottom of the email and made arrangements to fly out in three days. What better cure for a broken heart than a beautiful, sunny singles resort! Especially in the middle of February in New York, where it was cold, gray, and dismal with no end in sight.

She stood in front of her long mirror in her panties and camisole and thought, “damn, I look pretty good!” All the crying and grief had to have shaved off 5-10 pounds, and she was bikini-ready.