Make Me Hate You

“There she is.”

Aunt Laura dropped her beach bag in the sand next to my chair, opening her arms wide.

There was barely a cloud in the sky, and it was one of those warm summer days on the Cape that had you sweating before noon. Everything was so bright — the sun, the sand, the reflection off the water, all the highlighter-colored swimsuits dotting the shoreline, the bright beach towels and chairs.

Everything inside me was dark and shadowed, damp and cold, but on that warm stretch of beach the day before Morgan’s wedding, I could almost forget about the empty cave inside my soul.