The sand beneath her is cold and hard, damp creeping through her clothes. The joy of the day seeping away with the light. Reality crawling it’s way back into her heart as the evening chill turns her bare skin to goosebumps. The grass is rough and dry against her fingers. She swallows, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth, her throat as parched as the grass. The early signs of a hangover presses against her temples, scolding her for the day’s weaknesses. His sigh vibrates against her, full of their shared regrets. She listens to his breath, feels the rise and fall of his chest pushed against her back. She lies still, taking the cold discomfort of the sand and growing headache as her just punishment. Turning her wedding ring around and around, metal against flesh. He rolls away. Later she’ll return to the party, seek warmth by the bonfire and chase off her headache with a glass of bourbon. She’ll dance and laugh and be the shiny hostess. She’ll tease her husband for his drunken afternoon nap and raise a toast to the Indian summer. Sand and salt and the scratch of dry end-of-summer grass will be a memory. But now her back is growing cold from the absence of him. She looks at the blades of grass between her fingers forming a fist and pulling it up in clumps.