Ben and I checked in to the same resort we stayed at with his family last summer. The moment we arrived at the hotel room, neither one of us could wait to get out. It mattered little to us how beautiful the suite was – in fact, it paled in comparison to the lavish penthouses of The Shade. What mattered more to us was the sun. We were in Cancun and we'd missed the sun for too long to spend that bright, sunny day indoors.
It became an unspoken rule between the two of us that for that morning, there would be no mention of The Shade, no mention of anything dark or heavy. For a few hours, we tried to be what we had every right to be – teenagers having fun on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.