I was hungover, so I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to go to the beach. When Zoe suggested staying home and watching a movie, I was almost convinced.

In the end we drove to Nauset beach – my sister Emily, our friends Zoe, Sophie and Sarah, and I. Two other friends had been there since earlier in the morning. It was easy to spot Henry and Nate some way away, preparing to surf: two super skinny boys looking even skinnier in their black wet suits and, at a distance, swallowed up by the huge plains of the beach. They looked tiny from far away. Only a few others were out, dotted along the beach, shirts flapping, braving the wind.