She is smooth green glass.

"You're not going to walk me home," she says. It comes out sweetly.

"Oh. Well I'll walk ten steps behind you then, if you like."

"I'm not walking back to my apartment, Tom," she says. "I'm going that way," she says, pointing down Fifth. We stop in the middle of the dark field beneath the Cathedral. I try to say something but don't.

"It was good to see you," she says, sweetly again.

"Yes. I enjoyed it, Sam."

"I like the beard," she says.

"Thanks."

"You okay to drive?"

"Not drunk enough to make a mistake." Her words, my mouth.

"Right."

She is smooth green glass in my hands. She is the dull throb in my head. I pause—and say something I shouldn't.

"We could find another bottle and change that."

"I have to go now, Tom. Mat locks the bar up at two-thirty."

"Ok." I'm an asshole.

"See you tomorrow?"

"Yes." I smile.

She doesn't kiss me on the cheek and walks the opposite direction. I watch until the pattern on her dress disappears and she becomes a stranger. She doesn't look as she crosses the street, puts the wine bottle in a bin out for recycling, and disappears around the corner.

The weight is bit less now. A bottle cap's less, but this morning it felt like more than I could carry and now it is not. I stand for a while longer, then walk in the direction she went. I pull the bottle from the recycling and try to feel her warmth, but it has already faded.

See you tomorrow, she said. The bottle is empty aside from a drop in the bottom, but this is enough. See you tomorrow, she said. I walk back to my truck my mind empty, smiling at the concrete cracks beneath my feet. A plastic bag blows across my feet. Another empty vessel. At her apartment, I take another guess at which curtain is hers, then put the empty bottle in the passenger seat and drive home.