Birdsong floated above them. Their argument showed no end. She was ready to throw a cup at him. What’s that? he asked. A starling, she said.

She started crying and he got nervous and kissed her tears and she pulled back and said, You don’t know how I feel! when he was sure he did.

The sun set and the ocean turned orange. The sand is in all the wrong places, she complained. And he sighed, thwarted again by small things.

After he finished talking there was a silence, and in that silence swirled her doubts about the words he had uttered, and she said, Did not.

We left the party, drunk on cheap wine, but more drunk on lust. Until she threw up in a park. We were sober then, but for different reasons.