I walked back to the living room, and Ellen was gone. “Hey, out here.” I walked out on the screened porch. Ellen was sitting in a rope swing with two bottles of wine. The rope swing was sort of like a hammock and sort of like a chair that held two people. I squeezed in next to her laughing as we adjusted and shifted to both fit. Finally, nestled against each other in the chair, she handed me my fifth glass of wine. “Cheers.”

I smiled back at her and touched my glass to hers. She looked at me for the longest time and I at her. Whether it was the wine or my deeply unstable feelings, I found myself frozen as she brought her face into mine slowly and placed her lips against mine. For a single moment, as I felt the tip of her tongue moisten my lips I was lost in the exquisite sensation of her touch. That sensation was filled with overwhelming anxiety and I pulled back, almost jumping back, in the process knocking Ellen’s wine out of her hand. The glass shattered on the porch.