This is what nostalgia is, though hunting it down is cheating a little. The city air is hot and dry, and the lake smells like summer vacation. He’s in dress shoes instead of cowboy boots, and he buys the bottle because it is her favourite brand, and because she isn’t there.

“Girly-drinker,” he mocks himself aloud as he opens it. In his head, the memory of her laughs and flips him the bird.

He savors the first swallow, searching for something intangible. He doesn’t enjoy it – the taste is too sweet, and it leaves a film on the roof of his mouth. He wonders why he bought the bottle in the first place; it doesn’t recapture anything. Not the idle summers or crowded apartments, not the taste of her drinks or the taste of her mouth.

But it reminds him of her, and he takes another sip, jarring his teeth on the glass edge.

He calls her that night, too late. The next day she listens to the message with her toothbrush in her mouth, and forgets it between strokes of the razor as she showers.