By the time you knew love, The Rent-A-CD shop had become a branch of state government, demolished, like the rest of your city, in a summer that stretched into nearly a decade of detours.

It's ten years since you last saw Beth, at a juice joint that promised so much but only gave you wheatgrass. She told you she was reading The Five Love Languages, bought it second-hand on Barrack. She went through them, one-by-one, and you wanted to say, ‘they're all just acts of service.'
You told your sister, Tristan, this same story, and she shouted, ‘God, you love her!' An exciting revelation but years too late, like hearing that song Beth always played, the lyrics only now making sense. In time, you saw her wedding pics on Facebook, and you had to concede that on her special day, Beth was the most beautiful girl you'd ever seen.

You returned to Barrack, your city resurrected, but the bookstore had long gone, so you took the laneway till its end, sprayed ‘Beth x 5' on the wall. Years later, you came back. A crowd had gathered, filling that same laneway. No longer only Beth; now names upon names, up and down the wall.

You made your way through the crowd, kissed the paint as though it were her blemished cheek, and said, ‘I love you.'