Momo's question had opened up a whole pandora's box – Did I truly love Ferran? Or did I love the sense of familiarity that being close to him brought? I truly didn't know.

Maybe I had just been convincing myself all this time that what I felt for Ferran was love. Sure, I cared for him deeply, but I still don't understand it enough to dare to put a definitive label on it. And after all that time I was apart from him, certainly things have changed. We both have.

But was it even an answer worth knowing? Sometimes there were just things that were better off unanswered. For the truth might hurt.

"What is love to you?" I had asked Ferran as we both sat in his balcony garden.

It was sometime in early February, after Momo and I had been going on for a few weeks with our new arrangements. Momo would let me know when he was going to see someone, not because we were insecure about it, but we just made it a safe practice. Especially when Momo met someone for the first time, which he seemed to be doing a lot. Meanwhile, I spent my time between my two lovers. With Ferran, I preferred to spend time at his apartment – I mean, it was beautiful and had such a magnificent view. Who wouldn't want to spend time there?

Ferran was seated beside me on his garden chair. His wavy blond hair was slightly longer now, his soft locks barely covering his ears. He wore his signature white shirt, this time not even bothering to iron it, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. In his hands was a bright pink camellia, twirling between his fingers. You could almost mistake him as a troubled protagonist of a romance novel, deep in thought, absorbed with his own romanticism and ideals. But knowing Ferran, he was none of the sort.

The thing about Ferran was sometimes I just didn't know whether he didn't hear me, chose to ignore me, or was just struggling to come up with a reply. His silence could mean any of those.

"Devotion." Ferran said, turning to look at me.

"What kind of devotion?" I asked.

"The kind. . ." the boy began, twirling the camelia in his fingers by its short stalk. "The kind that's undying."

"Absolute devotion?"

"Absolutely."

"So you want someone to be with you all the time?"

Ferran fell silent, placing the camellia on the table between us, before slowly getting up.

"No," he said, shaking his head as he walked towards the sliding glass door, heading inside. "That's not what I meant."

I stood up and followed him inside.

"Then what do you mean exactly?"

The boy sighed, before giving me a slight shrug.

"This is what happens when you ask me all your difficult questions," he said, shaking his head. "I feel like you're trying to mess with my head even though I know you don't mean it and it's just me. . . but it feels so draining."

"To think?"

"Yeah."

"But what's the point of having a head to not think with?"

Ferran closed his eyes, letting out a deep sigh. I gulped. I felt like I had overstepped my bounds again, said something I shouldn't have said again.

"Look I-"

"I'm going out for a walk," Ferran said.

With that, he turned around, grabbed his wallet from the sideboard and walked off. The door slammed shut.

A part of me wanted to chase after him and apologise, but I felt like it was better if I just gave him the space he needed.

That was the first time I was all alone in that apartment, and without Ferran, everything felt so empty. It was a large apartment, to be fair, but being all alone in it made me feel all the more desolate. To pass the time, I just paced around the place – aimlessly. I didn't even know when Ferran would be back. Heck, I didn't even know if he was coming back at all. Maybe he would spend some time at his boyfriend's place. The boyfriend that has somehow always existed in the background and never materialising. But it was all the more possible that he actually existed, and that Ferran would like to keep both of his lovers separate – just like how I did with mine. After all, I only saw Ferran once or twice a week ever since Momo came back.

I walked into the hallway, pacing back and forth. I soon grew tired of not knowing what to do while waiting for Ferran to come back, and decided to just grab something from his bookshelf built into the niche.

I picked a book at random. La Dame aux Camellias. I put it back, having read that before. Rafel loved it though. The only reason why I had been reading it was because it was a gift Amélie had gotten for me.

I had told Rafel how I thought the protagonist was a bit silly, going through all the lengths to pursue and be together with his lover. How ironic that I would find myself troubled by similar passions. I tried to look at the rest of the books – yearbooks, books on birdwatching and camping, semi-motivational books written by rugby coaches. It never crossed my mind that these were very strange books for Ferran to be having. Nevermind the fact that the books all seemed brand new and untouched.

It was then when I realised the rest of the things on the shelf. Seashells, old house keys, and a framed watercolour painting of oleander that I was sure to be made by no other than yours truly. It was then when I realised it wasn't just any random shelf – it was a collection of things that Rafel held dear. It was almost like a shrine of some sort, a subtle altar tucked away in the niche dedicated to his brother. I had never noticed it even after all these weeks. Maybe I was just too enamoured by the boy and his garden to pay any attention to anything else at all.

Ferran hadn't changed. He hadn't changed at all.

Ferran had just said earlier that love to him was devotion. I could certainly see that now. Even after all this while he never let Rafel go, and it unsettled me.

I took a step back from the altar, grabbed my things, and left. I thought about leaving a note or sending him a message, but I didn't in the end. I guess I really just wanted to leave. Ferran never mentioned me leaving without telling him the next time we met, so I guess it didn't bother him. Or perhaps he never cared at all. I never brought up the little shrine either.

It made me question myself. Should I be thinking of Rafel more? I almost felt guilty for not thinking of him constantly.

"But that's normal isn't it?" Amélie had said when I brought it up.

It was la Chandeleur, and Amélie had invited me to spend time at her house to help her make crepes that evening. Momo and his brother were coming too. Momo wasn't staying at my place that week, preferring to spend his nights at his own dorm room. Had a lot of work on campus, he had told me. And besides, it was his choice. In fact, ever since our arrangements started he wasn't at my place as often as he used to be.

But it was nice to have a little gathering. It had been a while since I met Amélie, anyway. It's funny that I was the one helping her with the crepes, and not her boyfriend. I guess I truly had transitioned from the ex to the gay best friend.

Speaking of Hasan, the last time I encountered him wasn't too pleasant, but I decided to give him a second chance. Besides, he didn't necessarily seem like a bad person. Sure, Momo had his own fears but from a glance his brother didn't seem that homophobic. Maybe just queasy, that's all. But I wasn't Momo, so I wouldn't know how I'd feel in that situation.

My family had never really celebrated the holiday save for the crepes. Well, I guess there was never a better excuse to eat crepes in the evening. It was nice to know that Amélie felt the same way as well. Momo and Hasan were Muslim, so I'm sure they didn't really care about the whole religious significance of the day too.

Ferran on the other hand, wasn't so secular-minded.

He wanted me to come along with him that morning to view the procession of the Black Virgin, where the archbishop would bless the candles of the abbey, the sea, and the city. He seemed disappointed when I didn't want to wake up so early and attend mass with him. It was held at five in the morning, and besides, I was never religious. He seemed a bit disappointed, but I guess he could live with it.

"I don't know," I shrugged as I flipped the crepe over. "I mean. . . a part of me feels a bit guilty that I've moved on, but it's inevitable, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Amélie replied. "You have to continue on living now don't you? There's nothing wrong about that."

"I guess you're right," I said, folding and tossing the finished crepe onto a plate. "Nothing wrong about moving on."

"It's what he would want anyway," she added.

As we set the table up awaiting the brothers' arrival, I found myself pondering over love again.

"What is love to me?" Amélie wondered aloud after I asked her the same question I had asked Ferran. "Funny you'd ask that out of the blue."

"I was just wondering," I said.

"You're certainly a man who wonders a lot."

"Don't avoid the question."

"I'm not avoiding it, just let a girl think," she said as she rearranged the already perfectly set table.

And take her time she did. She poured a glass of rosé for herself as she walked up to the balcony overlooking the sea.

"Love. . ." she began, sipping on her glass. "Is when someone makes you happy, I guess."

Her answer seemed half-hearted, and as the golden sun shone on her pretty face I noticed for myself how distant she was, deep in melancholic thought. With her free hand, she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. In that brief moment, she seemed far from happy.

"Are you happy?" I asked.

She never answered my question. The next moment, the doorbell rang her immaculate, practiced smile returned to her pretty lips. The dullness in her eyes suddenly extinguished, as she made her way to the door.

I wish she had told me how unhappy she was. Indeed, we may no longer be a couple, but I still cared for her deeply. After all, she was one of the few friends I had growing up. I could've done something, and I wish I had. But looking back now, I should've seen it coming.

A few years after that dinner Amélie ended her engagement to Hasan, drove to her family's inn on the pristine Alpine foothills, swallowed as many sleeping pills as she could and downed it all with a glass of rosé. She had a promising career, a fiancé who loved her very much, but the desire to go on was all but gone. She was barely twenty-three.

Hasan seemed to be in a daze, his empty gaze locked at something that seemed eternally distant. He had come to the service with a bouquet of rosemary, Amélie's favourite flowers, laying it on her casket.

"I just really don't understand," he said, when he asked to meet me outside the church. "I just. . . didn't expect it to turn out this way."

He lit up a cigarette, before blowing out a thin stream of smoke.

I felt terrible for him – for all his faults, he loved Amélie earnestly.

"It's not your fault," I said, in a vain attempt to comfort him.

"And to think a week ago I was the happiest man in the world," he said, almost as if he never even heard what I muttered a few moments earlier. "She told me she was ready to spend the rest of her life with me."

In his other hand, he wore his engagement ring, while his fingers twirled a twig of rosemary.

Over the years I had come to associate rosemary with Amélie – from the time we were in school when rosemary grew by the roadsides in the garrigue, to the bouquet placed in the middle of the table during that celebration of la Chandeleur with the four of us in her apartment.

Hasan was the one that brought the bouquet along, after Momo, ever so thoughtful, suggested they stop by the florist to get something.

"It almost never crossed my mind," Hasan chuckled as we ate our crepes served with cream and an assortment of berries that I had helped Amélie prepare. "But I had my brother nagging at me to get something."

Momo shook his head, as Amélie giggled.

"I can't believe you forgot my favourite flowers!" she cried out playfully as she gently smacked her boyfriend's arm in jest.

"I promise it won't happen again," he said as he turned to look at her, his hazel eyes full of warmth.

After he landed a kiss on her cheek, Amélie turned to look at me, an immaculate smile on her lips.

I couldn't help but smile sheepishly in return.

The dinner, as expected, went wonderfully – Amélie successfully managing to avoid getting the topic of anything remotely gay onto the table, lest Hasan said something offensive that could hurt any of us. Personally I didn't care, but I wouldn't want Momo to be put through that.

We left Amélie's place at around ten, Momo and I deciding to catch the bus home. We waited at the bus stop nearby, not too far from the apartment. Perhaps we were just exhausted, but neither of us said anything for the most part.

I only noticed it when a cool gust of wind wafted through the street, prompting Momo to adjust the collar of his sage green polo. It was barely visible under the shadows, but it was an unmistakable patch of bruised skin on his neck, blooming like a bleeding rose.

Out of all three answers, Momo's was the most frank.

"What does love mean to you?" I asked, repeating the question that I had asked the others.

Just like the others, the answer wasn't immediate. Momo's gaze wandered onto the street in front of us, before he finally turned to look at me with those hazel eyes of his. His lips parted as he began to speak, but it was not before a few moments of paused hesitancy.

"I'll be honest with you – I really don't know."

A/N: Hi there! Thank you so much for reading this book and all your support, it truly means so much to me. I'm glad that there are people who enjoy this book, as much as I enjoyed writing it. This book has truly been a process and an emotional journey for me as well. If you wouldn't mind, could you please answer some questions regarding my writing, it would truly help me a lot!

- What do you think of the characters so far? Do you think they are realistic? Who is your favourite character to read about?

- What do you think about the chronology of the book? I have deliberately arranged the events in such a manner for a purpose, and employed a lot of flashbacks dispersed throughout the narrative. Does it flow well? Or is it very unclear and confusing?

- Do also let me know any other comments that you may have!

I look forward to hearing from you :)

- 12/1/22