“This is how you fall in love,” she confides in me, but all I see is a smoke-filled room full of hunched figures sitting around the bar. It looks like hell. Tinny music plays over looping arcade game notes, and the bass line that should be thumping limps along through broken speakers.
“This is how you fall in love,” she whispers to me, before tapping a guy on the shoulder and asking for a light for her cigarette. I think about unplugging the arcade game in the corner. They leave together and don’t look back.
“This is how you fall in love,” I assure myself, before throwing back two whiskeys (neat) and smiling at the bartender.
Valorie Clark is a writer and historian living in Los Angeles with her cat. Her podcast, Unruly Figures, is a celebration of rebellion and revolution. Find her online: @thevalorieclark.