Tamara doesn't say anything as I walk towards her, not even as I sit next to her on the floor. We are quiet as we clean away the remnants of the Chinese takeaway cartons, gather everything in a black trash bag and unfurl the large sleeping bag on the same spot where we ate dinner.
I know that she senses something is different in me. The laughter is gone, replaced by the trauma that has left an indentation in the way I carry myself. Tamara doesn't know it, but it takes everything in me to be able to laugh with her. All she knows is something horrible happened to me when I was a child, something I never talk about, but something she will accept regardless.
"Caleb…" Tamara whispers.
It hurts me to have to ignore her, but I am afraid if I open my mouth to speak, a scream will escape. So instead, I shake my head in response. She nods once and leaves to the bathroom.
When the door to the bathroom has closed behind her, I let out the whimper that I have been trying so hard to suppress and let my head fall on the pillow behind me. For a minute, all I do is stare at the ceiling above me. And I memorize what I see. Every detail. Every shadow. Anything to distract me from my own traumatic shadow that is on the brink of swallowing me into its abyss.
I make a list in my head of everything I notice. The ceiling is popcorn textured, probably a by-product of commercialising a multi-storey home built in the fifties into an apartment building. There is a crack in the paint on the far right corner of the wall to my left. And year-old cobwebs dangle like jungle vines in almost every corner of the room, its hosts have long gone to find a better, more suitable home.
If only it was that easy for humans. To up and leave our home without looking back. To leave behind all the dark baggage and deep damages.
Oh, how things would be so much easier if I was an eight-legged creature. If I could just forget that night...
Do I dare visit that memory? I don't want to, but... I've learned from the thousands of dollars of therapy sessions that my father paid for that it's better to fight the pain. Rather than shut everything out to deal with for another day. They say it only makes things worst. I am not sure why or even how, but I'm willing to do anything that could make me forget this drowning feeling.
So I go over that day again. From the beginning. From waking up in my own bunk bed, comfortably engulfed in a freshly washed blanket, to screaming on the kitchen floor. Covered in a puddle of warm, thick blood.
When the memory ends I got back to the beginning. Then again. And again. From the beginning. Every detail, every horrifying and dreadful detail.
Before I knew it, Tamara is jostling the sleeping bag next to me. I glance out our untreated window (we have not yet installed any curtains or blinds) and realise that the sun is on its descend into the horizon. The sky is a kaleidoscope of purples and pinks and oranges, and the moon is making an early appearance tonight.
Despite the beautiful view, something feels odd to me. I think my eyes are still half asleep. It's like there is a layer of film over them, like I am looking through a grimy glass.
"What time is it?" I ask Tamara, engulfing her in my arms as she lays her head on my chest. She fits like a puzzle piece.
Tamara sighs. He blonde wispy hair tickles my chin but I don't care. "It's only been half an hour, hon," she says. "You did get a text message ten minutes ago."
"From?"
"I didn't see it." She hands me my phone.
"'I will be fixing water pipes tonight. Water will be off from midnight till morning. Apologies for the inconvenience'," I read out the text from our building tenant. "Well, that's just perfect."
"Oh, come on, it's not so bad," Tamara assures me, then giggles when she sees that I am feigning a pout.
"Our first night in our new apartment and this happens," I continue. Tamara rolls her eyes in reply. "You think this is an omen of our moving?"
"Of course not. It'll be great here, I promise," she says, and smiles my favourite smile, sweet and comforting.
It is the kind of smile that immediately melts my heart and renders me defenceless against her arguments. The kind of smile that I know, without a doubt, will make any man jealous of me. That I am married to the most beautiful woman on Earth. The woman of my dreams. My Tamara.
"How do you not resent me for moving us to another city? Leaving your family, transferring schools . . ." I have been so afraid to ask her this, afraid of the answer she will give me. Not that there is anything she could say that would make me love her any less. But I am afraid that her answer will give me a reason to believe she is miserable for making us move away, and that I made the mistake of making her have to choose between me and her whole life (though that is not what I did). But, now that we are in this new apartment and there is no going back, I am finally brave enough to ask her.
Tamara does not say anything right away. Instead, she looks out of our barren window at the clouds that cover the beautiful twilight. Her eyes glimmer under the dim cheap light in our living room. The lightbulbs have yet to be replaced by our own LED lights that we brought from our old apartment.
After a moment of stressful silence, at least for me, Tamara finally speaks. "You wanna know why?" She doesn't look at me, and doesn't wait for a reply before she continues. "It's because I know for a fact that there is no one else in this world who could ever love me the way you do. And I know, without you having to have to ask me, that there is nowhere in this world I would not follow you if it meant I could not be with you." She turns to look at me then, her long lashes casting shadows against her kind, bright blue eyes.
I am stunned into silence. Not just by the immense physical beauty that she clearly possesses (that is something I have always known she owns), but also by the beautiful words that came out of those beautiful lips. And the amount of love that I can clearly hear in her voice, like the chiming bells on the day we said our vows to each other. But, somehow, this moment feels more precious to me. Because it is just ours.
"I love you, wife." It's the only thing I can say after finally being able to speak. Because I feel there are no other words I should say.
What do you say after the person that you will ever love the most just told you without a thousand words that they will follow you to the ends of Earth?
"I love you, husband," Tamara whispers.
We lay in our sleeping bag on the floor of our new home. The ground is nowhere near warm. It seeps through our thick cocoon and threatens to give both of us colds the next day, but we don't seem to care. We are engulfed in each other, in the affection and infatuation that we have for each other. With moving boxes and trash bags all around us and a layer of dust that we couldn't seem to clean away, we melt into one another, pulling each other closer and closer until not even a thin piece of tissue paper can fit in between. The feeling of being too far apart, not close enough, is too much to bear.
A half-hour later, when our breaths are too loud in the quiet apartment, Tamara starts to laugh. Her hair is a tangled mess beneath her and makeup is smeared under her eyes, but no amount of blemishes or whatever she calls imperfections can keep me away from kissing her senseless. And I do. Which only makes her laugh even more.
"Should I be offended that you are laughing right now?" I ask her, not without a smile of my own.
Tamara laughs louder. "No—no, it's not you, my love," she says. "I laugh when I am happy."
"When you are happy?"
"Yes, when I am completely, and perfectly, and incandescently happy."
"Pride and Prejudice, is it?"
She smiles. "Yes. I used to wonder what that happiness feels like, and I wished I could feel what Mr. Darcy felt in that moment. I guess now I know."
And I believe her, without a doubt. That, no matter how much trauma is a part of my past, and no matter how much it may affect me now, Tamara will always love me regardless.