In the darkness, I could hear his breathing—light and shallow, as if he were afraid of startling something.

He took a step forward.

"Clara."

I didn't answer.

"Five years ago, I couldn't make it to your side. Today, I am here. You don't have to carry it all by yourself anymore."

After a very long silence, I finally said, "It's all in the past."

Chapter 11

After that sentence, I didn't speak again. Neither did Liam.

I went into the room alone and lay down, while he slept on the sofa.

But neither of us slept.

The sound of the rain outside the window ebbed and flowed, like an endless melody.

When dawn broke, the rain stopped, and sunlight leaked through the gaps in the clouds, landing on the windowsill and on the photo on the bookshelf.

I came out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and took out two eggs.

I burnt the first one, threw it away, and started over. The second one burnt too, but I didn't throw it away.

I placed the fried egg in front of Liam; the bread was charred, and the coffee was brewed too strong.

I said, "Eat. This is all there is."

He took a bite. It was burnt and bitter.

"It's delicious," he smiled.

I suddenly asked him, "When are you going back?"

He put down his fork and looked at me, "I'm not going back. The company won't collapse without me."

I opened my mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end, I didn't say it.

"Clara." He put down his fork, "What else do you want to ask? I will answer everything."

I raised my head to look at him and was silent for a moment.

"What about Joanne? Did she give you a hard time?"

"No. She said we didn't have feelings to begin with."

I lowered my head, my fingers slowly tracing the wall of the cup.

"She is a good girl; I could tell that a long time ago."

"Yes," he said, "but what I owed her, I have already repaid. What I owe you, I have not yet."

I lowered my eyes and laughed self-deprecatingly, "What do you owe me?"

"I owe you a word of belief."

My fingers stopped moving.

"Five years ago," he said, enunciating every word, "I should have believed you. I shouldn't have given up after just waiting ten hours. I should have come to find you and asked clearly what happened. Instead of listening to what others said and deciding that it was you who didn't want me anymore."

The sunlight outside the window shone in, landing on the table between us, illuminating the floating dust in the air clearly.

"What's the use of saying these things now?" my voice was very soft.

"It's useful," he said, "because I want you to know that from today on, I believe every word you say."

My eyelashes trembled, and my fingers gripping the cup tightened, my knuckles turning white.

I picked up the cup and took a sip; the water had already gone cold.

"Liam, you shouldn't have come." I put the cup down, my voice still as soft, so soft it was as if I were afraid of startling something.

"You've already said that many times, but I came anyway."

My gaze fell on the gray-blue sea outside the window.

The sea breeze in Bergen was strong, causing the window glass to vibrate slightly.

I suddenly spoke, my voice very low, as if talking to myself: "That night, I called your name."

His breathing stopped for a beat.

"I called it many times." My voice was shaking, but there was no expression on my face. "I was in that room, calling your name. Over and over again. You weren't there."

His eyes turned red.

He reached out his hand and covered the back of my hand, which was resting on the table.

My hand was freezing, and it was trembling slightly.

"Ever since then," I raised my head to look at him, my eyes red, but I wasn't crying, "I haven't dared to call your name. I'm afraid that if I call it, I'll remember that scene."

He squeezed my hand tightly. "Then call it once now."

My lips were trembling.

"I'm here," he said.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

Tears slid from my eyes and fell onto the back of his hand. One drop, two drops.

I didn't call his name, I just pulled my hand back.

Chapter 12

In the middle of the night, I started having nightmares again.

Liam was awakened by my screams.

He sprang up from the sofa and pushed open my bedroom door.

I was curled up on the bed, shaking all over, crying out "don't."

The sound was not loud, as if my throat were blocked by something, muffled, but it was more heart-wrenching than a scream.

My hair was soaked with sweat, sticking to my face, my eyelashes fluttering incessantly.

He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Clara. Wake up. You're having a nightmare."

I didn't wake up.

My hands were grasping aimlessly in the air, like someone drowning searching for driftwood.

He took my hand; my hand was ice-cold, and my nails dug into the back of his hand.

But I didn't wake up.

"Liam... Liam..."

I was calling his name. He was there.

He was by my side. But I didn't know.

"Save me..."

He pulled me into his arms.

I leaned against his chest, my body still shaking, shaking like a leaf in the wind.

His hand patted my back gently, just as he used to do to comfort me when I had nightmares in the past.

He said, "I'm here. No one can hurt you anymore. I'm here."

My breathing gradually calmed down, and my body stopped shaking so violently.

My hands clutched his clothes, knuckles white, but I didn't let go.

I wasn't awake, but my body knew he had come.

Liam leaned against the head of the bed, not daring to move, for fear of waking me.

For fear that after I woke up, I would turn back into the quiet Clara of the daytime, who locked herself in a shell.

The night in Bergen was very quiet, quiet enough to hear each other's shallow breathing.

Liam looked at the girl in his arms.

Clara's brows were still furrowed, and there were tear stains at the corners of her eyes.

She had lost so much weight; her cheeks were sunken and her collarbones protruded.

Her hands were clutching his clothes tightly, like a child afraid of being abandoned.

When dawn broke, I woke up.

I found myself leaning in Liam's arms and froze.

I slowly backed away from his arms, lowered my head, and didn't look at him.

He woke up too: "You had a nightmare."

I didn't speak, just tucked my hair behind my ears.

I stood up, walked barefoot into the bathroom, and closed the door.

The faucet ran for a long time, so long that Liam outside the door thought something had happened to me and came to knock gently.

When I came out, my face had returned to calmness, as if nothing had happened.

I went to the kitchen, took out two eggs, and burnt them again.

I placed the fried egg in front of him and said, "Eat."

He looked at me. There were still dark, bruised shadows under my eyes, but there was something different in my gaze compared to the past few days.

I couldn't say what it was; perhaps it wasn't as hollow anymore.

"Do you have nightmares every night?" he asked.

I lowered my head to drink coffee: "Occasionally."

He wanted to ask something else, but I stood up: "I'm going to work."

This time, I didn't drive Liam away again.

For the next few days, he lived in my apartment.

When I went to work at the hospital, he waited in the apartment.

Sometimes when I returned, I found him reading the medical books on the bookshelf.

I asked, "Can you understand them?"

He replied, "I can't understand them, but I can recognize all the words on the cover."

I said it was boring; he said it wasn't boring.

Sometimes Liam would also walk the streets of Bergen.

He went to the seaside, the fish market, and the cafe I had said I wanted to go to.

He took photos and saved them on his phone, not showing them to me.

He didn't know why he took them either; perhaps he wanted to remember the places where I had been alone.

One day, Liam finally got tired of eating bread and decided to make traditional steamed pork buns.

That was what I used to love eating the most.

He looked up recipes online, went to an Asian supermarket to buy flour, yeast, and pork, and learned to make them in the apartment.

Flour was everywhere on the floor, the dough wouldn't rise, and the steamed buns came out like stones.