It isn’t easy to completely blank someone for two days straight, and I would’ve thought it was damn near impossible when you both share an air mattress in a tent smaller than most bedrooms. 

Yet somehow Ayamin managed it. No matter how many times I apologised she wouldn’t look, or even speak to me. Those nights were the first that she hadn’t cuddled up to me and I felt the loss of her warmth.

Two days after I’d thrown her into the stream, I decided to go to the nearest town and buy supplies. I counted off the last few coins she’d given me.

‘I’m going to find us something to eat, Ayamin… I’ll miss you.’ 

She lay on the mattress re-reading Two Hearts in the French Night. Her face was practically buried beneath the yellow daisy on the cover and she didn’t even lift her head.

I walked to the town, and it felt weird walking alone. I decided I was going to buy Ayamin the biggest loaf of bread I could find. 

After a ten-kilometre hike, I found that even the town’s cheapest baking nearly doubled my scrawny stash of money. In the end, all I could afford was a sack of rice and six beans.

As I lugged the sack of rice back to our little tent I couldn’t stop thinking about Ayamin being mad. I gazed down at the road and felt my ribs. I was hungry, my girl semi-hated me, and we were probably going to remain in that muddy bog in front of the wall for the rest of our days. 

I groaned and kicked at the ground. It was probably going to start raining soon. My arms were sore from carrying the rice. 

I sat on a rock with my sack of rice and gazed around. There was the road, worn down by traffic. On it, a small truck rattled on by. 

To my left, I saw a burst of purple and orange. Climbing down from the rock I discovered it was a patch of wildflowers, hidden from the road. 

Gently, I pulled a few flowers from the plants. They were pretty and at the same time survivors, just like Ayamin. I gathered more and more and started laughing as I imagined Ayamin’s reaction. I also found a wild yellow sunflower to give to the grandma who’d fed me. 

When I had more than I could carry I picked up the sack of rice and began walking once more. It didn’t feel so heavy. 

As cars passed, I burst into random fits of laughter as I imagined her reaction to the flowers.  I made it back to the camp and found that for once Ayamin wasn’t in our tent. 

Grinning to myself I put the rice in our bag and arranged the flowers on the air mattress, orange purple, orange, purple in the most colourful heart Ayamin would’ve ever seen. Then I sat outside the tent threading two flower crowns as I waited for Aya to come back. 

A while later her head popped into our row of tents and I hid the just-finished crowns behind my back. She walked towards me taking dainty bites on a piece of campfire bread. My stomach rumbled.

I kept a smile on my face as she moved closer. There was a little more colour on her face than there had been in a while. When her eyes met mine, a smile started to creep onto her lips, but she caught it at the last moment.

She stepped past me, unzipped Winne the Pooh, and climbed inside. Then she stopped, half-in and half-out of the tent.

There was silence. My hands began to feel clammy where I was holding the flower crowns.

A moment later Ayamin bounced out of the tent and tackled me into the ground, wrapping her arms around me.

She was yelling something in Arabic, which I’m pretty sure meant I love you. She laughed and kissed my face. 

I brushed aside a few stray hairs from her face and placed the flower crown so it sat on her ears. Ayamin giggled and kissed me again.

She took the second flower crown from my hands and carefully squeezed it onto my head. Then we lay on the dirt and laughed.

****

That night it began to rain.

Ayamin cooked us the best rice and beans I had ever tasted. When we finished eating, I took my shirt off and sat, totally blissed-out at the feeling of a full belly.

As the first fat drops of water hit the dirt around our tent Ayamin put the bowls outside for the rain to wash, then pulled me close to her. She kissed my chin, then rolled so her head rested on my chest. 

I ran my hand through her long, dark, almost wild hair and Ayamin sighed. 

‘I’m sorry for being mad Danny.’

Her hand reached out and took mine. I shook my head, ‘I shouldn’t have chucked you in the stream.’

‘I just wanted to drown in my despair for a little while, but you wouldn’t let me. Would you?’

She squeezed my hand and I breathed in and the words rolled right off my heart. 

‘I love you.’

She stared down my chest at me, then her head moved and she was kissing me, hot and passionate right on the mouth. We kept kissing until we’d probably set a new world record for breath-holding. 

As we broke away, she brushed her nose with mine, ‘I love you.’

I reached out and handed her one of the flowers that lay beside our bed, it was purple and rounded, but if you half closed your eyes it almost looked like a rose. 

Ayamin took it and kissed me again. Her hands ran down my chest. The rain beat a tango on the roof of our tent. That night was one to remember.