Set the World to Mute

Summer was is on its way, then, and I loved it.

April is gorgeous in our city, a city where you can actually find an abundance of trees and plants in the city scenery, green blots among the grey bricks of cement and the faded black asphalt. Flower beds and bushes in between the blocks and on people’s verandas. Birds twittering so you can only hear them, never see them. It smells different in the spring as well. In the winter the air is thick with pollution and waste from cars, while in the spring it gets fresher, more natural.

And I love it.

Ben lives next to a big park where I know he sometimes takes the kids. I have seen him there, I realized one day when Sophie told me excitedly about their day in the park, seen him and his girls there among the trees. Ben on a bench with Emma examining nature's creations between his legs and Sophie swinging wildly on a swing almost reaching the sky.

I was jogging past the park, like I always do on my morning run; out of breath, with screaming muscles and burning lungs. I stopped to take a rest, and I watched as he watched his children playing, something I love to do now, and loved to do then. The perfect family, I thought.

Today, Sunday, I've braved the world in a sundress and I’ve braided my hair to capture the summer feel in it. The air still has the icy tint of winter, so I've kept the coat, but there's something liberating about the first time you walk out of your flat with bare legs. It's summertime, almost, and life gets brighter by the day.

Today, Sunday, is also Sophie's birthday. Six years old and dying to start school after summer. I want to tell her to enjoy the time she has before she embarks on at least thirteen years of education, but knowing how I, and most kids that age, glorifies school I know it wouldn't make much of an impression.

She has invited me to her celebration. I should be in my apartment, studying, but the poorly concealed excitement as she handed me her homemade invitation made it close to impossible to decline. Big happy eyes and bouncing locks of hair, and all.

Ben answers the door and lets me in. He smiles when he sees the gift in my hands and I reply with a little laugh. “It’s not much, poor student and all.” Truthfully I had used way too much money on the gift, and would have to live off the remnants of food in my apartment and whatever scraps I could gather at Ben’s to survive. Unintentional diet-week, in other words.

Ben nods slowly; maintaining his signature little sweet smile as he lightly places his hand on my lower back, guiding me into the living room. I had worried about meeting the people who were significant in the little family’s life ever since I had gotten the invitation to the party, but with Ben as my usher, I feel quite at ease with walking into the living room, where grandparents, aunts and uncles are swarming. They have a large family, it seems.

I am introduced to many new faces, but the ones that stand out are the elderly. Sally’s mother, Salene, is a drawn old lady with spotted, warm hands and gorgeous eyes. “Delighted to meet you,” she says as she takes her hands in mine, and I smile, wondering if Sally had the same inviting aura. I think yes. “Thank you, I’ve heard a lot about you,” I reply, not being completely honest as no one ever speaks of family in this house, but it pleases her and her eyes glimmer as she smiles.

Ben’s parents are younger, and a complete contrast to their somber son. His father, Leonard, is a quite handsome elderly gentleman. I see Ben in him, in the sharp brows and nose, and the lines around his eyes and mouth. I can tell he’s used to making people laugh, which is peculiar as his wife doesn’t seem to find anything worth a laugh. Rebecka seems slightly snotty, with a pouty mouth, and the same green-gray eyes as her son, identical right down to the golden specks, and the worry line between her brows. Except hers are colder. They are both very british, and I find myself wondering if Ben has the same accent.

The birthday girl herself is hovering by the living room table, which is filled with gifts in all shapes and sizes.

“Look!” Sophie exclaims as she sees me, “these are all for me!”

“Wow,” I respond, “How lucky you are! This is for you too princess.” I hand her her gift and she squeals, accepting it with a huge smile that makes my heart go all fuzzy.

“Another one?”

“Of course, you’re the birthday girl!” I can’t resist the hair ruffle. “Getting so big…” I watch her as she examines the gift, shaking it and squeezing it, trying to figure out what it is. “I hope you like it,” I mumble, suddenly feeling very nervous. God knows what kids these days like, when I was a kid a Barbie would have sufficed.

“Can I open it now? Please?”

“I…” I give her father a questioning look and he shrugs. “Um… Sure!” I agree, feeling a bit egotistical as the reason I’m letting her open mine now doesn’t have all that much to do with her being happy, rather my own fear of being a disappointment. I bite my lip as she tears its wrap off.

“A make-up kit!” she roars and flings her arms in the air, almost sending the little set across the room. I the corner of my eye I see Ben’s smile tightening slightly. I have to bite my lip not to smile as Sophie asks her father, “Can we practice together daddy?”

I give him a guilty look as he crouches down next to his daughter and takes the kit in his hands, looking it over with an afflicted look on his face. Then he nods curtly, and Sophie wraps her arms around him, giving him a big kiss. “You’ll be so pretty!” she assures him. Ben doesn’t look convinced and sends me a darks look over the strawberry scent of her hair.

I hide my smile behind my hand, and try to look serious and filled with regret.
‘

The party ends at seven o’clock. I’m in the floor, playing together with Sophie, who’s over the moon about the abundance of gifts sprawled on the floor, surrounding her on all ends. I’ve spent most of the party there, feeling most at ease playing the part of the nanny. There’s been cake, and gifs, and drinks and hugs and kisses and all that one should expect in a birthday party for a six year old little girl, attended mostly by people past 30. I’m about to get up to say goodbye when Sophie grabs my hand. “Can do your make-up? Pretty-please?”

I bite my lip, my brain yelling at me to get home to my studies, but I have to give in to the big eyes and the bouncing hair once again. “Of course,” I say quietly, and sit back down, crossing my legs and straightening my dress. As Ben says goodbye to the last of the guests, Sophie opens her kit of blushes and eye shadows and picks an applier. I close my eyes and hope for the best as her little hands start working.

Ben has to join in as well, eventually. I have a feeling that he would refuse if it wasn’t her birthday and if he had the words to make an argument that would pass for a six year old, but it is her birthday, and he obediently sits down next to me and my not so pretty face and crosses his legs like I have, stoically accepting his fate. When she tires of the kit, we play with the various dolls and games she’s gotten from her family until she starts yawning and it’s thankfully close to her going to bed.

Still, it isn’t until Sophie threatens to ‘pretty up’ her sister’s face that Ben rises, scoops Sophie up in his arms and carries her towards her bathroom to ready her for bed, receiving loud complaints which he bluntly ignores until he stoically accepts her fate as well. Emma, already in her PJ’s has fallen asleep, and while Ben is busy with Sophie I pick her up and tell her in whispers that it’s time for bed. She has been suspiciously quiet all day, and as I carry her to her crib I tell her she’s a very, very good girl. “Did you know it was Sophie’s birthday? Huh? I think you did, and you decided to stay in the background. Very kind of you indeed.” Emma stays true to her silence and sleeps peacefully as I tuck her in and leave the room.

When Ben returns from bedtime, I finally let out the laugh I’ve been dying to have all evening. “Oh dear,” I mumble as he scratches the back of his head with a tiny smile, “If I look half as bad as you…” He raises his brow as if to confirm this. I bite my lip. “We should clean this up, I don’t think I can go home looking like this. I’d risk giving someone a heart attack.”

He nods and leads the way into the bathroom. One look in the mirror and I decide not to look again until it’s all gone. The only good thing to be said is that it hides the retched blush coloring my cheeks at the discomfort I feel by looking like this around one of the most beautiful men alive.

I remove the numerous layers of make-up from my cheeks and eyes with several of Emma’s baby-wipes, and feel quite relieved to find that the skin has not died beneath it all. As a girl, the process goes smoothly, Ben, however, has more difficulties. The baby wipe is a balled up lump in his hand as he tries to rub the goo away and I watch him struggle for a while, before I intervene.

“Here,” I say, taking the wipe from him and straightening it out, “let me.”

I try to have the expression a normal person would have if they were cleaning make-up off a person they have a normal, non-romantic, relationship with, but it’s difficult. My face is inches from his, and with his steady breath on my skin, and the faint smell of cologne coming off the soft skin of his neck I’m finding it very hard to concentrate. I want to lean on my tippy-toes, and kiss him. I want to grab the back of his warm neck and press my body against his, to make him wrap his arms around me and hold me. Without the layers from before, my fresh skin gives me away as I try to keep my young brain from galloping away into dangerous waters.

In the end I’m just washing a very clean face. Ben himself seems quite pristine - he’s patiently and calmly waiting for me to finish as I work on turning his face from a painting, back to his actual face. He has a quite blank and very Ben look on his face, and the whole situation is really rather pleasant for a love struck 22 year old. But then his gaze drops to my neck, where I know a fresh red is spreading, and my stomach drops. His eyes find mine, and my chest tightens in a mix of nice and horrible. I have no idea what to expect, if I should even expect anything.

I think he smiles, the tiny lines at the creaks of his eyes deepen the slightest bit and his mouth twitches, and he raises his hand to remove my hand, which has frozen on his cheek. He guides it away from his face to let it rest by my side, but his fingers linger at the tip of my mine, almost touching - yet not.

His takes the used wipe from my hand and drops it into the garbage bin underneath the sink behind him, his eyes not leaving mine, and I don’t say anything. I mirror his open look, and try not to show any emotion. He blinks, and now I know he’s smiling, and I blink and I smile too, and the moment has passed.

"Goodnight," I say, and leave the room and the apartment and start the walk home with the most undefinable feeling in my stomach and a mind in disarray.

That night, I don’t sleep at all.