8
Sun Cheeks
Sun Cheeks
Opened my eyes, some sort of green leaves hanging above, my head in your lap, some of your fingers are touching my hair. A part of your hand is just above my cheeks, next to the corner of my eyelid, it’s warm, I sweated a bit, edges of my sideburns wet, like a baby. Your skin is hot, and everything else is, it’s an exceptionally hot spring day and we weren’t expecting it, you are listening to a story from the grandma, she is not ours but might’ve been, she certainly feels like it. I closed my eyes again, she studied in Bern, and fell in love with an architect, but also with a singer, the singer would buy her flowers, sunflowers to be specific, but never give her directly, would leave it somewhere she could find after she was gone, she loved the thrill, the architect was just the pretiest man you could ever meet, she paused for a second... like brad pitt when he was younger!! You giggled, and started gently stroking my hair, not sure if you were staring at me but it felt like it. Did they know about each other? Yes they did, but we never spoke about it. Not because I was scared, I would’ve told them if it came up, but thought it was nicer not to mix things at the time, and they never asked, but they knew, I hid nothing. The flowers and the letters, and the different clothes were scattered around my room. Both were very smart, in their own ways, they knew, but I don’t know how they looked at it, we never talked about it.
She paused, and then continued as she remembered. One day we were walking in the main street with the architect, playing, play-pushing eachother, I was elated, it was almost summer time, I had a very nice dress on, I was pretty and I saw the singer from a distance, she was reading on a bench, which she told me about. It was in one of her songs, I thought it was a made up bench, but it was real, I’ve just never seen it before. She looked at me, directly, and I to her, she didn’t break her gaze, didn’t look at the man I was with, not for one second, I didn’t break my movement, and she smiled and stared back into her book. Couple of days later we met, and she told me a very beautiful story in a very cozy café, the story was so moving, I cried a little bit, and remember this sensation in my chest after, like I was falling from the sky, and if I fell in love for the first time. Grandma stopped for a second, as if to savour the feeling, I opened my eyes, you realised and looked at me, leaned in and gave me a kiss on the forehead. We sat in silence until we could all digest the feeling. I got up to sit straight on the summer sofa. - When was the last time you talked with them? - After the first year, I decided Bern was too cold for me, I had a dream I was in a gondola in Venice, so I decided to finish my studies there. The architect was happy for me, he just looked at it as a natural change of life, as the seasons do. He was serious, not the type of person to be upset about summer or winter, he embraced them as they came. We met the day before I left, had a very nice dinner, he wished me well, kissed me goodbye, and I never saw or heard from him again. The singer was touring around the country, she wrote to me a week before I left saying she’s not upset, she will see me somewhere again and that she had a gift for me. I moved to Venice, wrote couple of letters to her at the beginning but received no reply. This didn’t actually upset me, she was like that, I assumed she was travelling or had moved. Later I finished my first year, and went to stay with a friend in their summer home near Greece, at this point, we haven’t spoken in a year. I was walking in this little village, and saw a bench, painted orange-red, exactly like the bench she loved to read on, felt how much I missed her, so I decided to write her a letter. She came two weeks later, we spent the whole summer together... Grandma got up and walked into the kitchen, continuing the story.... at the end she left, and didn’t tell me where, but did leave a sunflower on the orange-red bench.
We looked at eachother, I smiled, and you smiled back in the acknowledgment of the feeling the story left on us, you asked if I was hungry, we could smell the boiled fresh beans, the sun started to set. I looked at your cheeks, and the sun bleached baby hairs, I felt the feeling of falling the grandma talked about, you had sun cheeks.
She paused, and then continued as she remembered. One day we were walking in the main street with the architect, playing, play-pushing eachother, I was elated, it was almost summer time, I had a very nice dress on, I was pretty and I saw the singer from a distance, she was reading on a bench, which she told me about. It was in one of her songs, I thought it was a made up bench, but it was real, I’ve just never seen it before. She looked at me, directly, and I to her, she didn’t break her gaze, didn’t look at the man I was with, not for one second, I didn’t break my movement, and she smiled and stared back into her book. Couple of days later we met, and she told me a very beautiful story in a very cozy café, the story was so moving, I cried a little bit, and remember this sensation in my chest after, like I was falling from the sky, and if I fell in love for the first time. Grandma stopped for a second, as if to savour the feeling, I opened my eyes, you realised and looked at me, leaned in and gave me a kiss on the forehead. We sat in silence until we could all digest the feeling. I got up to sit straight on the summer sofa. - When was the last time you talked with them? - After the first year, I decided Bern was too cold for me, I had a dream I was in a gondola in Venice, so I decided to finish my studies there. The architect was happy for me, he just looked at it as a natural change of life, as the seasons do. He was serious, not the type of person to be upset about summer or winter, he embraced them as they came. We met the day before I left, had a very nice dinner, he wished me well, kissed me goodbye, and I never saw or heard from him again. The singer was touring around the country, she wrote to me a week before I left saying she’s not upset, she will see me somewhere again and that she had a gift for me. I moved to Venice, wrote couple of letters to her at the beginning but received no reply. This didn’t actually upset me, she was like that, I assumed she was travelling or had moved. Later I finished my first year, and went to stay with a friend in their summer home near Greece, at this point, we haven’t spoken in a year. I was walking in this little village, and saw a bench, painted orange-red, exactly like the bench she loved to read on, felt how much I missed her, so I decided to write her a letter. She came two weeks later, we spent the whole summer together... Grandma got up and walked into the kitchen, continuing the story.... at the end she left, and didn’t tell me where, but did leave a sunflower on the orange-red bench.
We looked at eachother, I smiled, and you smiled back in the acknowledgment of the feeling the story left on us, you asked if I was hungry, we could smell the boiled fresh beans, the sun started to set. I looked at your cheeks, and the sun bleached baby hairs, I felt the feeling of falling the grandma talked about, you had sun cheeks.