“Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth.”

―Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

There are too many days where I mistake someone’s arm for a piece of soft bread.

No, scratch that. There are too many days where I mistake something for something it is not.

Sometimes I swear it’s the smell of lilies in my nose, and I beg my aunt to take me into the flower shop we’re surely passing by, but then she acts confused and asks what flower shop, and I realize I’ve been smelling someone’s perfume. On other days, it’s almost undeniable that there’s a soundtrack of smooth jazz in the air, but when pestering my aunt, she claims she can’t hear anything but me disturbing her peace and quiet. However, on most days, it’s touching someone and thinking that they’re someone—or something—else. A child’s cheek becomes a silken sweater. A man’s arm becomes a coarse rag. A hot iron emanating heat becomes the sun. It would be so much easier if everyone wasn’t so quiet—so assumptions don’t have to be made, but everyone likes quiet. At least in Sentez-Le, they do.

Quiet is the figure skater, ballet dancer, shy lover of Sentez-Le, my aunt’s bakery. Quiet doesn’t like to speak, and since everyone loves her, they do everything in their power to impress her. It’s a silent game of who can be the quietest. Everyone loves Quiet, but I’m the only one who absolutely detests her. The view in my eyes is almost always black. My ears don’t need the same treatment. Luckily, Quiet lives in this bakery where it can be assured that silence hardly happens—not without timers going off, bells jingling which signal a new customer, soft jazz in the background, and click-clicks of when My Nails meet, greet, and kiss Wooden Surface like a high school couple at the end of a class period.

My aunt Joanne’s bakery—as lovely as it is—is a burger bun missing its other half, the last marshmallow in a full cup of hot chocolate, and the moment when there’s more dip than there is chip. Sentez-Le, a French phrase for something my hands can’t consult Google Translate to find out. In the past history of this bakery is a girl named Sunhee, and she’s almost exactly like me, but the glaring difference is that she can see. Sometimes she still waltzes the kitchen, turning knobs without having to spare a glance, measuring ingredients perfectly to the milliliter, and knowing when something has been overbaked just by looking.

She’s dead now, and all that’s left is another girl. Her name is Sunhee too, but she sits in corners where she can feel both walls on either side of her palms, she has to use measuring spoons constantly, and she’s somehow always burning herself and setting fire to bread when she puts the oven on “broil” instead of “bake.” God knows how—because I surely don’t—Sunhee still manages to wake up and bear the feeling of the sun on her face while simultaneously seeing shades of whites and yellows that she only imagines.

God knows how she hasn’t died of embarrassment when she mistakes someone’s arm for a piece of soft bread.

“Sorry,” I mutter. A wave of heat rushes into my cheeks when the cool face of a timepiece comes into contact with my fingertips. “My aunt gave me some bread earlier for a snack, and I thought—never mind,” I say, shaking my head. “What would you like to order?”

“Uh...” The voice doesn’t match the arm I’ve touched, and another wave of hot blood flows into the capillaries of my face.

“I apologize, miss.” I bow down towards the direction of where the arm was before turning back to the owner of the deep voice. “Sir?”

“Are y-you…?” He trails off, and his sigh brushes against my forehead, trickling down to my nose, where it’s a distinct scent of mint. “Blind?” He lowers the volume of his voice. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to—”

“Yes.” I nod. “I had optic or neuro something when I was a freshman in college.” It comes out like the script of for more information, visit blah-blah-blah infomercials have. “I lost my sight by the time I was a sophomore. So—what would you like to order?”

“I’m really sorry,” the man blurts. “I didn’t mean to—”

“You’re not prying, I promise.” The sound of it is worn out on my tongue. Once or one thousand, the amount it’s been said will forever be lost to history, and plumbers can find its genuineness in clogged up pipes. It doesn’t get any better each time it’s said, that’s why.

Are you blind? Yes.

What’s it like not being able to see? Imagine being in a dark room. The darkest room you can think of. Fill it with pillows filled with feathers, rows of cactus plants, sand paper flooring, and blades for door handles. Imagine your mission is to find a stuffed bear filled with needles, toothpicks, and hairpins. That’s what it’s like. It’s ridiculous and terrifying.

What do you see when you dream? Everything someone who isn’t blind can see.

If you could get your eyesight back, would you do it? If you’re bleeding to death, do you wish you aren’t bleeding to death anymore or do you accept your fate? Of course not. No question about it that anything will go if my eyesight can return.

What do you miss the most about seeing? Seeing. Reading the subtitles of a foreign film. Playing games on a phone. Optical illusions. That’s a dumb a question.

What are the pros of being blind? No comment.

“Sorry,” the man murmurs, the sheepishness in his voice evident. “I’d like a small order of brownies. The fudges ones with the chocolate chips.”

“And you, miss?” I nod, facing the woman who must be at his side.

“It’s just me,” he whispers, and a feeling of terribleness rises in my throat. This has happened a hundred times before, but like everything else, it doesn’t get any better with each passing.

“Sorry.” I shrug, pretending it’s not fazing when it really makes me want to yell for my fairy godmother and demand for my sight back. “That’ll be 10.88.”

“Here you go,” the man continues with his murmuring, and the sound of shuffling blends in with the other sounds of the shuffling in the kitchen and the dining area. Something crinkles, and something is placed into my hand. “That’s a 20.”

“Thank you.” Unfolding the bill is the easiest part, and putting it into the right section of the cash register is the second easiest. There are four sections in it where you can put the paper money. The dollars are in the very left, the fives in the second, the tens in the third, and anything higher is in the very left. Then there comes the problem of feeling for the change. The paper money is easy enough to find—one five, four dollars. Coins are trickier, and my fingers have yet to grasp a solid understanding of the differences between a penny, dime, nickel, and quarter.

“Keep the change.” The man says just as my finger touches a dime. Or maybe it’s a penny. “All of it.”

“Thanks,” is my stunned reply. It’s too often that strangers would insist that they don’t need their change, but that’s only if they were get back a few cents. Ten dollars? That’s more than a few cents higher than usual. “You’re very kind. What’s your name?” Warmth seeps back into my cheeks. “For your order. Not for, like, anything else.”

“Junmyeon,” he replies, not acknowledging the awkwardness.

Joon-myuhn. Like my name, it’s Korean.

“I’ll call you when your order is ready, Junmyeon.”

“Thanks.” A pause. “Sunhee.”

There’s a shift in the air, and his footsteps are taps against the tiling of the floor. Somewhere farther out, a chair’s leg scratches the floor. The sound is unpleasant—much like nails against a chalkboard, but it doesn’t last long. After this small interruption, Quiet is back, and she’s making love with Smooth Jazz and Hushed Whispers.

I turn around to make a full 180-degree turn walk with hesitance towards north.

“Oh, dear.” Joanne’s voice stops me from further advancing. “Oh, not you. You’re fine. You’re not going to walk into anything.” She likes to say that when there’s a risk of actually walking into something, so I stop. “I promise.” She sighs yet again when I still don’t move. “Come on. What was the order?”

“A small order of my brownies.” Still with hesitance, I walk forward into the perpetual warmth of the kitchen.

“Oh, thank god,” Joanne sighs. “I just finished this large order, but it got cancelled at last minute. Do you think you can cut it?”

“Yes, but not in a straight line.”

“You’re right.” She laughs. “I’ll do it myself.”

“Don’t expect me to hand you the knife too.” I joke, remembering the times I tried to cut things up by myself. None of the attempts—then and now—end up without a cut on one of my fingers. To prevent any of these accidents from occurring again, Joanne and I have an agreement to not allow me near any knives—unless it’s one of those harmless ones used for spreading butter.

“Of course not,” she murmurs, and a shuffling sound harmonizes with the hum of the refrigerator. A few seconds later, she pokes a box at my arms. “Here.”

“Thanks.” I box first, trying to get a feel of its size. It’s a small box, thankfully, so there’s not much struggle involved.

“No problem.” Joanne replies, guiding me back out the kitchen.

When my hip brushes past the familiar edge of the countertop with the cash register, I pause. “Junmyeon, your order of brownies is ready.”

A chair scrapes against the floor, Joanne must be taking out the trash because there’s a sound of crinkling plastic behind me, and shoes tap against the floor in a rhythm with an irregular time signature.

“Thank you.” A voice—Junmyeon’s—answers, and the box of brownies is lifted from my hands. “That was quick.”

“Yeah, you got lucky,” I say. Joanne is still messing with the plastic of the garbage, and it crinkles incessantly. “Someone cancelled their large order of brownies.”

“Oh, well that’s good.” Junmyeon murmurs but then quickly backtracks. “N-Not for you, I mean, all that hard work going to waste. I mean for me. Since I’m-I’m busy…and stuff.”

Joanne chuckles. “I hope you enjoy!” Her footsteps move away.

“Okay.” I nod along. The silence is too uncomfortable, and unless Junmyeon has quiet feet, he’s still standing nearby. “Have a good day—”

Joanne’s bright idea of changing the trash bag directly behind a blind girl is almost as bad as her other idea of taking a blind girl to a petting zoo. Right when I turn to the way back to the kitchen, I stumble over the trash bin. As my arms flail to grab at something, my waist is tugged backwards by some force, and suddenly, I’m not falling anymore.

Just when theories of what has happened begin to formulate, the realization hits. Junmyeon. Of course, it’s him. He has just reached his arm toward me—just in time before anything else can happen, or in other words, before my face smashes into something. Strangely, however, his arm no longer feels soft like the bread I mistook him for. No, instead, his arm is hard with tense muscles, supporting some of my weight.

The very contact brings a sheen of hotness to my face, and I turn immediately, trying to put distance between us. It’s a mistake, however, and my hands naturally reach forward to push away—touching his abdomen. If you think there’s nothing as bad as touching a stranger’s abdomen, you’re wrong. But, you may ask, what’s worse than that? Well, touching a stranger’s abdomen and feeling something hard covered with a layer of soft, something with little indentations through their shirt is worse.

If my cheeks are any hotter than they are now, then they’ll burn whoever touches them.

“I’m so sorry,” Junmyeon apologizes before anything else can happen—before I can. “Ah, are you okay? I didn’t—I don’t mean to—I’m sorry.” His arm falls from my waist. “Uh, I’ll get going. I’m busy. You’re busy—or, I think you are. I mean—” He sighs, and his breath gets caught on some strands of my hair, getting them tangled in some of my lashes. “I should really go.”

“Um, thank you for that.” I look towards the direction of my feet, wanting to punch myself for