Chapter 3: Blueprints and Reverb
762 Words
If I had a blueprint of my day-to-day life, it definitely didn’t account for Celine Navarro.
She arrived five minutes late again, humming a song I couldn’t place, hair still slightly damp from a rushed shower, probably. She wore a crop hoodie over high-waisted jeans, the kind of effortless mess that should’ve looked sloppy but didn’t. I hated that I noticed.
“Didn’t sleep?” she asked, sliding into her usual chair and unwrapping a cinnamon bun like it was the most natural thing in the world to eat dessert before noon.
“I was working,” I said.
She pointed at the neat pile of sketches I’d set on the table. “Clearly. You always draw like you’re trying to build something that doesn’t want to be built.”
“It’s called discipline.”
“It’s called control issues.”
I bristled but didn’t answer.
We’d been working together for less than a week, and already we clashed on nearly every artistic decision. She was too improvisational. I was too rigid. She wanted the installation to evoke “emotion first, logic later.” I argued that emotional chaos without design is just noise.
This time it was the second room: a “first goodbye.”
“I think it should be a long hallway,” I said, laying down a concept sketch. “Linear, narrowing slightly at the end. The floor would creak. Old wood. Something unstable beneath your feet.”
She tilted her head, eyes scanning. “Too literal. What if the room turns corners, like memory itself—fragmented, misleading?”
“And how would visitors navigate that without a clear path?”
“That’s the point. They’re not supposed to navigate it. They’re supposed to feel lost.”
I exhaled sharply. “This isn’t an escape room.”
She looked at me, mouth twitching, but not smiling. “No, but memories are sometimes something you want to escape from.”
The silence that followed stretched uncomfortably long.
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
She pushed the sketch aside and pulled out her laptop. “I made a soundscape for the ‘threshold’ room. Want to hear it?”
“I guess.”
She handed me her earbuds. The moment the audio played, I was surprised. It started with silence. Then static. Then faint footsteps—soft, hesitant. Then a low murmur, indistinguishable voices that sounded just out of reach. The kind of background noise you’d hear in a dream or a hospital waiting room.
When I took the earbuds out, she was watching me.
“It’s good,” I admitted.
“You sound shocked.”
“I didn’t expect it to be subtle.”
She smirked. “I’m full of surprises.”
Before I could answer, the door opened again. This time it was Amanda, another multimedia student. Short, sharp, with a no-nonsense ponytail.
“Celine, your project proposal form was due two hours ago.”
Celine blinked. “Was it? Oops.”
Amanda turned to me, clearly exasperated. “She does this every time. Let me guess, she distracted you too?”
I shook my head. “Not really.”
“She’s charming until your deadline dies screaming.” Amanda sighed, pulling a folder from her bag. “Here. Sign this and please drop it off in the AV office before six.”
“Thanks, Mandy. You’re an angel.”
Amanda rolled her eyes and left without another word.
Celine leaned back in her chair, hands behind her head. “You know, for someone so rule-abiding, you didn’t seem to mind me wasting your time just now.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you didn’t stop me.”
I looked away, annoyed that she had a point.
—
We argued about lighting for the rest of the hour. She wanted color-shifting LEDs to mimic emotional dissonance. I said that would dilute the meaning if not executed with precise intention.
“You’re afraid of ambiguity,” she said at one point.
“I prefer clarity.”
“And I prefer honesty, even if it’s messy.”
Another standoff. Another quiet. We didn’t resolve it.
But when she left, she paused at the door.
“You’re building walls, Iris. Just don’t forget to put in a door somewhere.”
It wasn’t until much later, editing my photos in the studio lab, that her words echoed back at me. Not in the way they were said—but in the way they landed, uninvited.
Like reverb.
Still ringing, long after the sound had ended.
- Writer
