Noted with Reservations

CHAPTER 10: The Static Load

The following days felt like a long timelapse. Filled with coffee, sleepless nights, and the never-ending hum of the plotter machine from the other room.

But inside Studio B, at the spot Waeren and I shared, a kind of silence had formed—a silence that didn't need words to fill it.

"Pass me the X-Acto knife," he ordered, hunched over the final scale model.

I handed him the cutter without even looking up. I already knew how he moved. I knew when he needed a fresh cup of coffee and when he needed a five-minute break just to stare into space.

"Your coffee is getting cold again," I reminded him.

"You’re an architecture student, not a vacuum cleaner for exhaustion. Breathe."

"I'll breathe when the client signs the proposal on Monday," he replied, but he slowly set down the tweezers he was holding.

"Xy, look at this section. Do you think the transition from the foyer to the garden is too abrupt?"

I leaned in, peeking through the tiny window of the model.

"No. It feels like a breath, Waeren. From the inside, which is serious, it suddenly opens up to the outside, which is a bit messy but beautiful. Like us."

He froze at my words. He turned, and because we were so close, I saw the fatigue in his eyes, but it was joined by a kind of spark I had never seen before.

"Like us?" he repeated, his voice dropping an octave.

"Yeah. You're the foyer—serious and structured. I'm the garden—messy, but the one giving it life," I answered, forcing my tone to stay light so it wouldn't get too heavy.

"Perfect balance, right?"

A small smile played on his lips, the kind he only ever showed to me.

"Static load," he whispered.

"What?"

"In physics, a static load is a force that doesn't move. It’s constant. It’s reliable."

He looked directly at me.

"That’s what you’re becoming to me, Xyloise. A constant. I can't imagine doing this anymore without you by my side, complaining about millimeters."

I felt my world stop. My mind felt like a suddenly corrupted file. I couldn't find a joke. I couldn't find a comeback.

"Waeren, you can't be like that. I'm just your assistant, in case you forgot," I said, even though the truth was I wanted to hug him right then and there.

"The contract said you're my assistant until your debt is paid," he said, slowly moving closer until the distance between us was down to millimeters—the measurement he insisted should never be neglected.

"But I think we both know that the debt was paid a long time ago. Now, I'm just looking for reasons to keep you around."

Before I could respond, the studio door suddenly swung open.

"Waeren! The mock-up is—"

Celine stopped in the doorway. Her gaze darted between the two of us—our proximity, and the tension that no blueprint could hide.

"Am I interrupting something?" she asked, her voice laced with bitterness.

Waeren slowly backed away, his cold, professional mask returning within a second.

"We're just finalizing the garden transition, Celine. What is it?"

"The professor wants to see the structural framing. Now," Celine said, casting a sharp look in my direction.

"Xyloise, maybe you should take a break. You're getting a bit too... immersed in your work."

"I'm fine, Celine. I'm used to overtime," I replied, squaring my shoulders.

Once Celine left with Waeren, I was left alone in the middle of the studio. I looked at the model in front of me. It was beautiful. Perfect. But beneath all the concrete and landscaping, I knew there was a structure forming that was more complicated than any building.

I grabbed my notebook and, amidst sketches of trees and plants, I wrote:

Static Load: Something constant. Something reliable. Something that I hope won't break when the pressure gets too high.