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‘We’re here for a couple of months,’ she continues, ‘so if you enjoy it, please tell your friends. And if there’s anything you think we could improve on, we’re always open to suggestions. Thank you so much for coming, please grab a glass, and have a wonderful evening.’
The whole place is a sensory masterpiece. I wander towards a piece calledTangible Sound,which looks unremarkable at first; a square marked on the floor with what looks like a tall speaker at each corner. Each pillar is lined with different coloured lights, casting overlapping technicolour shadows onto the floor, but when I step into the square, that’s when the magic happens. I realise my body’s interrupting sound waves, and when I move, the pillars generate this dreamy, otherworldly sound, like I’m under the sea.
Another piece is a sculpture that’s partly solid, while other parts move and shift under your touch, and something about it is familiar. When I press the button on the plaque to listen to the explanation, I learn Alina’s one of the collaborators.
I catch Josie just as she finishes a particularly effusiveconversation with a few peers, waving her giant fluted sleeves around so aggressively I’m willing to bet she’ll whack herself in the face with them at some point tonight.
‘This is amazing,’ I say, as I approach, and when she turns to me, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look more alive; cheeks flushed, eyes bright.
‘Have you looked around it all yet? What’s the verdict? Tell me all your thoughts.’ She tugs her dress down—green, obviously, because she’s Josie—from where it’s shifted in her exuberant speech-giving. ‘Unless they’re bad thoughts, in which case, please lie like you’ve never lied before.’
‘I don’t need to lie,’ I say. ‘The sound square is my favourite so far. I felt like a mer—’
‘Mermaid, right? I’ve been saying that this whole time but everyone else says it has space vibes instead. But have you checked outSeasons Changeyet?’ She gestures towards the back of the room, where a line of people snakes around a huge circular structure, a timer flashing outside the door.
‘No, wait, is that the one you had the idea for?’
‘You have to go in. Although,’ she drops her voice, ‘wait for the queue to go down. I personally think it’s better when there are only a few people in there. It feels more immersive.’
‘Got it.’ I make a note to keep an eye on the line. ‘Josie, you’re a force, you know that?’
‘I know,’ she says in a hum. ‘But thank you for reminding me.’
It takes a while for the queue to go down outside the circular room. The door opens and a few stragglers spill out, eyes wide, raving to each other about howcool it was. When the five-minute timer above the door starts counting back down to zero again, I head towards it.
I don’t know what to expect. The plaque outside the door simply says:
Time passes, life goes on, seasons change. Take a moment to breathe.
The room is dark when I step in, but I use those raised lines on the floor to help find my way. There’s some seating around the edges, but I choose the backless bench in the centre of the room. I sit facing away from the door, ready to take a moment to breathe, as instructed. The walls curve around me in a circle and when I notice the faint hum buzzing at the far end of my range of hearing and a hazy light emanating all around me, I realise the entire wall is a screen, as if I’m enclosed within a TV.
By chance, I’m the only one in here, and I can’t work out if it’s eerie or soothing to be surrounded by nothing more than my thoughts and the dark. So when someone comes into the room and sits behind me on the bench just before the countdown hits zero, I’m the tiniest bit relieved.
Suddenly the room lights up and we’re surrounded by images of spring; unfurling buds, tiny farm animals, dew drops gliding down blades of grass. Then come the sounds of wind chimes, chicks cracking out of their eggs, the low bleating of sheep. Even the tone of the light seems to match the kind of sunshine you get on spring mornings; hesitant but hopeful. There’s a gentle breeze, and is that the smell of rain? The person behind inhales too, shifting on the bench as they do.
I breathe in deeper, relishing that earthy richness, until I smell flowers, and then my brain takes half a second to register scents that seem out of place.
A musky cologne. Swimming pools.
Oh.
‘Would you say we met in spring or summer?’ The voice comesfrom behind me. It’s quiet enough that I could almost convince myself it’s not him, if not for the fact that no one else’s voice makes me feel like a flower blossoming under the sun.
I stay focused on the wall and let my heart skip a few more beats before I reply. ‘Late spring.’ An exhale rattles through me as that petrichor breeze drifts between us. ‘The season for new beginnings.’
‘I think you’re right,’ Finn says quietly. It takes everything in me not to turn around. The chirping of birds fills the silence before he asks, ‘Are you doing okay?’
‘I’m good.’ It feels too small a word to encapsulate how much I feel I’ve changed over the past few months. ‘Are you?’
‘I am.’
There’s a cacophony in my head just having him near me again, drowning out the sounds from the speakers. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Ava.’ Just hearing my name from his mouth sends adrenaline crashing through my bloodstream, and I spin around, heart somehow breaking and expanding and jumping off a cliff all at once when I see him, careful eyes fixed on me as he says, ‘I told you I’d come back.’
We’re both analysing each other, dissecting the changes we’ve missed. He’s wearing a suit for the occasion and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make my breath hitch. His glasses are the same, but his new haircut has tightened his curls. I wonder if he notices I’ve had my hair cut too, that my fringe is shorter than it used to be. His eyes flit to my forehead. Of course he notices.
Imperceptibly, the season changes around us, and now we’re in summer, seagulls cawing, the smell of freshly cut grass permeating the air, golden hour sun illuminating the room just like on the night we walked to the boat bar, and I’m melted ice cream under Finn’sgaze.
