the prettiest star,, timothée chalamet

irl

"You what?" Mishti looked at Soleil like she was crazy. She probably was.

The three girls were packing for a small weekend getaway to Westchester to visit Tashi's parents.

"You're joking right?" Tashi asked, concerned. "You didn't actually mess up this bad, right?"

Soleil shrugged as she packed her bags. "It was an impulsive decision but it felt right. It feels right."

Mishti put a piece of garlic bread into their air-fryer and sighed. "Your editor literally said you could lose the deal. The one you've been working on getting for years now. Just to add a letter to the plot?"

"I've had twenty million publishers tell me Mackie and Arabella needed something more to their story before Creeds came along. Not that I'm not thankful for him, but, this could be it," she tried convincing.

"Did you suddenly receive a love letter making you do this?" Mishti joked before she saw the shying look on Soleil's face making her deadpan. "You didn't, right?"

"Well, not the 23-year-old version of me but 17-year-old me... maybe." The girl attempted to continue packing her bags but Tashi grabbed the piece of folded clothing out of her hands and threw it.

"Stop being confusing and just explain it already," Tashi sighed.

Soleil sighed a few seconds after her. It wasn't even a big deal. It shouldn't even be a big deal since he said he was over it.

I got over it pretty quickly once you left.

It was just a silly childhood crush.

That shouldn't have hurt Soleil the way it did. But still, she had no room to say anything about it. She was the one who left.

"He wrote me a letter the year I left and planned to give it to me but then I dipped before he could get the chance."

Tashi and Mishti stood there dumbfounded.

"Y'know how much of a Wattpad story your life has become recently? It's stupidly insane," told Mishti.

"Truly," Tashi laughed. "How'd you find out about it, Birdie?"

She scrunched her nose. "I was looking through a closet of his for some yarn and it flew out. I felt really bad for reading it but it had my name and—"

"What'd it say?" interrupted Mishti.

"Uh, basically how he thought it was dumb that he was saying all of this in a letter but he didn't have the balls to do it in person, blah blah blah. He was hurt by something which he later told me was about me dating my ex at the time and then he came in and I stopped reading. I only got, like, two paragraphs in."

"Paragraphs?" Tashi gasped. "He wrote a whole essay?"

"MLA format and everything?" Mishti added. Soleil proceeded to throw a pillow at her.

"Very funny," Soleil retorted, "but all he told me afterward was that it was a childhood crush. Which makes sense because I was just... there, y'know? He didn't talk to a lot of girls at LaGuardia and I guess I was just available so it makes sense."

"Available?" Tashi avowed. "Baby, he's in love with you!"

"Don't joke," Soleil grumbled.

"She's not," Mishti said. "Maybe he wasn't when he wrote that letter but he is now. We see it."

Soleil ignored them and continued folding her clothes. Tashi began doing so with her own luggage but still looked at Soleil.

"Since the start of this conversation he's texting you five times, each within an hour from each other," Tashi alluded, nodding her head to Soleil's phone on the tv stand. Soleil's reflex was to lunge forward and reply but due to the circumstance of the conversation, she held back. Her roommates noticed.

"It's what he always does," Soleil tried to reason. Mishti laid down on both Soleil and Tashi's lap making them exclaim.

"But that's not what a guy friend usually does," she said, staring up at Soleil. "Think about it. Does he know we're leaving today?"

"And does he know you're adding his letter to your book?" Tashi edged on.

"No, and it's not his letter verbatim," Soleil stuck her tongue out. "His letter just inspired me."

"Oh, totally. It'd probably be nothing like his letter. I bet it starts with 'Dear Ara' instead of 'Dear Birdie.' Such drastic changes!" Mishti gasped. Soleil smothered her with a pair of jeans.

"You two are insufferable," she sighed.

"Mhm," Mishti hummed as she jumped off, allowing both girls to sigh with relief. "We're leaving in 30. you two better be ready."

"Where're you goin'?" Soleil asked, not watching her go into her room.

"I'm the one driving! I'm taking a nap."

Soleil and Tashi both nodded their head as they roughly closed their suitcases, barely able to fit everything. Soleil saw her phone light up with a notification from Timothée, again.

"You gon' answer it?" Tashi asked, dragging the suitcase off the ground and onto its wheels.

Soleil thought long and hard. "Later. Me answering him doesn't affect his life." She dragged her suitcase by the door, Tashi following after

She clicked her tongue. "We'll see about that."