My Leading Man | Timothée Chalamet

chapter seventeen

"Violet! It feels like forever since we've seen you!" Syd's grandmother pulled me into a tight hug. She was short, about my height, with spiky gray hair and purple glasses, with a long, purple beaded chain that ran from one end of her glasses to the other around her neck.

    "Graduation, so pretty much!" I said. I turned to her grandfather, a large man with rosy cheeks, a white comb-over, and an ever-present sweat-stache. He smiled kindly at me and reached for my hand, giving it a firm shake.

    "Good to see you, Violet."

    I smiled. "Good to see you, too, Mr. Roberts."

    "C'mon, let's go upstairs. I gotta show you my room," Syd pulled me away from them and yanked me up the stairs.

    Syd's room looked like a bedroom out of a Land's End summer issue; it had white shiplap walls, a circle window overlooking an empty beach, and a queen-sized bed covered in blue and white striped bedspread. I would have never thought Syd was staying here, since her room back home is floor-to-ceiling pictures, neon artworks, and pretty much any other nicknack that hangs that can be found at your local thrift store. I wouldn't have thought it was her room, apart from the suitcase on the floor open to mounds of unfolded, most likely dirty, laundry. Yep, that looked about right.

    She pulled me down to sitting next to her on her unmade bed. "Isn't this place great? I have a view of the ocean right outside my window."

    "Yeah, this is pretty awesome," I agreed.

    "So listen. I gotta tell you about Casey." Syd talked fast and never wasted any time getting to what she wanted.

    "Okay."

    She fell back on her bed dramatically. "He's beautiful. And a great kisser. He's great at other things too-"

    "Alright. That's enough there," I laughed. Then I paused. "Wait- he hasn't been here, has he?"

    She shrugged her shoulders innocently but the sly smile on her lips gave her away. "Sydney!" I gasped, quickly standing up. "With your grandparents downstairs?"

    "They weren't home," she reasoned. As if that made it acceptable.

    "Girl- I don't even know with you sometimes," I laughed. Syd and I learned long ago that we just had different standards on the boys we liked, what we did with boys, and so on. But I respected her and she respected me, and that's all there was to it.

    "So what's going on with you two? Are you guys official or anything?" I asked.

    "Oh no, definitely not. He's just a little fling."

    I hummed in acceptance.

    "But... there is something I wanted to ask you," she began.

    "Ask away."

    "Well. I'll just cut to the chase- I think I'm in love with Timothée." She wiggled her eyebrows at me excitedly.

    I think my mouth actually dropped open. "Wha-"

    "I know it's fast, and everything... but there's just something about him, you know?"

    I managed to close my mouth and just nod slowly.

    "He's so talented, and funny, and, like, so hot..."

    "Yeah, yep, he's all of those things..." My mind was reeling. Syd? In love with my Timothée? I gulped. He wasn't my Timothée. But just as I thought those words, my mind was filled with the wonderful - and painful - memories from last night. His hands on my waist, his gaze at my lips... and my rejecting him. I remembered as I laid in bed last night, going over all Tim and I's past interactions. I couldn't believe he actually liked me. It seemed like some foreign fantasy was coming true - one I didn't even know that I had. As it all came together in my mind, however, I realized it probably was much more minor than it originally seemed. Like I had thought before, whatever fleeting infatuation he had with me was just that: fleeting. Within a week or less, he would get over me and find that I wasn't what he needed, not at all. I didn't deserve him. Not to mention I had Max! I really liked Max. And I believed I could come to love him, with time. Syd and I may be different, but I realized something: Tim and I were different, too. And, who knew? Maybe Syd would be right for Timothée. A small part of me knew that no, she definitely would not be, but who was I to get in the way of Fate. Plus, after what happened with him the night before, I think The Universe was trying to give me a chance at redemption; give him the love that he couldn't find in me. So against the painful beating of my heart, I knew what I had to do.