My Leading Man | Timothée Chalamet

chapter twenty-five

    The voice beside me startled my eyes open, and I found a boy with shaggy, messy brown hair falling in his eyes and around his head. He sat on the ground a few feet away from me, leaning against the same wall I was, and looked up at me with large brown eyes. I took in the smattering of freckles on his cheeks, the slight quirk to his bow-shaped lips, and the over-sized sweatshirt and sweatpants hanging loosely over his gangly limbs. His pale skin and angular face looked eerie and haunting in the low orange light shining from the nearby lamppost.

    He held out a glowing cigar to me in his big hands with chipped black-polished fingernails, hands that looked too big for his narrow wrists.

    I didn't smoke; never had. But right now, in the darkness of the night, empty in a street with this strange, yet compelling boy, and with a numb heart that I was surprised to even find beating, I figured I had nothing to lose.

    "Yeah." I grabbed it, put it in my mouth and took in a big breath. The air burned my throat and lungs and I pulled it out, coughing.

    A low chuckle came from the boy. "Do you often lie to strangers offering you their last cig?"

    I shrugged. "Not really. But there's a first time for everything, I guess." I sat down next to him and handed back the cigarette. Normally I would never accept anything from a stranger, not to mention sit down and have a conversation with them. But my heart wasn't the same. At this point anything different from my normal routine, the usual people that surrounded me, sounded incredible; anything that would take my mind off... the recent events.

    "What made you say yes?" The boy asked me, pulling me out of my thoughts. I looked at him, and found I liked his big dark brown eyes. They reminded me of warm melty chocolate, something I'd stick a strawberry into and lick clean.

    "Just seemed like the right answer."

    "So you're not totally stupid." I opened my mouth to protest, ask him what his problem was, but I stopped when I saw the smile playing on his chapped lips. "You're walking alone at night in L.A., accepted a cigarette from a stranger, and sat down with him," he explained, seemingly reading my thoughts. He stubbed out the cigarette and continued. "You don't exactly strike me as the common genius."

    "No, I guess not." I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I was getting tired again and just wanted to go back to sleep. "So what brought you out here," I asked, surprising myself by continuing the conversation. Something about talking with this strange boy was comforting.

    "I could ask you the same thing."

    "I asked you first," I teased half-heartedly, and he chuckled before filling the silence, tugging a thick silver ring off his finger and turning it over and over in his hands.

    "I'll make you a promise, beautiful night-walker." His lips twitched but continued. "You don't have to answer any of my questions and I won't answer yours. Deal?"

    I reached out my hand and we shook. "Deal."

    "Want to go somewhere?" He stood up, brushed himself off, and reached down a hand to me. Now would be the time for some self-preservation to kick in.

    But not tonight.

    "Sure."

    -

    We drove along an empty street with just a few dark buildings on the sides of us. Something about where we were tickled the back of my mind, like I recognized it. Déjà vu, I thought dismissively, and waited until he parked the car and hopped out. I noticed then that we were surrounded by cars, in a parking lot. Huh. There's not normally this many cars this late at night...