ALPHA || TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET

035

I don't know what I expect to happen.

A chill breeze nips at my nose as I stand in front of the gate entrance to the towering John F. Kennedy International Airport. Passersby lug suitcases behind them, loved ones say goodbye. I'm clutching at the sleeves of my button-down shirt, the tension in my chest evolved into my inability to move.

Because suddenly, I don't know why I'm here. I don't know what I'm trying to do. I know what I do want — for him to not leave while we're on such complicated terms. To take back and erase every word that came from my mouth, and maybe, you know, for him to not be gone for such a long time. Obviously, those last two are impossible.

What do I really expect? Surely it won't be like a scene in the movies, where I somehow find Timothée at the terminal about to board his plane and yell out his name from the crowd, and he drops his suitcase to the side in order to catch me in his arms as we share a passionate kiss. And then he says something like, "I'm not leaving you." Or worse, I say something like "I'm coming with you." Hell, I should write a screenplay for a Lifetime film.

My jaw clenches as I swallow, reading the terminal signs and not knowing where to search or enter first, trying to map out a hypothetical script in my head for whenever I find him. If I find him in time.

As I'm skimming the row of signs, I catch glimpse of a man in all black holding a bulky camera with a large flash attached. Behind him is a man talking into an earpiece, following the camera man at a quickened speed.

For a moment I recall several times in college when my journalism friends and I would try to track down celebrities here at the airport. We'd scope out their every footstep and try to catch even just a glimpse of them, our phones held out, and turn them into class assignments. And for the first time, as I'm remembering, I feel a little sick at how it must feel to have your picture taken and privacy invaded when you're simply trying to board a flight.

The paps could be here for someone else; celebrities fly in and out of JFK all the time. Still, I don't know where else to look, so I slink inside behind the two men, trailing several yards behind like a spy.

I enter between the sliding glass doors into the loud, busy airport. The two men have now turned into four, three of them holding cameras, walking towards TSA. Keeping an eye on them, I read the screens above check-in.

London. Seven. On-time. Check-in at six-thirty.

My phone reads six-twenty.

I speed in direction of where the men with the cameras went, down to where TSA is.

TSA. Shit. I won't be able to get past there.

But once I reach the crowded area, next to the line of people waiting to go through security, a small group of people have gathered by a small gated-off area. Several people look on, some snapping pictures with their phones, wondering who the celebrity sighting will be this time.

Two men with earpieces stand with their backs to the photographers, arms crossed. One turns to talk to the other. "SECURITY" the back of his shirt reads.

Part of me feels sickened at the amount, although small, of paparazzi accumulated. "Would you like to have pictures taken of you at the airport?" I want to yell at them, make them all leave for the sake of his wellbeing. Maybe I'm being too concerned; maybe this part of it he's used to. After all, he has security, he has bodyguards and protection. But after everything he's told me about the cons of his platform career, it irks me that not even simply getting on a plane can be done without flashing cameras.

I'm biting my cheek as I find my spot in the small crowd, glancing around and shuffling my feet. Keeping an eye on the gated area, the escalator, the doors behind it.