✔ Statistics » Timothée Chalamet

T w e n t y - F i v e

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The hopeless thud of the once treasured journal as it hit the mighty floor rang furiously in Timothée's ears. The crash engulfed him, seized his brain, almost as if for a moment, he was elsewhere. He couldn't tell if it was the noise that had brought such shock to him, or the facial expression of the girl sat unsteadily in front of him.

Timothée reached his hand out and picked up the notebook that settled uneasily on the floor. The delicate pages, the same ones who were once shielded by the hands of the girl, faced the bitter floor messily. The boy had no idea what the sudden commotion was about, having received nothing but a panicked glare from the girl. 

As he flipped the journal over and ran his fingers over the damp papers, those once filled with the chaotic handwriting he had familiarized so well, he alarmingly looked into Manon's eyes. He knew how dear that notebook was to her, how the careful lines of royal blue that were smudged across the papers she had worked so hard on would cause her to be in distress. 

Of course, Timothée hardly knew how much it really meant to her, how much her love for him was hidden in between the lines, but it wasn't difficult to tell by the way Manon clutched her journal tightly to her as if it was her own child she had cared for, that the stack of papers held in her hands, was more than just a college assignment. He could see the way she'd smile at her journal when writing as if for those brief moments, she traveled to a different universe where all was tranquil. How she'd clutch it a little tighter when she was nervous, or pretend to be sucked into it in order to avoid interaction with others. He could sense, that the journal was her safe haven, a place to escape to when things got rough. 

Before the boy could speak a word of comfort, Manon's eyes became glazed with tears. Her breathing soon followed, becoming more rapid, more shallow, her airways seeming to narrow, not quite letting any oxygen pass. 

The girl felt herself gasping for air as her heart hammered inside her chest as if it was to burst into a sudden firework. The room spun around her, her head acting as a sphere of fears spiraling out of control, each one pushing her mind further into darkness. Her gaze became hazy, almost as if she wasn't quite there anymore. Timothée's attempts to grab her attention failed, for she couldn't react, she could barely see him, nor hear him. It felt as if she was stuck in a room with the walls closing in on her, no one there to save her, left stuck on her own. It was a form of a terrible reminder, a reminder of the isolated life she had lived for all those years. 

The sudden overwhelming change in her body caught her off guard. It felt similar to an asthma attack but didn't feel like any she had experienced before. There was something sinister about it, something much darker, much scarier. Not only was her body giving up, but it felt as if so was her soul. She couldn't put a definition to the frightening monster that threatened to swallow her whole.

But Timothée could, a panic attack. He knew all the signs, not because the girl had experienced one in front of him before, or anyone else he knew, but because once, he experienced one too. He could never quite forget the crushing pain he felt when he heard of Manon's sudden vanish from France, the same pain that had caused him to curl tightly in his bed. The boy remembered the movement of his trembling limbs, the trail that the salty tears left as they traveled their way to his sleeves and painted them anew. But most of all, he remembered the fear. He remembered finding himself wanting to scream for help, but laying frozen, unable to make a sound. He remembered how he had wanted someone to be there, to help him. How he wanted Manon to come back, how he wanted to go out and find her, but he couldn't move, and he was left there, shaking as the world around him fell apart.