Won't You Just Stay The Night? (Editing) | Timothee Chalamet AU

2

I want to admit something.

I couldn't stop thinking about you after the first time we met.

Let's not get it twisted — I am not an obsessive, you know that. I'm quite the opposite, actually. But there was something about you that stuck with me, something about you that turned me into the fawning schoolgirl type.

No, I didn't doodle our combined names over and over in my notebook or meticulously study your class schedule so that I could 'coincidentally' bump into you, but I felt just as crazy.

The night we met — I hope you remember, this was in the winter of 2017 — you had this easy-does-it charisma going for you, a kind of warmth that attracted others, something impossible to replicate. And I knew, from the first second we made contact, that you were the stuff legends were made of.

You came late to Eli's housewarming thing, rose-tinged on your nose and cheeks after rushing through New York's cold to get to her place. This was back when she and Harry were still together, back when she still felt alive. Crazy what heartbreak can do to you, huh?

I spotted you, from the corner of my eye, run in through the door and slam it shut, trying to escape the harshness of late November's blizzards. Snow fell from the sleeves of your coat and melted on the floor. You caused a small puddle to form in Eli's entryway, but she didn't care, she went to hug you anyway.

This was before everything hit. Before you were being mobbed by paparazzi, before you were a regular with the A-lister crowd, before your rapid, organic transformation from 20-something, indie-movie nobody to the Next Big Thing™ — back when we had a semblance of normal and you and I could walk in the humdrum of it all.

There was never any stopping the inevitable prospect of your success. I felt it boiling the first time I saw you on-screen, a weekend before we met, as Kyle in Ladybird, and for every subsequent role after that.

There has always been something about you. And I'd make a list, if I could — your eyes, your manic energy, the way you make every single person you came across feel as though they are the most interesting person in the world: all of the above and so much more.

When you were introduced to me, I'll be honest, I played it cavalier on account of me thinking you were cute. We said our customary "nice to meet you's" and you asked about what I did. I told you I was a film major at Columbia, that I had recently seen your movie. You looked sheepish, I remember, and said, "Ladybird? Ladybird's not my movie. It's all Greta. She masterminded it all." I praised your performance anyway and you laughed, something soft and warm that made my insides flutter like birds, and got even redder (if that was possible), waving away my compliment like you weren't used to admiration.

We talked only a little bit more over the course of the night, and after, I remember hitting myself for not making a better impression on you. Three days later, however, and I got a message from an unknown number. Yours.

It read, "hey nat, it's timothée! not sure if u remember me but we met at your sister's dinner the other night. i hope it's okay that i got your number from her. this is me shooting my shot and wondering if you'd like to get a coffee sometime and get to know each other a bit more? hope to hear from u soon :)"

And just like that, you somehow turned me into a lovesick middle-schooler, squealing over a text.

You've always had the rare ability to do that — make me go from bared teeth and sharpened claws to wanting to be easy, simple, all the opposites of electric and extreme.

And I'll tell you my secret now, the one I always used to refuse to admit — out of pride, I suppose, and fear that once I did, everything else I felt about you would follow out — but here it is, finally, after all this time: I feel so goddamned lucky to have met you, to have known you and loved you.

Too little, too late, is what I've learned. I held back all this love like it was vomit, and now, with nowhere to go, it's stuck as the lump in my throat, emptiness in my chest, water in my eyes.

We were both so fucking bad at this, weren't we?