19 | The Heist

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VERA

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I WOKE UP IN HIS ARMS TODAY.

At first I thought it was all a dream, but somehow the world wasn't against me this time. Everything was real. I pretended to be asleep when he woke up, hoping just to lay there in the moment for a few seconds longer, but when he finally awoke, he seemed to have read my mind. Chuckling to himself, he rolled out of bed.

He knew me too well.

And now I was watching him stand there—near the window of his apartment, his eyes cast down upon the city he called home, the sunlight casting tiny freckles across his bare skin, the messy strands of his hair that fell over his face like waves—and I felt as if I'd been describing him for a lack of better words. I called him perfect, ethereal, and sometimes even unattainable.

But seeing him now, I realized he was so much more than that.

So much more than words could ever explain, and so much more than any thought could do justice, because Timothée was everything. He was every single word in the dictionary that touched upon beauty, and it filled me with insurmountable pride to sit on the edge of his bed and to look upon his sublimity so easily.

I love him.

But when I tell him I do, I'm scared he won't say it back. Yesterday he told me he hadn't known what it was like to be loved by someone since the year his parents died, but he never said if he knew what it was like to love someone.

I wondered if he was too scared to mention that part.

Reaching over to his bedside table, I flipped over my phone to see a message from Toni lit up on the screen brightly. I had texted her the night before to let her know I was staying the night at Timothée's, careful not to make my previous mistake again, but she hadn't responded until now.

Hell yes, girl, thanks for letting me know, she had written back, followed by a, but who topped?

Ignoring that message as soon as I saw it, I resisted the urge to throw my phone across the room in embarrassment. Toni was blunt, if you haven't noticed. Sometimes a little too much. I tossed my phone anyways.

At the sound of my phone hitting the mattress, Timothée's eyes flickered over to my side of the room, curiosity dancing in his mind.

"Toni?" He asked.

"Toni," I nodded.

It was like he didn't need to read the message in order to know what it was. In the months I had grown to know him, I'd learned he possessed the talent of reading people. Anyone, not just me. I could see it in the way he scanned a person when he first met them, and the way he'd mimic the little things they did as if he was trying to understand them.

I remembered him being so quick with wit when he first met Toni in the bakery. She'd given him an uncouth attitude, to which he matched almost instantly. He was a chameleon of personalities, changing his aura as if he was scared to show his true self.

But I've seen his true self.

It was the boy I saw in his reflection, everytime he stood in front of a shard of glass. Timothée, Timothée, Timothée, am I the only one who knows you? Am I the only one left that knows you? Looking upon you is like keeping a secret, and I wouldn't tell it to the world, because I wanted it for myself. Love can be selfish, sometimes.

"C'est l'heure," he whispered from the window, pushing his hair from his eyes, "It's time."

I heard an invisible timer start to tick in the back of my mind.

Forever, Yours ➹ Timothée ChalametWhere stories live. Discover now