Forever, Yours ➹ Timothée Chalamet

21 | The Heist (Final Part)

Small trigger warning! Mention of blood.

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VERA

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'BEAUTIFUL' WASN'T ENOUGH TO DESCRIBE IT.

I don't think I could take enough of it in to reiterate just how strange it made me feel. There was something so calming about the room; an endless spiral of mirrors staring at both me and my own reflection.

Piled upon dark green walls, mirrors of all different shapes and sizes were stacked against each other, bearing foggy screens and crystal clear glass. Frames of silver and gold, or even mirrors without a frame at all—it was like walking into both chaos and clarity at the same time.

Shutting the door behind me, I couldn't take my eyes off the view, trying to read it for some kind of explanation. Who could ever love glass this much? Was it a sign of vanity or a sign of desperate understanding? I felt only Timothée knew, and yet I didn't want to ask.

He seemed to be lost in his memories again.

"She loved this room," he whispered, hesitant to take another step, "some days she barely left it."

Vanity, I wanted to say, but the distant look in the boy's eyes begged me not to think about it. There was more to it. More to a room of pure fragility. I questioned my ability to even understand it.

"Hold this," he said, handing me the paper folded neatly in his hands, "I just need to look around for a bit."

I nodded, taking the Will from his hands and tucking it into the seam of my dress. It felt risky lingering around this room, more so than the thought of breaking the glass, because while time ceased for us, I knew it kept going outside of these walls. I wondered what Sam and Avery would think if they knew we stopped to observe.

I watched in slight amusement as the boy traipsed around, often stopping in front of a peculiar mirror and bending down to look into it. It was almost as if he was looking for something hidden in the glass. Maybe it was for any traces left of his Mother, or maybe it was anything left in himself. I didn't doubt his habit of deep thought.

"She used to call these portals to another world," he muttered in remembrance, "almost like looking through someone else's eyes."

I glanced at my own reflection. "Who's eyes?"

"Anybody's, I suppose."

There was a brief pause in time, where I wondered if our thoughts would hang in the air with the rest of the glimmers bouncing off the reflective walls.

"Like your novel," he said, turning to look at me, "what you write gives others a look into the story you create. These mirrors give you a look into the way others see you."

I paused, glancing away. "I'd forgotten about it."

"Forgotten about what?"

"My novel," I smiled weakly, "I've been so caught up in this Heist, that I almost forgot to finish it."

It was true. All this excitement left me to forget many things about my past, too stuck in the current to care. It had happened with Toni, and it had happened with my book, and I wasn't sure if I'd ever go back to it once this all was over.

Timothée was an imprint in my life that would never wash away. I wondered how I'd grow to perceive that in the future.

"Maybe you don't have to finish it," he said after a while.