𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐇 ME|| 𝐓IMOTHÉE 𝐂HALAMET

16 | i need you

After my phone call with grandma I walked around trying to find a supermarket so that I could find some ingredients for dinner. 

As I turned the corner camera flashes started blurring around me and lights were blurring my vision. 

I went into the shop and got my things, and looked out the door to see a group of men with cameras outside. My anxiety soared and I gripped onto my bag straps so tight my knuckles turned white.

"It's him!" I heard people calling, I turned once outside to see what everyone was staring at. A figure with dark hair hiding his eyes. My breathe stopped, his head started thrashing around trying to find something.

"It's her!" I heard someone call. 

"She's here too!" People started gathering around and I found people pointing at me phones. I tried to stop myself from crying and hid my face behind my book. 

The figure started towards me and grabbed my hand. I looked up to see T's face. 

I cursed my luck. He opened a car door for me and I practically fell in. Once we were both inside and pulling away I felt myself hyperventilating. 

My thoughts were frozen. 

I started crying. I was choking on the air trying to escape and enter my lungs. 

My mind was collapsing in on itself. I was having a panic attack. 

"Hey, hey. It's okay. Here." He held my hand and passed me a bottle of water. I shook my head. I closed my eyes and tried to wait out the storm. 

"No, come on Cara. Drink this. Look at me it's okay." His voice was soft. Once my thoughts began to make more sense and I could escape a few words. 

"Thank you." I whispered. He held my hand tighter. 

He opened the car door and carried my bag upstairs to his apartment. Once inside I sat on the sofa and he bought me another glass of water. 

He sat on the coffee table in front me whilst I held my head in my hands. 

"Are you okay?" I shook my head. "Can I get you anything else?" 

I had no strength to reply. I reached out for his hands needing someone to stabilise me and ground me. He tried to look in my eyes but I couldn't. I just couldn't. 

"I'm so sorry Cara." He whispered. I let out a sob. "Please believe me." He continued. 

My head fell to his shoulder and he pulled me to him in a hug. 

The familiarity of tangerines bought me back to that night and I finally let out a deep breathe. 

"Thank you." I said and kissed him. 

I don't know why I did, I just wanted to. 

His lips and his hug and tangerines, they all had happy memories for me waiting for me to return to. 

"I'm so sorry that happened." I couldn't talk. He did this time around. This time he was filling in the silence. 

"I've wanted to talk to you all week but Livia said you weren't dealing with ..." he paused trying to find the right words and raked a hand through his hair, "all of this very well." 

I sat frozen. 

"I know I should've told you, that was so so selfish of me and ignorant not to, and now we're in this mess and look what I've done to you." 

He sounded shaken, I hadn't heard him like that and I wasn't expecting it.

 I wish I had had the strength to correct him and reassure him. I was exhausted. 

His eyes were a wreck and he had soft grey tinged bags under them. "What can I do?" He asked in such a tender way he sounded scared I was so fragile I'd collapse in front of him. 

I looked at my bag of vegetables and pasta. "I'm hungry?" I tried to give him a weak smile. 

"Okay you sit here and I'll try and make us something." He said kissing me before he got up. I finished my water and closed my eyes. 

You're okay, I told myself, you're safe now. "Can we talk about normal things?" I asked. I just wanted a distraction. 

"Yeah, yeah of course." I went over to him in the kitchen and sat on the counter as he went about making a tomato sauce for the pasta. "Have you gotten the script yet?" I asked. "For the movie?" 

He looked up at me in astonishment. In such surprise I could utter words. "Do you really want to talk about my job?" He questioned, nervous. He lay his knife down. I didn't say anything. 

"I don't want to push you, I really don't darling, but I just don't want you to think that you need to pretend that nothing has happened." 

"Okay." I held his hand. It gave me strength, not something I was proud of. "We should probably talk about this." I agreed. I nodded to him to speak.

"First of all, I wanted to call. I woke up and I saw you weren't here and then I saw your note and I was so confused and hurt Cara. That night was special to me."

"It was for me as well." I interrupted.

"But to find you gone and to read, "thank you for having me", like all we were was some kind of hook-up that ..." he looked away, 

"I just didn't understand. Then I got all these texts and calls from everyone sending me these pictures, I am so fucking angry Cara. Whoever took those pictures ... I just ... I don't know what I'd do to them." 

I looked down to see his hands gripping the counter and his eyes were so dark. 

"But at the same time, that is now becoming more and more a part of my life Cara, more and more so everyday. 

That's why I'm here. I needed grounding. I thought that would come from my friends. Then I met you." I blushed. 

"I'm so so sorry I didn't tell you about my position. It was so refreshing to not be what everyone expects of me. 

I'm an actor but in this job it's like I'm acting all the time. I'm constantly hiding myself, or only showing the good shit to everyone because that's all anyone wants to see." 

He finished. I tugged at his jumper to bring him closer to me. I needed to feel that he was close.

"That's not true. I want to see it all." I whispered, my voice still unsure and a little shaken up.

"See, you're interested in me for me, and to find someone like you - it's incredible. I'm just so sorry your privacy was violated like that and I'm so so so sorry it's because of me." 

His voice cracked.

I held his face in my hand. His cheek soft and warm. "Hey, it's not like you arranged for this to happen." 

I paused to look him dead in the eye. "Neither of us did, but it just seems like we keep finding each other, for some unknown reason." 

"You shouldn't be comforting me right now Cara. You just had a panic attack." I shook my head and smiled a little.

"I still ended up in the only place I wanted to be. Here, with you. Just being." 

He kissed me softly and held me to him like I was important to him. We both were to the other - even at that point so undeniably vital in each others life. 

"Let's just have a quiet night. We can cook dinner, watch some TV, I don't know." He offered. I kissed him passionately and he clearly wasn't expecting me to react in such a way to such a sentence. 

But it was perfect. 

"Sounds like just what I need." 

He held me for a little longer before I sat back down on the sofa looking for something to watch.