VERA
_
LET'S TALK ABOUT RED FLAGS.
Meant to be a symbol of warning. A giant, literal (and metaphorical) red flag that is supposed to tell you to stay away from a person or a situation. It's like this: If you see a red flag at a beach, it means you shouldn't swim. If you see a red flag by a person, it means you shouldn't stay—much less fall for them. That's what a red flag is.
Or in other words, it's something I made the stupid decision of ignoring.
"I'm sorry," I stammered, sinking into my chair, "what?"
Toni warned me about this, and I brushed it aside. That very moment in the basement, I knew something was up with him, yet I made the mistake of blaming it on his eccentric personality just because he was cute and I was desperate. I can't believe I mistook a red flag for a red heart.
Timothée leaned back into his chair, crossing his arms against his chest as he stared me down.
"I'm a thief," he said bluntly, his voice harsh and uncouth, "that day you found me in the basement? You were right, I was there to steal something."
"What?" I stammered again, using a one-syllable question to make up for my loss of words.
"I'm a thief, Vera," he said.
"I don't understand."
"It's easy to understand," he snapped, leaning forward, "you write, I steal. It's simple, it's life, it's—for God's sake, will you stop staring at me like that?"
It was only then that I realized my eyes were widened in horror, my back pressed up against my chair, and my mouth hanging slack open. A list of impossible and crazy things were starting to form in my mind, all of them trying to make this situation seem like a simple run-of-the-mill-type thing, but no, no, no, was this definitely not that.
This was not a red flag.
This was a stop sign.
"I have to leave," I stammered, grabbing my bag from under the table. My fingers were already starting to sweat, and I nearly dropped the handles in panic. "I have to go."
"Vera," Timothée said calmly.
"I'm going home."
"Vera."
"I'm sorry, but I should."
"Vera."
"Please stop saying my name like that, you're freaking me out more than I already am."
"Vera," he said again, rising from his chair and placing his hands on the metal table between us. He didn't look like he was fooling around anymore, and the sharp glare in his eyes told me he never was. "Sit."
I sat.
I shouldn't have, but the way he said it was like flicking on a button and making me feel controlled. A robot. A puppet. I hated it, and I wanted to get up and leave, but now his eyes were stuck on me and I couldn't feel my legs anymore.
Slowly moving back into his chair, he never moved his gaze, a curl falling over his eyes as he watched me silently.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I choked out into the thin air, splitting the quiet like a knife.
He frowned. "Why do you think?"
My mind was running wild at this point, painting stains on perfect memories that shouldn't be touched. I took one look at him, the boy in front of me, and for the first time I didn't see someone I admired. I saw someone I feared.
"Right, because you're a thief," I mumbled to myself, "and you're a rotten liar too."
Timothée sighed. "Are you scared of me now?"
"No," I lied.
"You forget I can read you easily, Vera," he said, lowering his voice. We were still in the restaurant, surrounded by a swarm of other people dining at will, but I felt like they were all watching us. Watching him confess his true intentions. Watching me make a fool of myself. He placed his hand under his chin, resting his elbow on the table. "You think I'm one of those people that steal willy-nilly, break into houses, and hurt people, don't you?"
I gulped. "No, I don't—"
"Don't lie to me."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize either," he said, "you have every right to be scared, and I understand. Just listen to me, Vera."
I should have walked right out then and there. Shoved him away. Put it to rest and be done with it.
But I could only say: "okay."
Timothée's eyes flickered around the restaurant again, dipping down to his plate of pasta, and then back up to me.
"I steal things for practice, not for gain," he began to explain, "I take small things. Apples, butter, nothing harmful. I always pay for it the day after, hence, the reason why I always put euros in Bella's tip jar without reason."
I allowed a flicker of memory to pass through my mind, noting that he did put a euro in the tip jar that day. I thought nothing of it, but now I know he was just covering up a con. Was he in the basement that day too? How many times was he slipping through windows without anyone knowing? I had so many questions, I could write a novel on those themselves.
"But why do you steal then?" I said, pushing my chair further away, "why can't you just pay for it?"
Timothée gave me a disappointed look. "You aren't listening to me, Vera, I said I do it for practice."
"Practice for what?"
"I'll explain that later."
"Explain it now," I said, "why are you telling me this?"
I wanted to be at home right now. I wanted to be curled up on the sofa, watching cartoons with Toni as she told me about her day. I wanted to be anywhere but here, because I felt like an idiot who was out on display to anyone who bothered to look.
And if Timothée said he could read me so easily, I don't understand why he didn't care that I was scared. This whole time I'd been spending hours traipsing around Paris with someone who lied about who he was, but that didn't seem to bother him.
So why was he telling me this?
"Because we need each other Vera," he answered for me, picking up his fork nimbly from the table and twirling it through his fingers."You need someone who can help you write, and I need someone who can help me get something done."
"Something done?" I hedged.
"Yes," he said, "now I'm giving you a choice. You can back out of this and go to the police, but you can't prove anything. Or, you can stay and help me, and I guarantee you'll walk out of this with the novel you've been trying for."
My novel.
I forgot about the novel.
I always assumed he was taking me around the city for the benefit of my writing, but now I realize it was just an excuse to use as bait. A con. To trap me into whatever plan he needed me to complete, because I was desperate to find that sense of purpose I had lost for so long. He knew I needed this book.
And he was handing it to me on a silver platter.
"If I take this offer..." I said quietly, my own voice feeling traitorous, "what is it you need me to do?"
Timothée exhaled.
"Get my money back," he said, biting the prongs of the fork between his teeth, "from my uncle."
"I'm not a thief," I said sharply.
"I know you aren't," he said back, "which is why the only thing you'll be doing is being a distraction." There was a pause, where he narrowed his eyes at me. "I need someone who's quick with words and can get themselves out of a sticky situation easily."
I frowned. "And what makes you think I can do that?"
"Why do you think I've been talking to you, Vera? I've been testing you."
Oh.
The flirting, the careless behavior, the lingering outside of a bakery every day for the past month—it was nothing more than a trope to see if I was 'good' enough for whatever plan he was hatching—and I fell for it like some whittled down version of Icarus, who thought the sun was everything beautiful, just to find out that it was just a broken star a million miles away.
"Testing?" I scowled, feeling my blood start to boil, "no, you've been using me."
"Well, I was, but I've grown rather fond of having you around," he shrugged, setting down his fork. The smirk on his face was uncaring and incompassionate, and he seemed too full of himself to even see that I was about to deck him through the table. "Now will you help me or not?"
It wasn't a question of my own affairs anymore, it was a question of pride.
While I was having trouble swallowing all of this information down, it was clear I'd lost my appetite from this conversation. I felt sick. Like a thousand ropes were tugging at my stomach, pulling me down into a spiraling hole of disgust and anger. Timothée expected me to play his little game, resigning myself to a pawn on a chessboard.
But forfeiting seems like the only option.
"No," I said, getting up from my chair again, "I'm sorry, but I can't be friends with a thief."
As I grabbed my bag and began to walk towards the door, I heard his voice call out into the restaurant—an unbothered tone that made me question if he had a shred of compassion hidden in his body. I was guessing he didn't, and anything else was just another one of his facades.
Turning my head slightly, I kept my back facing him and my eyes focused on the glossy window of the restaurant.
"It was never about being friends," he mused, picking up his wine glass, "was it, Vera?"
He pressed the rim to his lips, hesitating for a moment, before taking a quick sip of the red liquid running up the sides. He let the taste linger on his tongue before standing up as well, swinging his suit coat over his shoulder as he made a beeline towards the door.
Even if I wanted to respond, no words seemed to right in the moment. He purposely brushed my shoulder as he passed, scoffing under his breath as he slipped through the tables and out the revolving doors.
And I was presented with two choices:
Follow him, throw away my morals, and tell him I want to help him in his little scheme in order to finish my book.
That was an obvious no, so I decided just to skip to the next one.
Follow him and confront him.
I wasn't the type to walk away from an argument with my pride smashed, so whatever chance of regaining my reputation was left, I was going to get it. Clutching my bag closer to my shoulder, I stormed after him with hastened urgency.
Timothée was already nearing the corner of the pavement when I made it outside, my bare shoulders already tensing up to the chilly air as I came to a skidding stop.
"What are you talking about?" I called after him.
He stopped walking as soon as he heard my voice, slowly turning around and shoving his hands into his pockets casually. The dim lamplights barely illuminated his face, and if anyone was to pass by on the empty street, they'd see two people reenacting a twisted version of a duel—a battle for pride, with words as our guns, and the street as our field.
I was prepared to shoot, and I had to see if he would too.
"What are you asking?" Timothée said, his hair ruffled from the breeze.
I scowled. "You said it was never about being friends."
"Because it wasn't," he shrugged, "for you."
He took a few paces closer to me, poking at my newly rooted defenses as if he was testing the waters. I simply stared at him in spite, egging him to finish ridiculing me so openly. He'd conned me for weeks. Weeks. He pretended to be everything I wanted, just to be everything I hated.
But I still couldn't bring myself to hate him.
"I've seen the way you look at me," he said, coming to a stop a few inches away from where I stood, "from the moment we met, I could see what you were thinking.You're easy to read, Vera."
I narrowed my eyes. "I'm not easy to read."
"Then you're easy to fool," he shot back, "I know you like me, and that's the problem."
"How is it your problem?"
"It's not," he said, "it's yours."
Those words felt like a shard of ice splitting through my heart. Not enough to crack it, but cold enough to stay frozen there forever like a thorn in my chest. He knew—we both knew—the power of words, and yet he used them so forcefully against me. He didn't care.
I don't think he ever did.
"Go to hell, Timothée," I spat out.
His lips curled into a smirk. "It's only the truth."
"What truth?"
"That I'm stuck in your mind, Vera," he sang lightly, rocking back and forth on the soles of his shoes, "and even though you're saying no to my offer now, I know you'll be back."
He said it like it was a fact he'd known his entire life. Almost as if he knew me better than myself, and was now mocking me with my own actions. I wouldn't be back—not after this, and not ever—and I was offended he thought so highly of himself.
Opening my mouth to fight back, I prepared to say the first thing to mind, but Timothée apparently had other plans.
"Good luck with your book, American," he shrugged, turning around.
And then he walked off.