Exile: The Side Door
Previous: Insult to Injury
Pairing: Timotheé Chalamet x Reader
Genre: Angst, Slice of Life
Rating: PG15
Word Count: 2.8K
Warnings: Swearing
Summary: I don’t know if he’ll ever understand why I left and I can’t expect him to.
Exile Master List
I suppose I should start at the beginning, no? In order to understand the end, we must understand where we came from. Hindsight after all, is 20/20.
I was leery of dating an actor, let alone a famed Oscar nominated one. I had never been surrounded by celebrities or famous people. We met at some backyard BBQ, on a night where the sunset looked like a thousand pastels had been melted at just the right temperature, their colors unifying under the most expensive beauty blender. He was dressed as I expected, jeans and t-shirt, baseball cap, curls running wild. Timothée was always charming, even across a swimming pool, even in the hue of a Manhattan summer. We fell into an easy rhythm, a mutual wanting and giddiness over falling for one another.
It happened fast, falling in love. I guess that’s how the saying goes, it’s a lot of little moments that add up to big ones. With Timothée, it was all big. It was all rose-colored glasses and trips to the Hamptons or upstate or to Crema, tickets and going backstage when nights afforded it, long vacations on the South of France, dinners with his parents, whispers and promises in the morning light… Those first two years were bliss. It was like the first day of Christmas vacation, every single day.
On one October evening, when his understudy went on, we drove to Connecticut and stayed at a little B-N-B, with floral wallpaper from floor to ceiling and pastel carpet to match each room. There was the weekend in May he picked me up from work at lunchtime, and we jetted off to Madrid for a long weekend. Of course, there were smaller things, quieter moments… When he was home, he’d always get up and make my coffee, leaving a note for me to find when I got to work. Or when we’d make a special trip Monday mornings to his favorite bakery, by La Guardia High School, and drop off pastries for the teachers and staff. Or how he’d twirl a misplaced piece of my hair between his fingers, or fiddle with the earrings in my left ear, or how he’d whisper my name and quote lines from his favorite books… It was how he looked at me, like I could catch the stars, how he wiped my tears, how he held me when I was unworthy, the forgiveness he offered, without hesitation, regardless of the crime.
We moved in at the end of my lease to a new apartment, one he hadn’t brought past lovers to, and it remained my home when he decided to start taking film roles again. Or rather, it remained the place I slept and ate, never feeling like mine when he wasn’t there. He was gone for months at a time, and I suppose, in my loneliness, that’s when it started to fall apart.
It’s often misconstrued that open relationships are messy, hurting everyone’s feelings while having few benefits, that threesomes are the norm and rules don’t always go both ways. I didn’t want an open relationship to be separate from Timothée, I didn’t want it to bide my time until he came home. I wanted an open relationship for the parts of ours that were no longer available, no longer thriving. It afforded me the comforts of another person, when he was working all hours of the day, impossible to get ahold of. It gave me something to hold onto, something to ground me when I felt like a light breeze would send me into outer space.
Dating an actor, a successful actor, though holding many benefits, is lonelier than I could’ve imagined. There is no flying your partner to set or weekend trips home. We would spend months apart, separated by land and sea, time zones after time zones. The first few films took him to all corners of the globe. Australia first, then South Africa, and finally Thailand. I remember that first trip, painfully. He tried to call as often as he could, Facetime whenever his schedule allowed, left voice messages and wrote long, rambling emails sent at all hours. But it didn’t matter? I guess, though I loved it all, and was appreciative, when I opened the door at 5PM, I was still alone. My love for him didn’t hold me when I felt anxious, it didn’t sit with me at dinner night after night or make love to me when I craved his touch. It didn’t offer a shoulder to cry on when work was overwhelming or when I fell sick. I never wanted to replace him, but I couldn’t maintain our relationship as it was.
By the time I brought it up, it wasn’t much of a relationship anyway. He’d come home for small bursts, no more than two weeks at a time, and in those two weeks we fucked 75% of the time. I was still working fulltime, and I couldn’t leave work just because he was home. The novelty of our situation was gone the second he left for South Africa, and I remember sitting on the couch, sobbing to my mom, unsure what to do. It was my friends who suggested that we open the relationship, and through therapy and lots of books and articles, I asked Timothée if maybe he’d be open to it.
The look he gave me when I suggested it, is almost worse than the look he gave me when I left him for good. He wanted to know if he wasn’t good enough for me, if his love wasn’t enough, if I was unhappy. I was honest with him, that in eight months he’d been home for five weeks, that I was heartbroken, and unwilling to stand in the middle of his career. I thought that was it, that I was asking for too much. Then he agreed.
In the two-three years after, I had my fun. I created a group of regulars who were into no strings attached, and it made keeping track of potential STI’s so much easier. I fell into a pattern, and if I was honest with myself, I was happier than I had been, but not happier than I was in our first two years. Sometime after this arrangement started, after he returned for longer than a month, we bought the house in LA. My dream house, the house we discussed raising a family in, the house we customized to our every desire, surround sound, speakers in every room of the house, a stunning waterfall counter, the painstakingly laid refurbished herringbone wood floors, a dream I’d had since adolescence. The shower tiles, the linens, the garden with lemon trees… It was Eden. We moved and together we built that home, we hung our photos on the wall, we invited friends over for dinner parties, we acclimated ourselves with life in LA, and when we needed or wanted, we went back to our place in New York. It always welcomed us. Timothée was home for a while before he left again, this time for five months, and I found myself in a familiar predicament.
In those years, my love for Timothée never wavered. My hope in our relationship was always burning, and all I wanted was that life with him. The life we dreamed, the life we were saving for. But it didn’t come without its pitfalls, and we fought occasionally. At first, we struggled to find our footing when he was home, and as we navigated the rules of an open relationship, we had to handle our jealousy and pride. It wasn’t easy, even in the end, when he returned after filming with Florence, we found ourselves unsure how to be together again.
I always had an inkling that I exercised this particular aspect of our relationship more than he did, it was clear from how he responded to my check-ins, how he responded when I tried something new in bed, when he found a weird article of clothing in the wash, unsure when I had procured a football sweatshirt. Though, that was a one-time occurrence, and I was more careful after…. It had been reckless, and I hurt him when I hadn’t meant to.
If I’m honest with myself, pride set aside, I knew the whole time I was hurting him, breaking his heart, little by little. Despite there being some level of hurt occurring throughout those years, we couldn’t negate the positives opening our relationship had. Our relationship returned to its playful, flirtatious tendencies, which I never thought it would. We found joy in talking to each other for hours when permitted, happiness in sending cute texts or photos of what we were doing, and the joy of being in love was no longer a distant memory. No longer burdened by the lack of physical intimacy, we could focus on all the parts of our relationship that we had longed for. He was my Timothée, and I was his.
When the Florence-pregnancy happened, in some ways, it felt inevitable, like we’d both been lying to ourselves for too long. I was so angry when he called. Black out, rage filled angry. We had one rule, well, more, but one that mattered. Don’t sleep with coworkers. Yet, he fell into bed with her so easily, so swiftly that I hadn’t had time to register his absence before he was calling to tell me he’d slept with her. Her, of all fucking people.
I admit, I was jealous. He left me to go be with her. I know it was work, I know they’ve known each other for years… All that made it worse. He broke my trust in the most… predictable manner, yet I was still devastated. I knew we could work through it. I knew we could find our way out of the hurt we were causing each other. We’d stop the open relationship; we’d just be the two of us; that was a concession I was willing to make for him and myself. Perhaps it had gone on too long, perhaps, the ending of our time together was inescapable. Maybe, in the worst case, we’d break up, sell the house, or buy each other out, we’d tearfully divide pictures, split the china, he’d get the New York place, I’d stay in LA. It would hurt, the life we built no longer being an option. Our future slipping away. That was the worst case, and I never thought we’d get there.
When Florence called, and Timothée shattered any hope of us ever having that life we dreamed, I went into autopilot. I couldn’t look at him, I couldn’t feel sorry for him or compassionate, all I could do was leave. I had to leave.
I left that day to protect myself.
I left that day to save face.
I left that day to ensure that I wouldn’t fall apart in his presence, that my vulnerability wouldn’t be seen, that he wouldn’t look at me like I was still his entire universe when I knew damn well, I wasn’t, and would never be again. What I had thought was my future, what I had planned on, what I had dreamed on, was now, gone. In the blink of an eye, everything was over, and I could do nothing about it. Nothing he said would change the fact that he was experiencing all these firsts without me. Nothing would change that his first foray into fatherhood would be at the hands of another. That the child sleeping in our nursery wouldn’t be mine, it wouldn’t have grown in my womb, nursed from my breast, had my eyes. No amount of love from him would ease those wounds. Yes, pride got the best of me, and yes, there are other partners who can move past it, but I am not one of them.
In the wake, in those months leading up to the birth of his child, Timothée was, persistent. The calls, the emails, the texts. Blocking him did no good, and I was resolute that I would make one final appearance in his life past packing my stuff and moving out. I was clear in my intentions, and I took what was mine. I moved into a one-bedroom apartment in WeHo, which, I hated. I hated every part of it. It was a transitional home, a place for me to rest my head before I made my next move.
The last time I saw Timothée was not either of our finest moments. Screaming at each other in the driveway of our home, hearts shattering for the final time, laying bare every resentment and deepest insecurities, breaking down so completely I had to pull over a block away to cry. I don’t know if he’ll ever understand why I left and I can’t expect him to.
I moved again, months later, back to New York. I spent the time in between renting the dinky one-bedroom and finally leaving, debating where to go. I couldn’t stay in LA, I didn’t want to move home, and though New York held the memories of our early years, it also held the hope and promise of my years in college and post, working in the city, finding my favorite laundromat and bagel shop. It held my dearest friends and was close to my family. New York affords anyone who lives there a chance at a blank slate, a fresh start, a new beginning, and I needed it. I needed to feel angry when the subway was stopping due to mechanical issues, the frustration of carrying an insane amount of groceries one too many blocks to my apartment, the thrill of running across town for a meeting, only to get stuck in some traffic jam while the cabby yelled in a language I didn’t know. It felt like returning home when you hadn’t realized you’d been homesick in the first place.
It was easy to avoid Timothée. I had lived nearly a decade in New York without ever seeing him once, a comfort I greatly leaned into. It was easy to fall back into my pattern, my old gym and studio still remaining, my favorite spots for happy hour greeting me like I hadn’t left, and friends so excited to see me, you couldn’t tell if I was returning from vacation or exploring the Antarctic.
Sometime in that first year, the ache of it all dissipated. I was back with my favorite therapist, and we worked weekly on navigating the hurt, the abandonment and the jealousy that had plagued my time with Timothée. I cried every session, until one day, I didn’t. They say it takes a month for every year you were together to get over someone, but for me, it took twelve months before I felt any desire to be with another person, physically or emotionally.
It all happened by chance, a friend having a happy hour birthday party, a guy from college that I had made out with once at some party freshman year and bumped into frequently enough to become friendly. He went to grad school in the UK and had just moved back, this party being his first outing stateside in nearly a decade. He had kind blue eyes and an electric smile, his laugh like a sound from the heavens, his touch like electricity. I remembered why I had liked him in college, but now, as two adults who experienced their own sets of heartache and disappointments, I could see that he had become someone I could love.
Falling in love with William wasn’t fast, it wasn’t all big moments that felt small, or how he squeezes my hand three times whenever he’s holding it. It wasn’t the high of being caught, of looking in tabloids for my picture or jetting off to European destinations. There aren’t vacations in the South of France, or trips to idyllic Spanish towns. Our dinners with his family are accompanied by weekends at the lake house, with cousins and nieces and nephews in spades. It’s Broadway plays and early morning walks, it’s him picking me up from work just to walk me home, it’s cooking meals together and him staying in one place long enough to watch a new season of The Bachelor/ette in real time. William is present. He’s steadfast, he’s dependable.
I’m not sure what the difference is between these relationships. Is it only that he’s here, 48 weeks out of the year? Is it that we knew each other before Timothée was a thought in my mind? Is it that my friends like him or that my parents view him as a part of the family? Maybe it’s all of them, all of the little occurrences that make up our relationship. Hindsight is 20/20, and with William, there are no rose-colored glasses. There is no open relationship because, I don’t need one to feel like my relationship is above water. I’m no longer drowning. With William, the future feels real, it feels attainable, it feels within my grasp.
Who am I not to take it?
Next: Knuckles Bloody
