The lobby was chaos — a crush of bodies, camera flashes, velvet ropes pulled tight like they were barely holding the night together. The AMC off Union Square had never looked so alive. Posters everywhere, staff yelling that the screening was full, people shoving forward anyway like hope alone could make a seat appear.

You’d come alone. Bad idea. You realized it the moment they shut the doors in your face.

“Sorry, capacity reached,” one of the guards said, not even looking up from his clipboard.

You stepped aside, letting the crowd swallow you whole — all noise and perfume and the low static of disappointment buzzing under your skin. You were ready to leave, honestly. Ready to pretend you never cared that much.

Then someone said your name.

Soft. Surprised. Like a memory waking up.

You turned — and there he was.

Timothée Chalamet, in the middle of the crowd, in a black jacket he wasn’t supposed to look that good in, curls shoved back, eyes catching on you like he’d been scanning every face in the room until he found yours.

For a second, he didn’t move. He just stared. Recognition settling into place like an old photograph clicking into focus.

High school. A hallway. A kid who used to borrow your pen in math and always returned it with a doodle on the cap.

You saw it all hit him — the remembering.

Then he pushed through the crowd.

“Wait—hold up,” he called to the guard, breath a little unsteady from rushing. His hand curled around your wrist, warm, grounding, familiar in a way it shouldn’t have been after so many years.

“She’s with me.”

The guard blinked. “We’re—full—”

“Yeah,” Timothée said, breathless but certain. “But she’s with me.”

And just like that — the velvet rope lifted.

You didn’t say anything as he guided you inside. The hallway was dim, lit by movie posters and the hum of anticipation leaking through the theater doors. His hand dropped from your wrist slowly, like he wasn’t entirely ready to.

He looked at you. Really looked. A smile cracked — small, disbelieving, warm.

“Didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

You opened your mouth, unsure what would come out — but the theater doors burst open, staff whispering his name, telling him he had to get to his seat, interviews waiting, lights about to dim.

He hesitated.

Just for you.

“Come on,” he said, voice softer this time. “Sit with me.”

And the next thing you knew, you were slipping into the dark with him — into a room full of strangers, into a screening you hadn’t planned to see, into a night that felt like the start of something neither of you could name yet.

Timothée leaned close as the lights fell. Close enough that his shoulder brushed yours. Close enough to feel the warmth of something returning.

A quiet that wasn’t empty at all.

Just the two of you, caught in it. Like old stars remembering how to burn.