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His London accent echoed in the stale room. "Holy shit, what happened?"
"I don't even know."
"Where are you? In your shitty apartment still? Aren't you a millionaire? How are—"
"I'm in the hospital."
There was a brief moment of silence. I heard the nurses outside, their footsteps loud.
"CHA Hollywo—"
"I'll be there soon. I'll pick you up."
"You don't have to."
The phone call ended, and I put down the phone on my bedside table.
For the next fifteen minutes, I entered a hazy, dreamlike state, as if the world around me was fake and rehearsed.
When the nurses told me to go to the waiting room, I thought they were all playing a role in some twisted Grey's Anatomy spin-off.
But when Andrew—who always looked exhausted—came through the sliding doors, I could not help but smile.
"You look like shit."
I thought of Villa Albergoni and the endless fields.
"How did you find me this fast? Did your Spidey senses tingle?"
He helped me up, but I waved him off and said goodbye to the nurses, who all became a blur to me.
Outside, the night air hit my face.
I stopped on the pavement and lifted my hands above my head, stretching my fingers toward the sky.
Then I tilted my head all the way back and closed my eyes.
The air felt different from the hospital's.
It was cold and slightly polluted, but it belonged to something real.
"Don't overdo anything," Andrew said.
"I'm breathing."
"Making some progress."
I opened my eyes.
A figure stood across the street near a parked sedan. At first, I assumed it was someone waiting for a taxi.
Then a flash burst in the darkness.
I froze, and then another flash.
The person raised a camera, the lens pointed directly at me.
Andrew noticed at the same time.
His shoulders tightened.
"Don't look over there," he said.
"I already did."
"Then stop."
The paparazzo crossed the street slowly, pretending not to be interested in us.
He held the camera near his chest but kept glancing in our direction.
"Ryan Stone leaves hospital after an emergency."
Andrew opened the passenger door of a black SUV.
"Get in."
"I look terrible."
"You look like you've just been in a hospital."
"That's worse."
He shoved me inside.
Andrew shut the door before the photographer could get close enough to ask a question.
He walked around the front of the car and got behind the wheel.
The camera flashed through the window.
"Did he get my good side at least? Fuck, Mark is going to kill me."
"I want to kill this guy too. All they do is leech."
I shrugged my shoulders, put my legs up in front of me, and reclined the seat.
The radio was blasting "September" since the month was almost over.
Andrew started the engine and pulled away from the curb.
In the side mirror, I watched the paparazzo become smaller until he was swallowed by traffic and streetlights.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
The hospital wristband scratched against my skin.
I kept turning it around, reading my own name as if it were some prop the makeup department had left on me.
"Did you hear about the news?"
My heart leaped out of my chest, but he followed with, "Call Me by Your Name is coming out during December."
"Really?"
He nodded. "Doesn't really strike me as a Christmas movie."
He laughed. "Yeah. I believe it's because of all your success."
I laughed. "My success? More like my downfall."
There was a long silence.
It was awkward, but I did not mind it.
"Did they tell you what it was?" Andrew asked.
"They said my heart was beating too fast."
"I don't think that's an answer."
"They don't know. They took blood. They did two ECGs. The doctor said the first one looked reassuring."
"Reassuring?"
"Not normal. Reassuring."
"Right." He tightened his hands around the steering wheel.
"And you thought you were having a heart attack?"
"I thought I was dying."
His expression changed.
The city passed outside the window in streaks of red and white.
I watched the lights smear across the glass.
"I'm twenty-one," I said. "I'm not supposed to know what it feels like to think you're dying."
"No one is supposed to know that."
"Did you ever?"
Andrew kept his eyes on the road.
"Yeah."
"When?"
"Different circumstances."
I looked at him, but he didn't elaborate.
A few minutes later, he changed the subject.
"Emma called me."
I turned toward the window. "What did she say?"
"She asked where you were."
"Did you tell her?"
"I told her you were safe."
"Why didn't she call me?"
"She probably did."
I checked my phone.
The screen was crowded with missed calls, texts, Twitter notifications, and emails.
Emma's name appeared several times between messages from numbers I didn't recognize.
I didn't open anything.
Andrew glanced at me. "You should talk to her."
"Fuck her."
"I think that she's just mad."
"Why did she lie? For some promo, for the new Scream 500? Why make something private public? Does she know—"
He chimed in. "She regrets it. I think she was told a lie."
"I don't want to talk about it." I rested my forehead against the cool window.
Andrew was silent for a moment. "I have a couch for you."
"I can go home."
"You absolutely cannot."
"My apartment is five minutes away."
"Your apartment has mold growing in the sink."
"It's not mold."
"What is it?"
"I don't know. It moved."
Andrew smiled and turned onto a quieter street.
His apartment was dark when we arrived.
The building's lobby smelled like cleaning products and old carpet.
I followed him upstairs, moving more slowly than usual.
He unlocked the door and switched on a lamp. The apartment was small but clean.
There were books stacked beneath the windows, a guitar leaning against the wall, and a pile of laundry sitting on a chair.Compared with my place, it looked like a luxury hotel.
"You can take the bed if you want," he said.
"Nah, I don't want to get bit by a spider."
"Okay."
"It's a nice couch." I lowered myself onto it. "This is comfortable."
Andrew stared at me.
He shook his head and walked toward the kitchen. "Do you want water?"
"Yeah."
"Do you want food?"
"No."
"You need to eat."
"I ate at the hospital."
"What did you eat?"
"A packet of crackers."
"That's not eating."
"It was a lot of crackers."
He brought me a glass of water and placed it on the coffee table.
Then he disappeared into the bedroom and returned with a blanket.
"I don't need—"
"Take it."
I took it.
Andrew sat in the armchair opposite me. For a while, the only sound in the room was the hum of the refrigerator.
"You should sleep," he said.
"I'm not tired."
"You look like you're about to die."
"Everyone keeps saying that."
"Sorry."
I pulled the blanket over my chest.
"Andrew?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for coming."
He looked down at his hands. "You called me."
"I didn't really."
"You answered when I called."
"That counts."
"It does."
I closed my eyes.
The last thing I remembered was the quiet sound of Andrew moving around the apartment, checking the locks, turning off the lights, and placing my phone on the floor beside the couch.
I woke up to the sound of my phone vibrating. At first, I thought it was part of a dream.
The vibration continued, rattling against the wooden floor.I opened my eyes and saw pale morning light spilling through the curtains.
My chest tightened.
I sat up too quickly and waited for the dizziness.
Nothing happened.
My heart was beating fast, but not impossibly fast.
The phone vibrated again.
I reached down and picked it up.
There were 217 notifications.
Twitter had become a wall of red numbers.
I unlocked the screen.
The first tweet was from an entertainment account.
Ryan Stone spotted leaving Los Angeles hospital with actor Andrew Garfield.
Below it was a photograph of Andrew helping me into the car.
I looked pale and disoriented.
Andrew's face was turned away from the camera, his hand pressed against my shoulder.
Another account had posted a blurry photograph of me outside the emergency room.
Looper star Ryan Stone rushed to hospital overnight.
I scrolled.
Is Ryan Stone okay?
Someone please check on him.
True friendship comes to life
Then the hashtags began appearing.
#RyanStone
#AndrewGarfield
#RyanStoneHospital
I stared at the screen.
My hands started to tremble.
Andrew appeared in the doorway, holding two mugs of coffee."Morning."
I didn't answer.
He saw the phone in my hand and immediately put the mugs down.
"What?"
I turned the screen toward him.
He read the tweets.
His mouth tightened.
"Don't look at that."
"They took pictures."
"I know."
"Some people think we are together."
I laughed. "Good promo."
"There's a picture of me leaving the hospital."
"You were leaving the hospital."
"I look like a mummy."
I kept scrolling despite him getting ready.
Someone had posted that Emma had cheated on me, that I had overdosed, that Andrew and I had been secretly dating since Italy.
Another person claimed the hospital had confirmed I was suffering from a heart condition.
None of it was true.
The lies grew faster than I could read them.
Andrew took the phone from my hand and locked it.
"Enough."
"I need to know what they're saying."
"No, you don't."
"What if there's something important?"
"Then someone will tell you."
"Your heart is okay," he said. "The doctor said your tests were fine."
"For now."
"For now is all anyone gets."
I looked at him.
He pushed one of the mugs toward me. "There's some coffee if you want."
I took it with both hands.
The coffee was too hot, but I didn't care.
I checked an old notification on my lock screen before I turned the phone over.
It was an email from my manager.
Subject: CMBYN Release Strategy — Important
I opened it.
The message was short.
The distributor had set the release date for Call Me by Your Name.
The film would premiere at a fall festival before receiving a limited theatrical release in early December, followed by a wider release on Christmas Day.
For several seconds, I didn't understand what I was reading.
But then I looked at Andrew.
"You were right."
I said, "Excited for this movie to come out."
"You sound like you're doing press."
I leaned my head back on the couch. "Can't wait to do 300 interviews, all of them asking about the peach scene."
Andrew laughed.
I continued, "Did you know Luca tried it to see if it worked?"
"He told me. He was so excited."
I thought about the villa, the piano, the peach trees, and the way the afternoon light had settled across everyone's faces as if we were up in the clouds.
The film was going to come out.
People were going to see me in a very vulnerable role after all this.
Andrew looked toward the coffee table.
"Are you excited?"
I stared at the email.
"I'm terrified."
He nodded as if that made perfect sense.
"Good," he said. "That means it matters."
I mocked his accent. "What's next? With great responsibility comes great—"
He flipped me off and got up. "Have to do some errands. You can do whatever you want."
"Okay."
He left, and I was alone with my thoughts.
I decided to finally answer Mark's calls and texts.
I held the phone as far away as my arm could reach and still heard him yell, "What the fuck is going on?"
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