Chapter Text

1

I've been holding my breath

I've been counting to ten

Over something you said

Sometimes, Katherine was sure the two of them weren’t supposed to meet.

Katherine was an artist, and she was a writer. It started as a genuine friendship formed out of sharing common interests. It felt like any casual friendship one would stumble upon during their early teenage years on the internet. 

It was strange, really - how one managed to connect with another person without the need to physically meet. Their works had Katherine starstruck, and oftentimes Katherine would find herself rereading the same paragraph over and over, sometimes the same page more than once before going to the next one. She even had them saved in her laptop, her favourite sentences and phrases highlighted in pink. Later, she would change that pink to blue, upon finding out her admired author’s favoured colour stated in a chapter’s notes some weeks later.

She loved how this writer wrote their passions so strongly, expressing their beliefs and moral values in ways that made Katherine believe that yes - if they kept doing it with the amount of strength they’d been, perhaps at a much broader expense of it - they may just be able to change the world for the better. Their words were purposeful, strong and determined. Nothing was ever written without meeting a meaningful resolution. 

And the way they responded and answered to comments. Instead, diplomatically, patiently with unfailing kindness. What people would usually delete or ignore, they took their time to speak and get them to either see reason or agree to disagree - even to extremely hateful ones. Katherine found it admirable, inspirational even. 

The fanart didn’t come until she left her first comment on a post. Katherine had lost count of the amount of nights she’d spent pondering over a good enough comment - one that would most certainly get their attention. She ran over her story analysis over and over, taking note of the smallest details and being extremely descriptive on her thoughts. She’d talk about how she adored the writing style, how every sentence was carved to perfection, fitting into the rest of the story perfectly - forming the glorious picture you’d get once you’ve accomplished putting in a thousand pieces on the puzzle board to every designated slot.

They responded. They thanked her. They appreciated her. So Katherine’s comments multiplied.

The two exchanged their personal social medias, then contact numbers.

They texted many hours a day. They called, sometimes.

Then they trusted Katherine enough to share their name.

Their name was Catherine Parr.

They’d laughed then, saying how it was meant to be, leaving Katherine the most flustered she could ever remember being in her lifetime. Because the two of them had the same name - with only one letter off. 

And that one word off led to some nicknames from her new friend. Nicknames that made Katherine’s heart flutter and soar. Sometimes she swore it made her heart grow three times the size, perhaps even more on days when just one word would be enough to perk her right up from a bad day. From however deflated she’d been previously, it’ll expand like a balloon and float off into a world she should only ever reach during these times.

She’d find herself smiling alone to herself more often than she’d cared to admit, and sometimes Anne would check on her in her room and catch her grinning so wide her pink gums showed. It was then she’d know what this overwhelming feeling of elation was. 

“You’re incandescently, absolutely, undoubtedly infatuated.” Her older cousin told her, smirking knowingly from the doorway. “In other words - you’re in love .”

She’d brush her off then, telling her cousin - one that she’d grown so close to they might as well be sisters - to go away. Affectionately, of course. Anne stuck her tongue out childishly, mimicking the sound of wedding bells as she walked away. 

Katherine spent the rest of the week pondering the implications of this. Was it even possible to fall in love with someone you’d never met before?

The next time her friend - one she’d so fondly granted the nickname ‘Cathy’ - texted her with any of the ‘Kit Kat, Kitty, Katty, Kate, Kay-’  they’d given Katherine, she thought that it may as well be possible. When a chance - any chance in the midst of a conversation came for her to say that maybe, just maybe, she was crushing on this person she’d admired for so long through the net - Katherine managed to shut herself up before the words could escape her nimble fingers.

She couldn’t ruin this. Not now.

But perhaps, just perhaps, she might be in love with this amazingly talented person she’d met online.