Five Years And A Lifetime Chapter 03
Arthur began sending me text messages every day.
Sometimes he would send me a picture of the food from the film set with a message like, “The chicken is insanely salty today.”
Sometimes, after wrapping late at night, he would take a picture of a streetlamp and send me a message like, “Goodnight, old friend.”
I replied to every single message. Sometimes my response went out instantly; other times, lost in my writing, I wouldn’t notice his text until two or three hours later. He never rushed me, but whenever I sent my reply, he would hit back almost instantly.
One evening, he sent a photo taken inside an upscale restaurant featuring a meticulously plated steak. Zooming in, I caught a glimpse of his hand resting at the edge of the frame, showing a fresh red scratch across his knuckles.
“What happened to your hand?”
His voice note came back immediately. Tapping to play, I heard his response. “Scratched by a tree branch up on the mountain. It stings like crazy.”
I couldn’t help smiling, though a sudden wave of unease crept over me. Listening to the voice note once more, I noticed his voice sounded far more raspy than usual, undercut by the whistle of the wind.
“Do you have a cold? Why are you still standing in the cold air?”
No text came back. After a brief pause, a video call request popped up on screen.
I hit answer. The lighting in his frame was dim and shadowy. Arthur was leaning heavily against a tree trunk, his cheeks flushed red. With his mask pulled down under his chin, his voice came out thoroughly hoarse. “My dear friend, I’m afraid I have a fever.”
“Why are you still staying outside if you’re running a fever?” I frowned.
A helpless smile tugged at his lips. “It’s so late. I can hardly drag someone out of bed to go buy medicine for me, can I?”
“Where are you right now?”
He named a nearby park. Hanging up the call, I immediately threw on a jacket. Only after bursting out of my apartment building did I realize I’d forgotten to take my stomach medication.
I was breathing heavily by the time I sprinted into the park, clutching a bag of remedies from a twenty-four-hour pharmacy. Arthur was huddled on a park bench, his baseball cap pulled down low to obscure most of his face.
I strode over, stooping down to gently shake his shoulder. “Arthur?”
Reaching out to touch his forehead, I found his skin burning hot. He suddenly stirred, took off his cap, and looked up at me. His eyes glistened from the high fever as he looked up at me. My heart squeezed tightly. Instinctively pressing down on his hand, I shoved the cap back onto his head. “Be careful! What if someone spots you…”
The moment our skin brushed, his intense heat sent a jolt through me, making me recoil slightly. Yet Arthur simply let out a laugh, looking almost foolish. “Catherine, how about you come work as my assistant?”
“Take your medicine first.” Unwrapping the fever-reducing pills, I held them out to his lips and unscrewed the water bottle. He obediently opened his mouth to swallow the tablets, drinking from the bottle held in my hand, his throat moving rhythmically.
“Can you still manage the walk home? I’ll walk you back.” He shook his head softly. “Can we just sit here for a little while?”
The late-night park was devoid of a single soul, lit only by the dim, warm glow of a distant streetlight. I unclasped my scarf and wrapped it gently around his neck.
Leaning back against the bench, Arthur turned his head toward me. Even through the haze of a fever, his eyes sparkled brilliantly, like a pair of clear pools reflecting scattered starlight.
“Catherine,” he murmured suddenly.
“What?”
“Thank you.”
Before I could tell him it was nothing, he reached into the inner pocket of his down coat, withdrew a compact wooden box, and slipped it into my palm. “This is for you.”
The box was roughly the size of my palm, surprisingly heavy, and carved with intricate patterns across its surface. I offered a quiet thank-you. I took the box but didn’t open it.
“Aren’t you going to see what it is?” He arched an eyebrow.
Staring at the wooden box for a long while, I murmured softly, “Arthur, you’ve been reading my web novel, haven’t you?”
The smile on his face faltered for a fraction of a second.
“The reader who stayed by my side for five years was you.” I lifted my gaze, looking straight into his eyes. No matter how thoroughly a person tries to disguise themselves, speech habits are nearly impossible to erase entirely.
Arthur smiled. There was a hint of helplessness in his expression at being found out, along with what looked almost like relief. “Yeah, it’s me. You really have a wonderful way with words, Ms. Katie.”
Katie was my pen name. Seeing him admit it so candidly left me momentarily at a loss for words. After all, the male lead in that novel had been modeled directly after him. I’d dropped countless tentative hints over time, suspended between the fear that he was Arthur and the fear that he was not.
“When did you figure it out?” he asked.
“The birthday gift you sent me last month. The wrapping paper was identical to the one you used back in high school.”
He blinked in surprise before letting out a soft laugh. “You still kept that wrapping paper?”
“I threw it away.”
He gazed at me, his eyes crinkling into soft crescents. “Liar.”
I remained silent. In truth, that wrapping paper had been tucked carefully inside my diary all these years, pressed entirely flat.
“Catherine.” Arthur suddenly leaned in close, so close I could trace the fine shadows his long lashes cast under his eyes. “The words you said five years ago, do they still hold true? You know as well as I do that I didn’t come all the way to San Francisco just for filming.”
