Work Text:
“You’re shaking,” Stacy observes, her voice a small, curious vibration in the humid afternoon air.
Candace doesn’t answer. She can’t. Her palm is sweating, the moisture making the thin green stem of the flower feel slick and dangerously fragile against her skin. It is a single forget-me-not, a tiny, electric-blue shock of color plucked from the edge of the garden, and for a ten-year-old, it feels like holding a live wire.
The heat of the Danville summer clings to them, a heavy, invisible blanket that makes their cotton shirts stick to their shoulder blades. Candace feels a frantic pulse thrumming in her throat, a rhythmic drumming that matches the sudden, sharp spike of adrenaline flooding her chest. She doesn't know why this—a simple weed, really—feels like a confession. All she knows is that her heart is hammering against her ribs, a trapped bird desperate to escape.
She extends her arm. The movement is jerky, lacking its usual confidence. As Stacy reaches out, their fingertips brush. The contact is electric, a searing jolt of warmth that travels from Candace's hand straight up her arm and settles as a heavy, molten weight in her stomach. Stacy’s skin is warm, her touch light but grounding.
As she takes the flower, her thumb accidentally grazes the sensitive skin of Candace’s wrist. The sensation is visceral, a sharp prick of heat that makes Candace gasp, her breath hitching in a throat that has suddenly gone dry. The small flower passes between them, a fragile bridge. Candace watches the way Stacy’s eyes light up, the way a small, genuine smile curls the corners of her lips, and the sheer intensity of it makes Candace feel dizzy. It is a raw, wordless pull—a magnetic attraction that neither of them has the vocabulary to describe, but both can feel vibrating in the small, charged space between their bodies.