This Is The Very First Page
A/N: This is based on this post that went around on Tumblr. You will probably be able to guess why. .com/post/8135724695/uh-guys-theres-a-seddie-fanfic-hidden-in-here
The Boy Who Grabs You By The Waist
Sam stays frozen in mid step halfway down the stairs, her heart hammering in her chest. She can hear them talking, hear their voices she knows they think are hushed but really aren't. It takes everything she has not to leap down the rest of the stairs and into the Shay's living room and confront them, to ask why they think it's okay to talk about her behind her back. She doesn't.
"So . . . What was in that chicken pot pie? I mean, I know 'chicken' obviously but what other-"
Carly's voice cuts off Freddie's nervous ramblings mid sentence. "Are you in love or not?" she practically shrieks, and out of sight Sam feels her heart almost stop. It's not out of hope that it does so, she knows better than to hope. Even if Freddie had gone on a date with her, had played along like the polite boy that he was, that's all it had ever been. Mrs. Benson forcing him to break up with her had been the perfect Out he'd been looking for. Sam didn't hold that against him, never would. But hearing Carly pester him about something like that less than a week later was heartbreaking all the same.
Truthfully, she'd never really expected anything more.
"Yes," she hears Freddie admit quietly, like he's afraid of saying it, which is odd. Freddie has never been afraid of admitting anything, especially something like love. Sam still remembers how often he used to say it to Carly's face, childhood "I love you's" and promises that she fears might not have been so childish after all. She feels her heart start to rip in two.
"But you promised," Carly hisses. "You said you wouldn't fall in love with me as long as-"
"I didn't say I was in love with you," Freddie interrupts.
The whole world stops.
Sam can hear Carly's vaguely surprised sharp inhale of breath, barely audible over the shattering of her own heart. Someone else, then. Sam tries not to think about it. She'd long ago resigned herself to watching Carly and Freddie walk down the isle together while she stood on the sidelines and wished them well, because that was just what she did. But watching Freddie marry someone else? Someone she might not even know, or wasn't even friends with? She didn't think she could do that. She could have for Carly, because she loved Carly too, Carly was her best friend. But not for some other girl.
She tries to tell herself that she could, that she could do it for Freddie because that's what youdo when you love someone, isn't it? Let them go.
Sam doesn't want to let go. The realization almost breaks her right then and there on the steps leading down to the living room, out of sight from her two friends. She leans heavily against the wall, one arm on the railing shaking as she tries to keep herself standing.
"Then who?" Carly whispers, so softly Sam almost doesn't hear it, really doesn't want to. She doesn't want to know.
There's a long, lingering silence before Freddie answers. "I think it's about time I didn't let my mother decide my future for me," he says resolutely. "Starting with last week. Just because she thinks Sam is a bad influence that will one day get me killed doesn't mean I think that. And chizz, even if we do end up doing something stupid that gets us killed, I won't regret it. Partly because I bet it will be awesome and we'll go out in a blaze of glory and ham. Mostly because I'd die with someone I love, and that's fine with me."
Sam blinks slowly, eyes narrowing in confusion. She can't quite wrap her head around what Freddie just said, can't quite understand the words that he's just so clearly spoken. Apparently neither can Carly because her immediate reaction is to blurt out, "You love Sam?" at the top of her lungs. Which is fine by Sam because, seriously, it hasn't sunk in. She's half expecting the Rick Rolled song to start playing at any moment because this can not be real life.
"I love Sam," Freddie confirms in all seriousness.
Still expecting someone to shout, "Just kidding!" at any moment, Sam hesitantly takes her first step farther down the stairs, then another and another and another until she's standing on the landing with only a few stairs left to the floor, in clear view of the kitchen and the island both Freddie and Carly are leaning on. Carly makes a very inhuman little surprised squealing noise and Freddie turns.
Sam watches the surprise flicker across his face before he blushes and ducks his head a little, as if embarrassed. "You heard," he says softly, uncertainly.
"You're joking," Sam says in return, stealing herself up for the punch line to the meanest prank ever because really, she doesn't expect anything else. Sam Puckett has never gotten happy endings and fairytale moments like this, she can't find any reason why she should start having them now.
Carly frowns and stands up, making her way around the island towards the stairs with a resolute look on her face, and it's like both Sam and Freddie are frozen in time because neither of them moves from where they are until Carly grabs Sam by the arm and literally pulls her down the stairs to stand a few feet away from Freddie. They stare at each other, like they're waiting for a cue that will never happen, and Carly taps her foot behind them, ready to shove them into each other if she has to.
"I-" Sam starts, faltering as she realizes this might not be some cruelly elaborate hoax. "I just . . . I don't think you understand how long I- How long I've been in love with you and I just . . ." She inhales a shaking breath, deciding that it's now or never because, hell, the world might end tomorrow or another taco truck could smash through her hopeless dreams. "I'll stop hitting you, if that's what it takes. I'll be nice, I'll be girly, whatever you want . . . I just want you to stay. With me," she adds around the lump forming in her throat. "Just stay." Because that's all she's ever wanted.
Freddie's gaze softens and he smiles, "No," he says, and Sam almost flinches. He pauses, taking it in for a second with the smallest of frowns. "You don't need to change, Sam," he goes on. "You can hit me and tease me and mess with me all you want, because that's what makes you you. And yeah I'lll probably whine about it and complain because that's what I do. That's what we do. But that's okay, isn't it?" He shrugs and smiles again, a smile that makes the whole world seem to stop. "If you don't love someone for who they are, then that's not real love, is it. And I love you for who you are, Sam. So don't change, because I don't want you to."
And Sam doesn't know whether to cry or to smile, so she does a little of both, choking down a sob and scrubbing at her eyes as she smiles. "You're such a sap," she laughs, a breathless laugh that sounds as hesitant as she feels because this is obviously some kind of dream. Some kind of wonderful, please-don't-ever-ever-end, sort of dream.
He spreads his arms and shrugs helplessly, "Ah, but I'm your sap," Freddie says, "Right?"
Sam rolls her eyes and swallows down whatever fear she had left and nodded, "Right. My sap."
Behind them, Carly apparently can't take their collective sap any more because she throws her hands into the air and yells, "Just kiss already!"
Freddie laughs and steps forward at the same time Sam does, his hands falling to her hips as she smiles and he does the same before they do as Carly demands.
When Sam pulls away, a laugh of disbelief bubbling in her throat, she takes a moment to wonder about the lawnmower in the middle of the room before shaking her head and resting it against Freddie's shoulder, Carly grinning like the Cheshire Cat behind them.
The Boys Who Love Cooking/Baking With You
One of Sam's favorite things to do is highjack the Shay's kitchen for her nefarious purposes. When she was younger Spencer taught her how to cook in it, small things any child could make if they were shown. She's more than tall enough to do it on her own now, though occasionally Spencer will hover if he finds her making a mess of his kitchen. Which is why she tries to do so when he's out doing whatever the chizz Spencer does when he's not around.
She lays out a mixing bowl and flour, along with the various other needed ingredients that are always on hand in the Shay's kitchen. After the time she tried to make a soufflé Sam had decided that sticking to easier concoctions was better, as Spencer had nearly fainted when he'd come home upon seeing the state of his kitchen.
A two layer cake is something she considers easy. Sam mixes up the flour and milk, tossing in the butter and eggs with a flourish like a real pasty chef. She chuckles at the thought.
"And what are we making?"
Sam nearly jumps out of her skin as she turns around, so absorbed in what she was doing she let her guard down. Food usually tends to do that.
Freddie grins and raises his hands in surrender, an instinctual gesture by now because nine times out of ten Sam would have punched first and asked questions later. Today is his lucky day. "Cake?" he asks, eyes alight as he points to the mixing bowl.
Sam smiles, "Well, it's an attempt at a cake. Do you, ah, wanna help?" She hesitates to ask, because she still feels like she is complete chizz at this relationship thing, but it seems like the right thing to do. Plus she thinks Freddie baking might be extremely funny and quite OCD, if his pizza skills are anything to go by.
Freddie whoops and grabs and apron hanging off the wall by the back door, spinning around as he puts it on. "Heck yeah I wanna help," he exclaims. "Where do I start?"
She hands him a whisk and points to the bowl, "Mix, slave." So Freddie does. Sam snorts at his ready obedience and goes to rummage around for a couple of cake tins and another bowl for the frosting. Together they pour the mix into the pans and put them in the oven before staring at the frosting bowl.
"Yeah I don't know how to make homemade frosting," Sam confesses after a beat, shrugging her shoulders.
Freddie frowns, "Neither do I actually. I think there's, ah, whip cream in it maybe?"
So they squeeze out an entire thing of whip cream into the bowl, trying and failing not to get it absolutely everywhere.
"Chocolate?" Sam asks holding up a bag of chocolate chips.
Sam does know how to make chocolate, and it's much less messy as they patiently melt them over the stove and then add them to bowl and mix. Freddie's not quite sure that it's frosting, but it tastes okay even if it is a bit watery, and when the cake comes out of the oven the frost both layers with it all the same.
"It looks a bit plain," Sam admits as they stare at the cake, suspicious frosting and all.
Freddie leans against the counter beside her and frowns at the cake before sticking out a finger and putting it into the frosting, looping it around and back through the chocolate until it forms a heart. "There," he proclaims seriously. "Now it's good."
"Now it's got your dirty finger prints all over it," Sam points out.
"You love it."
"I love it."
Boys Who Pick You Up When They Hug You
Freddie gets invited to a Pear convention in New York. In fact, they're all invited. Except that Carly gets sick with the flu and Spencer is out of town and Sam can't just leave her best friend in a miserable sniffling pile on the sofa for a week while she goes to a convention. So she stays.
She makes Freddie go, however, and bundles him up in his winter coat ad scarf like an overprotective mother hen and stuffs him in a cab headed to the airport because she knows that this is his dream come true. Besides, Freddie is a grown boy and can fly cross country by himself without any serious mishaps in the busiest flight season of the year. At least that's what she tells herself.
So she spends a week huddled and cuddled on the couch with Carly, eating soup and drowning in tissues that Carly tosses about when she's too tired to figure out where the trashcan is. She sets off the fire alarm only twice, and only forgets to turn the bath off once, so she more or less considers it a successful week. Especially when on the sixth day Carly is bouncing around the apartment healthy as ever and wanting to go to Build-A-Bra because she's afraid she's missed some new item in the time she was passed out on the couch.
They go and get caught in a snow storm. Sam tries not to worry about delayed flights and downed planes and boyfriends who might be late to Christmas because, seriously, Christmas is a week away and she's being ridiculous.
The storm lasts for four days. No flights can get out, and certainly none can get in. for the first time Sam really, really despises Seattle. "This is why we can't have nice things," she says to the window as the snow continues to fall on the fourth day, glaring at the cars stuck in drifts and the trees sagging from the layers of snow and ice on their branches.
Carly hands her a hot coco and they sit by the window together, willing the snow to stop.
On the fifth day the first flight gets out when the snow begins to clear, and Sam literally leaps off the couch with joy when the news relays that information, fist pumping the air. The list of incoming flights goes up an hour later, and Sam jumps on Carly's bed to wake her and force her to get dressed so they can make Mrs. Benson take them to the airport.
They sit at a café just outside of airport security for hours, watching some flights come in while others get delayed. Spencer shows up around noon from wherever he's been the past week and takes Mrs. Benson around the little airport shops to calm her down. Sam drinks no less than a dozen coffees in ten hours. She doesn't even like coffee all that much.
When flight number 239 switches from arriving to delayed for a fourth time, it's close to seven PM. Carly calls it quits and goes to search for Spencer and wherever he dragged Mrs. Benson off to, prepared with a muffin and hand sanitizer because god knows she'll find them searching through people's luggage at the luggage-go-round or being held in some airport prison or something for obstruction of the peace.
Sam just orders another coffee.
It's three days till Christmas, and while she tells herself not to be such a sap and worry about this sort of thing, she does anyways. Really, she wouldn't have minded something cheesy like spending a first Christmas together.
People are barely trickling through security at this time, and the guards are barely paying attention to what they're doing as they wave them through.
It starts to snow again.
Sam stirs another sugar into her coffee because after waiting in an airport all day she feels she needs it. She sighs and glares at the snow outside the window ruefully, cursing her childhood self for always wishing for white Christmases, because it apparently decided to pay off this year of all years.
She glances up when she hears the telltale click of the list of flights changing statuses on their board again, and watches the red Delayed flash to a bold green Arrived.
Arrived. Not arriving. Arrived. Sam tosses her coffee in the nearest trashcan and hovers in her seat, peering across the mingling little clusters of people towards the security gate. She waits.
She waits for the telltale shuffling of tired feet and the obnoxious polite tone as Freddie undoubtedly bumps into a security guard. She waits for the exhausted smile and wave and the laugh of a boy who's just glad to be home.
She gets all of those things. Freddie drops his suitcase as he clears the last security check and doesn't bother to bend down to pick it up as Sam barrels into him not two seconds later. His tired laugh turns into one of pleasant surprise as he hugs her, lifting her off her feet and twirling her around right there in the middle of the airport. Sam laughs too.
When he puts her down he rests his forehead against hers and whispers, "I missed you," just loud enough for her alone to hear.
"I missed you too," she says before punching him in the arm. He winces and shakes his head before throwing an arm around her waist and grabbing his suitcase off the floor.
They get to have their first Christmas after all.
Boys Who Are Really Tall
"Oh my god, stop growing," Sam complains from where she lays on the couch. Freddie is standing over her, a bowl of popcorn in his hands and a bemused look on his face as she cracks open an eye to glare at him.
"Huh?"
"You're too tall," She whines, lifting up her feet as he sits down and throwing them over his lap when he does, nearly knocking the bowl of popcorn out of his hands and onto the floor.
Freddie rolls his eyes and places the popcorn on the coffee table so it's out of harms way. "Let me get this straight," he says, "My being tall annoys you?"
"Yes."
"Because . . ."
"You've grown at least an inch and a half since I saw you this morning!" Sam exclaimed. "If you keep growing you'll bust through the ceiling eventually."
Freddie snorted, "Yeah, like that's gonna happen." He shoves her feet off of him and stands up, smiling as she looks startled. "Alright, get up."
"No."
He leans over and grabs her hands, pulling her to her feet while she protests loudly. "Get up, Sam," he commands when she tries to slump back into the couch.
Reluctantly she does so. "What was the point of that, exactly?" she asks.
Freddie says nothing, silently eyeing the gap between their heights. "Alright," he says after a moment of thought. "If I wasn't tall could I do this?" Sam has no time to react before Freddie leans down and grabs her around the waist, swinging her up and over his shoulder. She yells in surprise, startled to find herself in such a position when just a year ago it would have been the other way around, her picking Freddie up like this while he protested.
"Chizz and rice," she hisses, clinging to his arm that is not supporting her as if she's actually afraid he might drop her.
Freddie laughs and changes his hold until Sam finds herself with her arms around his neck, suspended bridal style from his arms. "Or this," he adds with a smirk.
"Uh . . ." Sam swallows.
"Dun-dun-duh-dun," Freddie hums, "Dun-dun-duh-dun," in a tune that is clearly somewhat along the lines of Here Comes The Bride. Sam flicks him on the nose with a frown and he laughs and kisses her in response.
When Carly comes home fifteen minutes later she finds them stomping about the apartment with one of Spencer's bathrobes on, Sam sitting on Freddie's shoulders and waving her arms around inside the sleeves and Freddie making what must be some sort of monster noise as they try and knock over the bike hanging from the ceiling. She just closes the door and walks up to her room, deciding that she's honestly seen weirder.
Boys Who Are Excited To Show You Off To Their Friends
"So my friend Richie is flying in to visit his grandma this weekend," Freddie says over smoothies at the Groovy Smoothie one day.
"Oh," Sam nods, because she doesn't quite understand why this should matter to her. She's met Richie before, punched him actually. He and Freddie have been nerdy-nerd-friends for years now. Online of course, because that's what goobs like Freddie do. Make friends online. And every once in awhile he comes to town and he and Freddie goob around like the goobs they are. "That's nice," she adds when Freddie stares at her expectantly.
"We're going to go see that new movie," he informs, "The one with the robots. You should come too."
Sam hesitates. Going to a movie with Freddie is one thing, going to a movie with Freddie and his friend who might not think so kindly of her after she punched him is another. "Can I pass?"
She blinks when a genuinely hurt look crosses Freddie's face. "Uh, yeah, I guess," he says uncertainly, fiddling with the straw of his smoothie.
Which is how Sam finds herself standing outside of the theater like a total girl the next day, waiting for Freddie even though she told him no. But the face he had made when she had was enough to make anyone with half a heart cave, though she could not for the life of her understand why he would want her there in the first place.
"You came!" Freddie exclaims when he sees her waiting outside the theater, quite literally bouncing up to her in excitement, his friend trailing behind him with a wary look on his face.
Richie is the nerdiest of nerds in the history of nerddom as far as Sam is concerned, and he pushes a hand through his short blond hair and adjusts his glasses, staying a good ten feet away as Freddie hugs her.
"Richie, this is Sam, do you remember her?" Freddie asks, an arm around her shoulders.
"Ah-ha-ha," Richie half laughs, half says, "Yeah." He rubs pointedly at his arm and Sam refrains from grinning.
"She's my girlfriend now," Freddie says proudly, his chest puffed out just a little. Sam stares at him. That's why he wanted her to come. So he could show her off. She's never been the kind of girl guys would want to show off before, the one they would be proud to be dating. Sam smiles.
"Yup," she smirks, taking in the surprised look on Richie's face. She decides she likes being the girl Freddie shows off when Richie just smiles and says, "I knew it," in response.
Boys Who Don't Take Forever To Text Back
Sam lays on her bed and stares at her ceiling, listening to the sounds of her mother and her mom's newest boy toy fighting downstairs. It's not like it's anything new, or even slightly unexpected, but she's tired of it all the same. She rolls over on her side and snatches the phone out from beneath her pillow, sending a quick text before pulling the sheets over her head to hide the glow of the phone as she waits for a reply. It's three in the morning, she's not sure why she waits just for a reply to a simple, "Hey."
Her phone buzzes less than a minute later.
What's wrong?
She smiles to herself at the fact that he instantly knows something is up. Even at three in the morning.
Just mom being mom, she sends back.
Meet at Carly's in a half hour?
When Spencer wakes up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, as he inevitably does every night, he brings a blanket with him and tosses it over where Sam and Freddie are curled up together on the couch with a yawn. This is the third time this month.
Boys Who Are Intelligent
Freddie shoves a folder under his bed when Sam walks into his room and Sam blinks, eyes narrowing in suspicion. "What have you got there, Fredamame?" She asks.
"Nothing," Freddie lies, and Sam dives onto the bed and across his lap to reach under the mattress to fish out what he'd hidden.
The folder is stuffed full of applications. College applications, half filled out applications for places like Harvard and Stanford and other smarmy colleges only the smartest of nerds get into. Sam drops the folder, her hands freezing up and her breath halting her chest.
Freddie doesn't say anything for a long moment before he sighs and says, "I wasn't actually going to send them."
"Liar," she whispers, sitting up and moving to the end of the bed, as far away from him as she can get without actually standing up, because she doesn't think her legs can support her right now.
He scoops up the fallen applications and shoves them haphazardly back into the folder before tossing it aside. They don't talk about it, but they both know that as their senior year of high school rolls around Sam won't be filling out any applications, won't be going to any colleges because school has never been her thing. Freddie is another matter however.
"You should fill them out," she says after the silence starts to get on her nerves. Sam can imagine Freddie going to places like Harvard or Stanford, places far away where he'd succeed and learn all the things he's ever wanted to learn. She can't imagine herself doing the same however, and looks away as that thought settles in.
Freddie scoots closer along the bed until he's sitting beside her. After a moment he pulls out a slip of paper from his wallet, a wrinkled thing tucked way in the back among old pennies and receipts. He hands it to Sam with a hesitant smile.
Sam takes it, looking at it for a long moment. It's a line of numbers with a neatly marked out dollar sign at it's front. A rather long line of numbers. "Are you bribing me for something?" she asks coldly.
He laughs, "No. That's how much I have saved in a bank account I've had since I was little. I've been skiving off of the iCarly funds for the past year to add on to what was already there, with Carly's permission of course." He shrugs when Sam just stares blankly at him. "I figure with my awesome smartness I could go to college anywhere I wanted with a full ride. And with this money," he takes the paper from her and waves it around, "I could get an apartment too."
"An apartment," Sam repeats, confused.
"An apartment," he confirms. "And with the leftover money I should be able to stock it with four years worth of ham so . . ." He drew off with a nervous shrug.
Sam stares at him, "Are you . . . Asking me to move in with you?" Freddie rubs at the back of his neck and looks away. "Isn't that a bit premature? We're seventeen, nitwit, seventeen with a year of high school still ahead of us." She wants to tell him that anything could happen between now and then, that he might come to his senses and realize she's not worth it, but she stays quite, bottling up that little fear and hiding it away.
Freddie just looks at her for a long moment, piece of paper still in hand, before he smiles a broad and blinding smile. "No," he says, "Not really. I love you, and we work pretty good together even if we do fight all the time." He gestures between them, "That said, I think my thought process was pretty logical. You, me, apartment," he mimed out each word ending with a square drawn in the air to symbolize the apartment.
"Genius," Sam says sarcastically, trying to hide a smile.
"I know, right?" Freddie grins.
Boys Who Go To Book Stores With You
It's winter and Sam slides down the icy sidewalk with a gleeful laugh, purposefully skidding across the ice as far as she can go while Freddie tries his best to keep up and Carly somehow manages to stay ten steps ahead of them despite the fact that her arms are laden with shopping bags. It's less than a week before Christmas. They pause outside butcher shop and Sam slides into Carly with a warning that's a little too late, scattering shopping bags everywhere.
Carly just sighs and stays where she falls as Freddie picks up all of the bags like the gentleman he is. "You," she points at Sam, "Go," she gestures across the street vaguely, "Elsewhere. So I can pick out your gift." She finishes with a jerk of her head towards the butcher shop and Sam makes a pleased little noise before helping her friend to her feet and shoving the bags Freddie is holding at her and running across the street. Freddie follows without a word.
There's nothing particularly interesting across the street however, and Sam sulks outside a froo-froo girly store before Freddie points at a bookshop a little farther down. They go inside, shaking off the first flakes of snow from their coats in the doorway.
It's one of those musty, older book stores with the selves that tower to the ceiling and a cat sitting in the window. A real cat. A little old man crouches behind a desk and eyes them suspiciously as Freddie grabs Sam's hand and tugs her past, into the maze of bookshelves.
Sam will never admit it, but ever since she read that book on a dare from Freddie she rather likes to read. Again, she'll never admit it. Freddie watches as she lets her fingers roam along the spines of dusty, ancient books as they walk amidst the shelves, tracing out titles and authors with the tips of her fingers. He stops and pulls one down from over her head, taking her hand and leading her to a squashed armchair at near a window at the end of the row of shelves. He sits down and throws his coat aside, smiling as Sam does the same and sits beside him on the cramped armchair, her legs thrown over the side of it and her head on his shoulder.
"There is a place where the sidewalk ends," he reads quietly, just loud enough for her to hear as his voice gets lost amidst the shelves, "And before the street begins. And there the grass grows soft and white, and there the sun burns crimson bright . . ."
It takes Carly an hour to find them. She is not happy when she does, but she throws her anger away when spots them curled up in the old armchair fast asleep, the book still in Freddie's limp hand.
Boys That Make A Good Impression On Your Friends And Family
Sometimes Sam feels like they missed a step somewhere. Some part about getting the approval of your parents and friends before you decide you're going to be with someone forever. But all of her friends are Freddie's friends, and vise versa. Her mom doesn't give a crap, Freddie's mom gave up trying to tear them apart, and Carly and Spencer spend a good ten minutes every day just staring at them with creepily big grins on their faces saying things like, "I knew it," and "Geeze finally," even after weeks and months start to turn into years.
Then again they haven't really "Decided" to be together forever either. It's unspoken. They don't say it as they walk down to the park hand in hand, Sam trying to trip Freddie every few minutes and Freddie talking about some new application for his Pearpad while Sam listens.
It's unspoken as Sam sits on the swings in the park with a command of "Push me," and Freddie laughs and does so, grabbing on to the chain and jumping onto the back of the swing when she gets going high enough. It's unspoken when they Sam shoves him off into the sand and runs to the field as fast as she can while he sputters and complains. It's unspoken when he chases her, calling her a "Blond-headed-demon," and "Princess Puckett," in the same breath. It's unspoken when she slows down and lets him catch up to her, lets him grab her and pretend to be so tough as he tackles her down and raises his hands in the air in triumph, even though he knows she let him do it.
It's unspoken when she doesn't get up and he lays on the grass beside her, picking at a dandelion and blowing the seeds into the air.
"What did you wish for?" she asks, rolling over onto him and resting her chin against his collarbone.
He smiles, "Nothing I don't already have."
It's unspoken when she flicks him on the nose and calls him a sap, and when he laughs and pulls her into a kiss. It's unspoken as she picks a dandelion of her own and blows the seeds into his face, watching them drift off of him and high into the summer air.
There's no need for them to say forever when they already know they have it.