The Lemon Candy

I draped my coat over my arm, and my fingertips suddenly brushed against something hard. It was Felix Collins' coat. He had just returned from a race in A Country; his suitcase was still piled up by the door, untouched. I slipped my hand into the inner pocket and pulled out a candy wrapped in transparent cellophane. Lemon-shaped, with unfamiliar letters printed along the edges of the wrapper. Not a brand you can find back home. Felix never eats lemon candy. He's afraid of sour flavors; even when he drinks soda, he always opts for the original flavor. I held that candy, my fingertips trembling slightly. My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a message in the racing group; someone had tagged the new female racer. "Willow Lynn, is lemon candy really famous over in A Country? I saw it in your posts." Willow Lynn. This name has been popping up a lot in the group lately. I heard she's a rookie Felix Collins discovered while racing in A Country and just signed with our club. I tapped on her profile picture. She was a girl whose eyes curved into a smile, with the faint outline of the A Country race track logo in the background. As if led by some strange impulse, I clicked into her social circle. The latest post was from three days ago, tagged at an airport in A Country. The photo showed a hand holding the same kind of lemon candy, with the caption: "Bringing home the spoils." The nails on that hand were neatly trimmed, and it wore a watch I recognized faintly. It was the sports watch Felix Collins often wore. My heart skipped a beat.