FicWad

Sunday morning dawned bright and early for Molly. The newly minted seventeen year old was up and ready to go by ten a.m. She had changed her outfit four times by then as well and finally managed to stop herself from doing so again when Elyse called her and basically said her "psychic best friend abilities kicked in: you look fine."
"Psycho is more like it." Molly muttered to herself after hanging up. She was staring at herself in the mirror and trying to figure out if she really did look as perfect as she needed to for her first date with Patrick. Molly hadn't wanted to go overboard too much. Standing there in the mirror was a girl in a dark blue denim work shirt mini dress. She had put on bright pink converse high tops and a bright pink baseball hat with her hair simply blown out underneath it.
"Cute." Molly nodded her head in agreement with herself. Grabbing a pair of sunglasses because she had decided to take Elyse's advice and wear contacts today Molly headed downstairs around one o'clock.
"That'll give my can't drive ass ample time to walk into town." Molly muttered as she called goodbye to her parents and walked outside.

Molly reached the Starbucks in question a half hour later and headed inside to get a hopefully comfortable chair or couch to sit on and wait for Patrick. Spotting a small love seat in the corner with a perfect view on the window that overlooked the sidewalk Molly jetted across the room without looking fully intending on throwing her purse onto the couch if necessary. The couch was the perfect size for cuddleing. Three steps later and Molly was on the floor with a barista apologizing profusely to her as he wiped up the iced coffee that had thankfully managed to miss getting onto her.
"It's ok." Molly said softly trying to shake off the daze from hitting the floor quite hard.
"No really it's entirely my fault."
"No it's really not. I was the one who was trying to run the indy 500 in order to get that couch." She said pointing to the loveseat as the boy whose name tag she noticed said "Danny" helped her up. He smiled at her then and for half a second Molly was wowed by the brightness of his teeth. 'someone goes to the dentist' She thought in appreciation of his litterally perfect smile.
"I'll let you continue your quest for the perfect Starbucks seating."
"Thanks." Molly said laughing a little at the stupidity of what she had been trying to do.
"No problem. It was worth it just to bump into you." The boy added with a wink before heading towards the counter. Molly rolled her eyes and smiled a bit trying not to blush. Patrick or no Patrick, find me a girl who doesn't like cute boys flirting with them. With those thoughts in her head Molly settled down on the couch with a copy of Alternative Press that had been sitting in the magazine stand and settled in to wait for Patrick.
"Did you want something to drink?" a male voice from above her caused Molly to jump slightly and look up expecting to see Patrick despite the voice obviously not belonging to him. Instead she saw Danny standing there once again smiling at her.
"Umm...not right now. I'm actually waiting for someone, they should be here soon. We're suppposed to meet at two."
"Oh..." he trailed off and glanced at the clock over her head with a sympathetic look on his face, "It's two forty five." At his words Molly's head snapped around to see for herself. Sure enough the clock above her head read 2:45, she had become so absorbed in the magazine that she hadn't realized an hour had passed and that she was just about finished with the issue.
"huh? Would you look at that. Yea, ya know what I'm sure he'll be here any second. Punctuality has never been Patrick's strong suit. I'll have a Caramal Mocha with whipped cream, and a black coffee with room for milk please." Molly said starting to fish out some money as he scribbled down what she wanted.
"Don't worry about it. Call it payment for nearly smooshing you. I'll be right back with those drinks."
"Uhh...Danny," Molly called back glancing at her cell phone clock, "Maybe just bring mine for now?"
"Sure." he said again with that same sympathetic smile.
"Where are you Patrick?" Molly said softly to herself as she stared out the window. By three o'clock Molly had stopped thinking he was being his usually scatterbrained self and was starting to grow concerned. Picking up her cell phone she dialed the one person she figured would know without a doubt where their mutual best friend was.
"Yo." was what she heard in her ear when the phone clicked over.
"Have you heard from or seen Patrick?"
"Not since last night whatsup?" was mumbled around something.
"Gross. chew. swallow. talk." Molly said disgustedly to Pete. A few seconds later she got the reply of,
"Sorry, not since last night. Why?"
"Oh...he asked me to meet him at Starbucks today at two and he hasn't shown yet."
"Ok...so call him?" was the reply she recieved.
"Right, I'll do that. soon. Bye Pete." Molly said before quickly closing the reciever. Truth was she didn't want to call Patrick for fear of having to give up on the idea of this date, or whatever, working out.
By three thirty she still hadn't called him, by three forty-five she was finishing her third Mocha, by four o'clock Danny had sat down with his own coffee. At four thirty he finally voiced what she had been thinking since she had spoken to Pete.
"I don't know who he is Molly, but I don't think he's going to be showing up."
"Yea..."
"Listen, I'm off now. I go to Glenbrook North High School. I'm a senior. I'm totally normal, would you like a ride home?"
"Yes please." Molly said softly avoiding his eyes to avoid seeing the pity in them.

Molly walked inside her house and upstairs to her room without talking to anyone. Falling face first onto her bed she stared at Sunny who was currently residing on her pillow.
"Boys suck Sunny."
"mwrow?"
"Yup." Molly rolled over and kicked off her shoes while simultaneously throwing her hat across the room. Just as she was about to drift off for a snooze ten minutes later her cell phone rang. Snapping up and grabbing it she didn't even look at the display screen she just answered with a frantic,
"Patrick?"
"Uhh...no. It's me. I was calling to see how your date went. But judging by THAT response.."
"Hey Elyse." Molly said dejectedly.
"Yup. That well huh?"
"He didn't show up."
"He didn't what?"
"You heard me."
"Yes, I did. I just think I've entred a parallel universe where Patrick didn't show up for something he had committed himself to. Did you call him?"
"No...."
"good girl."
"huh?"
"Why should you track HIM down? If he wants to be a douche then let him. Fuck him I say, fuck him!"
"Did you have something you needed to talk to me about?"
"No...its just. Ugh. Matt is frustrating the hell out of me. He's been acting really weird all evening."
"Please do NOT tell me you like Matt. I can not deal with THAT kind of drama."
"No. I just wish he would admit that he's..."
"Elyse, we don't know that."
"Oh sure we do. The boy has a pin up of Justin Timberlake for God's sake."
"....true story."
"Alright, I'll let you go. I'll go figure out the twisted love life of one Matthew Alexander Jennings on my own."
"You do that." Molly said with a brief laugh and hung up. Now wide awake after her conversation with Elyse Molly came to a decision.
'I'm gonna find out exactly where you were today Stumph.' Squaring her shoulders Molly started to stomp across her room, and then stopped when she realized what she was wearing. Grumbling to herself she changed into an old ripped up pair of jeans, a green day shirt and some flip flops before squaring her shoulders again and remarching across the room, down the stairs and out the door.

Through the park and three blocks later Molly stood at the front door to the Stumph residence. Taking a few seconds to calm herself Molly finally rang the doorbell. Less then a minute later the door was opened by Patrick's father, Dennis Stumph, who smiled brightly and greeted her.
"Hi Mr. Stumph." Molly smiled back as she stepped into the foyer of the house, "How are you?"
"I'm just fine Molly. A little tired but fine. Did you eat yet?" He asked her seriously, one thing they always had enough of in that house was food. In fact both Patricks parents were always complaining that she was skin and bones and would waste away if they didn't keep up on her. Molly laughed in response to his question and replied with,
"Actually I didn't Mr. Stumph but I'm not really hungry honestly. I had a big lunch." /'liar liar you are so going to hell'/she thought while smiling at her best friends father.
"Oh alright. But just so you know, I still think you're getting too skinny. I had four sisters, I know what I'm talking about."
"I know I know." She said smiling at him. 'why isn't this my dad? 'cause that'd be incest' Molly both thought and replied to herself at the same time. "Anyway, is Patrick home?"
"Sure is darling. He's upstairs in his room. He's been up there all day for as far as I know. Unless he came out when Pat and I went grocery shopping, we were gone from about one til almost four so he may have. Yell at him for being lazy would you Molly?"
"Sure will Mr. Stumph." Molly said trying to mask her fury. 'upstairs all day?! You better be dead Patrick. 'cause if not I may fix that problem.' Upon reaching the end of the hallway and Patrick's room Molly was surprised to see the door wide open and no one inside.
"huh?" She said outloud until she heard his shower running, "oh. Ok. I can wait." Molly said outloud to the empty room as she walked in and took a glance around. The normally fairly meticulous bedroom was a bit of a mess. His bed wasn't made, his laundry in about four different places around the room, and he hadn't taken his garbage out yet. "Weird. If there is one thing this boy is its neat. Scarily so." Molly shrugged as she went about occupying herself by making the destroyed bed. Hearing the shower stop she began picking up his laundry to at least put it in the hamper. 'Lord knows I don't wanna be staring at his skanky ass boxers.' Molly snickered in her head as she picked up the smiley face boxers. 'wait a second...this isn't laundry. This is just today's clothes. Shirt, boxers, jeans, socks...thong? Molly's thought process came to a sudden screaching hault when she pulled the small satin object out of where it had been tangled in Patrick's t-shirt. Swallowing compulsively Molly allowed her eyes to stray to the very full waste paper basket and felt her heart fall to her feet at the sight of something that every teenager in America and most of Europe would recognize. A Trojan wrapper. A second later her head whipped around at the sound of the bathroom door opening and her eyes were greeted with the sight of Patrick walking out in plaid pajama pants, barefoot and shirtless, with a huge grin on his face. The grin fell from it seconds later as he saw Molly standing there holding his clothes in one hand and a pair of girls underwear in the other.
"I really hope that you've suddenly taken to cross dressing?"
"Uhh..."
"But ya see the thing is, these won't fit you, and they're really NOT your color." Molly said with ice in her voice as she dropped the items she had been holding and stormed out of his room. Running down the stairs she heard him calling after her and ran faster when she heard feet behind her.
"Molly?" Patrick's mother said as she came quickly out of the kitchen, "Molly sweetie what's wrong?" Pat Stumph went to give Molly a hug but all Molly could choke out through her tears was that she needed to go home before she ran out the front door.
"Patrick? Patrick Martin Stump WHAT is going on?" and "Later Mom" was what she heard behind her as she stormed down the front walk and started in the direction of her house.
"Would you STOP following me?" She finally spun around three blocks later in the middle of the park to face Patrick. He stood there, still barefoot, this time with a hoodie open over his shirtless chest.
"I would stop if it wasn't dark out and I wanted my best friend to get raped. We might be in a suburb and a nice one but it's still Chicago."
"You are a bastard. And you DO NOT care."
"WHAT did I do NOW?"
"You tell me! WHERE were you today?"
"Is THAT what this this about? God, I'm sorry ok. Something came up."
"Yea..I bet it did. You stood me up so you could get laid. I thought...gah, nevermind what I thought." Molly said frustratedly mostly to herself. Patrick looked at Molly curiously, stared at her face and seemed to take it all in before understanding appeared to dawn in his eyes.
"Oh geez, Molly I'm an idiot...."
"Don't."
"Molly...I..I fucked up our plans for your birthday. I'm so sorry."
"Don't. Ok. Just don't...birthday?..." 'wow...he's really, unaware isn't he?
Patrick didn't say anything for a few seconds before he took a deep breath and exhaled loudly.
"I didn't mean to stand you up. I figured you would have left when I wasn't there by 2:30, you know how I forget things, and well...I love her Mol. She loves me too." Molly scoffed at the response he gave. "Be happy for me. Today is supposed to be special."
"Yea, sure. Happy. That's me....wait special? Oh geez, you're not telling me that you...just today..for the first time."
"Uhh...yea? Why is that such a shocker? Matt almost choked when I told him."
'somehow I doubt that's WHY he was shocked.'
"Anyway," Patrick continued, "can I at least walk you home. I'll be less nervous if I can see you get inside."
"Fine." Molly mumbled knowing the boy would follow her home like a puppy if she didn't let him. The whole way home Molly walked a good five feet to the left of Patrick and didn't say one word to him.


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A/N: title from "The World Is New" By Save Ferris 'cause they own my life.
and this chapter was 6 pages, 10pt font, single spaced. I might not update til Thursday---but I'm also probably lying about that.
...also: bring on the tomatoes and possible "hate mail". I never said this was gonna be an easy experience for our star crossed lovers did I?