FicWad

Lyric stumbled into the kitchen, having just woken up. It was too early... she hadn't exactly gotten much sleep last night. She glanced at the clock. 12:02. Sandwich it is then, she thought, opening the refrigerator. She heard someone enter the room but chose to ignore them, and went back to preparing a grilled cheese sandwich. Finally she scraped the severely burnt remains of what was supposed to be a grilled cheese sandwich off the pan and sat down at the table, only to find herself face to face with Pete.
"So," he sighed.
"So..." she mimicked. This was a little on the awkward side.
"Now what?" Pete asked.
"So Hope's starting Pre-K today," she said, ignoring his question.
"Whatcha think she's up to right now?" He wondered.
"She's probably having a great time, I'm not that worried about her."
"Um Hm," Pete sighed again, nodding his head thoughtfully.
The two sat in awkward silence for a moment.
"Look Lyric, shouldn't we talk about this?"
"There is nothing to talk about. It was a..." her voice trailed off, "A mistake." she finished.
"A mistake? Is that all you think it was?" Pete said, exasperatedly, "I really like you, and I can't read all these mixed signals your sending me. And here you're telling me now it was a mistake! You kissed me back, Lyric. It wasn't just me."
"I know that! But it's not like I wanted to, it's just-"
"Lyric, he's gone! Get over him! You can't hang onto this forever. You just can't! Sooner or later you're gonna have to move on! I have apologized ample amount of times, but God forbid you just let it go!"
"You killed him! You expect me to just forget that? Act like it never happened? Forgive you? Well news fuh-lash, I'm not gonna."
"Lyric, for the last time! He is gone! Forget about him! Nothing we do can bring him back! Move the hell on!" He seethed, "Why can't you just-" His sentence came to an abrupt halt when Lyric's fist collided with his face. He stumbled backward, clutching his face. Lyric was small, but God, was she strong. After finally getting his bearings, he drew back and slapped her across the face. She looked at him, mouth agape. In a fit of rage she proceeded to punch him repeatedly in the stomach, not particularly hard, however. Finally, when Pete didn't just fall over and die like she had hoped, she collapsed into him, arms around his waist.
"Um? Lyric?"
"He doesn't die..." she mumbled incoherently.
Pete sighed. This conversation was getting them nowhere. He decided laying the tired Lyric on the couch was a good idea.

*

Lyric woke up. "Fwa? What the..." She had been asleep on the couch, and Pete was sitting at the other end. "How long've I been asleep?"
"Only a few hours." Lyric squinted, trying to remember what happened. Oh, yeah. She was supposed to be mad at him right now, but as Lyric was now well rested she couldn't be.
"So you wanna tell me what the hell all that was?" he asked.
"What?"
"The whole punching me in the stomach bit."
She sighed, "I don't know," she admitted.
"You know, we don't have to hate each other," he told her, "I really like you."
"I know, it's just, Pete, I don't want to replace him, y'know? I mean it's only been like a month, and I feel like I'm already erasing him from my life. I don't want it to be like he never existed. And I'm trying to sort out all my feelings on this right now and I don't know if I can-" Pete silenced her by brushing his lips softly against hers. Lyric responded by almost instantaneously placing her hands on his shoulders and allowing the kiss to deepen. It was bittersweet for her, she felt like at this very moment she was betraying Adam, and making him turn in his grave. As if to save her from what she could no longer control, someone opened the front door and Hope came rushing in, bawling, Patrick not far behind, looking annoyed but slightly amused at the same time.
"Mom!" Hope cried, dropping her backpack on the floor. Immediately the two on the couch separated as Patrick rolled his eyes and headed into the kitchen. "Mom... I-I went to school you know and then no one played with me and so I sat in the back in this squeaky yellow chair which was fun cause whenever I moved it squeaked and so I talkeded to Dorito, cause he and me were both all alone, and so whenever I got done with my coloring sheets and those thingamajiggars with the numbers which nobody else colored right and I talked to him cause he looked so lonely and then I wanted to play with him and so I gots him out of his cage and he started running and then I chased after 'im and he went under a table and some boys runned after me trying to find some rat thingy and a girl screamed and stepped on my hair and then Ms. Sweeney picked him up and that made me feel lots better but this kid came up behind her and started yelling and so she dropped D'rito and he went under the bookcase and didn't move so the boys thought he was dead and this Tedd kid decided to hold a funeral and flush D'rito Hamster but I knowed he wasn't dead but they flushed him anyways!" she sobbed.
Lyric looked helplessly at Pete. "What?"