FicWad

Molly sat on the floor of her apartment, staring at the blank Microsoft Word document on the screen.
Molly worked as a writer for a local magazine. She loved her job, and she was good at what she did. But she already had two strikes against her, and it didn't help that her boss didn't like her to begin with. This article had to be her absolute best. Her job depended on it. She shook her head sadly. She just couldn't make the words come. Molly drummed her fingers on the table, her mouth skewing to the side, deep in thought. With a frustrated groan she pounded her head on the keyboard. Molly sighed in relief as the sound of the telephone sounded throughout her apartment. She stood up and ran into the kitchen to answer it.

"Hello?" She spoke into the receiver.

"Um, hi." Came a voice on the other end. Molly grinned softly. She could almost see him, a silly little smile playing at his lips and his cheeks flushed a light pink.

"Patrick," she said, her smile growing even wider.

"Hey," he repeated, his voice yielding a bit more confidence than before. "How are you?"

"I'm alright. You?"

"Good. Hey, I was wondering, are you doing anything tonight?"

Molly creased her brow, looking back at the laptop, it's screen still showing the empty document. "Nope," She said after a moment debating with herself. Her article could wait until she got home. "Why?"

"Well, I was just wondering if maybe you wanted to hang out tonight. You know, maybe go grab a bite to eat or something?" Patrick said. "I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to, it was just an idea. And I do owe you and all so -"

"Patrick, I'd love to." Molly said, cutting him off. She really needed to get out of the house for a while.

Patrick's smile couldn't have gotten bigger. It had been a while since he'd gone out with anyone. "Great, I'll pick you up at six?"

"Sounds great." Molly told him her address and hung up.

Untangling herself from the phone cord, she scurried down the hallway to change her clothes. By the time she had finally decided on something nearly everything in her closet was strewn across her room. Molly had decided to wear a simple pair of jeans and her favourite black shirt. She walked into the bathroom and ran a brush through her straight brown hair. Her red highlights were beginning to fade. She'd need to get them redone soon.

Glancing at her watch she went to wait in the living room. She shut down her laptop and set it back in its place in her bedroom. Molly looked out the window. It was already starting to grow dark and snow fell from the sky in large white flakes. It was beautiful outside.

Moments passed and the doorbell finally rang and Molly stood up to answer it.

Patrick looked great. He wore a red and white striped polo shirt underneath his classy black coat. His red and white sneakers went well with both his khaki pants and his shirt. The same "I Heart Bingo" hat sat atop his head, only showing a bit of his sandy blond hair.

"Ready?" he asked anxiously. It had been a long time since he'd had a date, and he was still a bit nervous.

"Yeah, just hang on a second. I need to get my shoes."

He followed her into the small living room and Molly disappeared down the hallway. Patrick looked around. The room had a very homey feel to it. A couch sat against the long wall, surrounded by two matching chairs. A bookcase stood in the corner, its shelves all completely full of books. Patrick liked it a lot, he could see himself spending a lot of time here.

Molly came back into the room, slipping a plain black slip on Converse onto her foot. She zipped up her hoodie and grabbed her purse.

"Are you gonna be warm enough in that?" Patrick asked thoughtfully. It wasn't much, just a simple red hoodie.

She grinned. "I'm from Chicago. Of course I'll be warm enough."

"Alright, if you're sure. Because the diner's just down the street, I figured we could just walk."

Molly nodded and looped her arm through his. The couple left the apartment. They walked down the snowy sidewalk arm in arm. No one said anything for a while. Finally Molly broke the silence.

"It's really pretty out here," She said softly, hoping to start a conversation.

Patrick's mouth wouldn't work. He wanted to say something more, but all he could manage was "It really is."

He wanted to smile politely, but his face erupted into a grin as big and toothy as a cartoon character's.

He quickly turned his attention to his shoes, hoping to hide his bright pink cheeks.

Molly giggled. "Don't be embarrassed. You have such a pretty smile."

He looked at her, not knowing what to say.

"Um, thank you," he murmured quietly.

The couple reached the diner moments later, and Patrick, being the gentleman that he was, held the door open for Molly. Patrick hadn't been to the diner in ages, and the smell of homemade food together with the dimly-lit big city atmosphere made him feel at home almost instantly. He had so many good memories of this place, and they all flooded back to him as he led Molly past a row of tables towards the back of the restaurant, to his favourite booth.

They sat down and a waitress arrived. The waitress, who introduced herself as Nicole, took their orders and brought their drinks out to them.

Molly sipped her drink quietly, watching Patrick as he fiddled with his menu. She wasn't quite sure of what to say to him, she had only just gotten out of a relationship.

"So, you're in a band?" She said after a moment. The awkward silence had begun to bother her.

Patrick nodded, "Fall Out Boy."

"Do you like it? I'd bet it's really exciting."

He shrugged. "I love making music. But it keeps me on the road a lot. I haven't had a girlfriend in two years," he said honestly.

"Oh." Molly hadn't realized what she was setting herself up for.

"What do you do?" Patrick asked, folding his menu back up and sticking it behind the salt and pepper shakers.

"I write for Amp magazine." Molly replied. "It's a music magazine, kind of like AP or Spin. I've always been really into music, so when I graduated high school I decided that music was what I wanted to work with."

"Oh, cool." It was somewhat reassuring for Patrick to know that he and Molly had something in common. Music was a big part of his life, it was refreshing to find someone who loved it as much as he did.

Nicole came back a while later with their food, and they ate in silence for a few moments. Molly chewed on a french fry slowly, the silence once again getting to her. The quiet was beginning to make her nervous.

"What happened with your last girlfriend?" She asked.

Patrick looked up from his plate, staring at Molly.

"I guess she didn't like me being gone all the time." he said thoughtfully. "And she said that she felt like she was taking the back seat to my music. She wasn't, but she felt that way. And admittedly, I should have been around more, but the offer was on the table for her to come with me. She just didn't take it. Now that I look back at it, the odds really weren't in our favour to begin with. I was into us, but she just never really seemed to care. It was like we were a couple, but we weren't. All that seemed to really matter to her was sex, and that's just not me."

Molly nodded. She would have ended things if she were in that situation as well.

"How come you don't have a boyfriend?" Patrick asked. He wasn't sure if he really should be asking her, but it was conversation.

Molly's bright eyes grew dark for a moment, and she glanced back down at the wooden tabletop.

"I just broke up with him a few weeks ago."

"What happened?" Patrick questioned.

"I just left. We were engaged, and I don't know what happened. He changed, and not for the better. I knew he had a problem with depression, but I thought that he had it under control. He got this new job, a night job, and he'd come home really stressed out every day, and he thought that it was his medicine that was doing it to him. He didn't tell me he stopped taking it, he just did. And for awhile, things were alright. He'd come home in the morning and have breakfast with me before going to bed, and he'd leave flowers for me to come home to after he left for work." Molly paused to take a sip from her drink.

"I don't understand," Patrick admitted.

"I know, why would I leave something like that, right?" she laughed wanly. "But that's not the end of it. After a few weeks he started to become more impatient with me and everything else. The littlest things would set him off. We fought constantly, and it finally escalated to the point where he'd become violent. He would throw things, and he would hit me." Molly shook her head, hoping to shake the memory from her mind's eye. "I couldn't make him find another job, and I couldn't get him to take his meds again. No one could. So I just packed my things one day and left. He wasn't the man that I fell in love with."

"I'm so sorry. I guess some guys just don't know when they've got a good thing in front of them." Patrick said. "If I had a girl like you, I'd do whatever I could to keep from losing you. Hell, I'd never let you out of my sight, for fear that I'd never see you again. I'd tell you I loved you every time I saw you just in case it was my last time." He surprised himself by saying what he did, and his cheeks quickly flushed a bright crimson red.

Patrick glanced back at Molly, her hazel eyes boring right into his own. She blushed faintly, her cheeks a mere rosy pink.

"That is really, really sweet of you," she told him.

Another awkward silence hung in the air, no conversation could top what had just been said. After what felt like forever Nicole finally came back with the check. Molly offered to pay her half, and reached for her purse, only to be stopped by Patrick. He wasn't about to let her pay a cent, and after a playful argument Molly finally agreed to let him pay. The two got up and left the restaurant.

They walked down the sidewalk, now frosted a pure, fluffy white, as the snow continued to fall. Patrick took Molly's hand, his callused fingers intertwining with hers. Her hands were freezing, and he could feel her shivering with each step.

"Wait just a sec," Patrick stopped walking.

He took off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

"You're going to freeze," she commented.

He ignored her. "So, now what?"

Molly shrugged. "We could go back to my apartment and watch a movie, if you like."

Molly jammed her key into the door and turned it. She flung the door open and walked in, handing Patrick his jacket back and hanging her hoodie over a chair.

"What movie do you want to watch?" She asked, kneeling down on the floor in front of a large brown box.

"What do you have?"

"Just about anything you could ever want to watch."

Patrick racked his brains for a moment, "Uh, what about The Breakfast Club?"

Molly grinned, "You're such a dork." she said, rummaging through the box before pulling out a movie case.

"You amaze me," Patrick smiled, sitting down on the couch as Molly put the movie in.

She took a seat next to him.

They watched the movie silently momentarily. After awhile Patrick carefully placed an arm around Molly's shoulders, and Molly instinctively leaned into him. In a sudden burst of confidence Patrick tilted her head upward and kissed her gently. Molly hesitantly placed her hands on his shoulders and allowed his tongue to slide past her lips. It felt strange to be in someone else's arms, but at the same time it felt right. They shifted so that Molly was laying on her back, with Patrick straddling her, still planting soft kisses on her lips and neck.

"Patrick - Patrick wait." Molly said after a few minutes. She knew where this was headed. "I'm not ready for that."

He nodded and let her sit back up. "Sorry," He looked at her apologetically.

She shook her head, "It's fine, don't worry about it. We were just going a little fast. Give me some time, and well, who knows what could happen." She smirked mischievously.

He wrapped his arm around her once again and Molly leaned into him, covering the both of them in a blanket.

The end credits rolled across the screen and Patrick switched the light back on. He looked down at Molly, who was leaned against him, her brown hair falling messily over her face. Wordlessly, he picked up her thin frame and started off down the hallway in search of her bedroom. It wasn't very difficult to find, there were only three doors in the small corridor and her bedroom door stood wide open. Awkwardly holding her against him in one hand he turned down her blankets and gently laid her in the bed. Patrick took her shoes off and tucked her in, placing one last kiss on her forehead before turning and leaving, walking home much happier than he'd been in a long time.