Nothing Can Break Us, No One Can Make Us

Maddie's eyes slowly opened the next morning when the smell of pancakes hit her and also took over her dreams. She got up and walled downstairs to the kitchen as fast as she could and found Pete standing over a frying pan with a plate of pancakes next to him. She snuck up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting the side of her head on his back.

"Good morning," he smiled. "Or should I say 'good afternoon.'"

"What time is it," she mumbled.

"One in the afternoon. You really were tired and I didn't want to wake you. But I also didn't think it was good that you sleep the whole day so I thought it was time for you to get up."

She nodded, not moving from her position. Pete turned her around and kissed her before detaching her hands and leading her over to the table, one hand holding her hand and the other holding the plate of pancakes. He sat down and then pulled her onto his lap as they dove into the pancakes.

"So, did anything happen while I was sleeping," she asked, putting more of her current pancake into her mouth.

"Not really, Tori called though," he replied. Maddie froze and then looked at him.

"She called? As in she called my phone?"

"Well...yeah," he answered nervously.

"How do you know that she called, my phone has been off for about a week now.”

"Well, while you were sleeping, I uh...I was....," he struggled to find a good reason to be on her phone. "I was worried that maybe.....your brother called! Yeah, I thought that he may have called and...it may have been something important. So I checked and all that came up were voicemails and then before I had the chance to turn it off, she started calling and I answered just to see what she wanted and why she kept calling."

"What did she say?"

"She said that she really needed to talk to you," he said. Maddie turned her head back around and continued eating. "She sounded really stressed out, Maddie. Maybe you should actually call her back."

"What," she whipped her head back around. "No way am I calling her back!"

"Why not? She's your best friend!"

"If I call her back, all she's going to do is try to take me away from you and put me back with Brendon! You do realize that, don't you?"

"You need to call her, right now," he said sternly. She just stared at him in disbelief. She couldn't believe that he was saying this. All this time he was on her side about not calling Tori back and now he as completely on Tori's side. How had this happened? "You can give me the evil eye all you want, but it's not going to change my mind on this. Just call her. If she tries anything then you should be able to disagree with her, if you're so worried about that."

He tapped her on the side a couple of times, signaling her to get up and do the chore. Maddie sighed and obeyed, getting up and going upstairs to get her phone. After turning it on and dialing the number, she sat on the floor with her back up against the bed, waiting for Tori to answer. When she reached the other line, it wasn't Tori.

"Hello," it said. Maddie was instantly able to name the voice as Gerard's. She didn't say anything though, because thinking about it now, she hasn't really had a real conversation with him and it made her feel uneasy talking to him.

"Hello," he repeated into the phone. "I know someone's there, I'm not stupid."

She just breathed lightly into the speaker.

"Wait wait wait, is this Maddie?! Oh my God!! Where have you been?! Tori's been worried sick about you!! Oh shit, Tori! She's at work right now, but you can call her on he-no wait, no you can't. Unless you want to be killed then be my guest, I mean cause even though she wants to talk to you, she really can't or she'll get fired. Like this one time, when I tried calling her last week..."

He just kept going on and on and on, forgetting to let Maddie say a word in the conversation. While he kept rambling, she wondered how on earth Tori was able to put up with him if she wouldn't be able to put up with her talking like this most of the time. When she zoned back into Gerard's rambling, he managed to get onto the topic about squirrels.

"...and as much as I covered it, it still managed to get my sandwich from me and then when it got back up into the tree, he and all his little squirrel friends were laughing at me and feasting upon my sandwich. MY SANDWICH! Guess what kind of sandwich it was, just guess. Peanut butter and banana!! My favorite!! I mean, I am a fan of peanut butter and fluff, but seriously, peanut butter and banana is way better! And besides, people say that marshmallow is made out of bone marrow of animals, which is weird. But do you eat it still, since you're a vegetarian and all. Wouldn't that technically be eating animals? And who would want the job of taking out the bone marrow? I certainly would ha-"

"GERARD," Maddie finally said. "Do you ever shut up?!"

He became quiet. Her breathing went from being heavy from yelling at him to being as light as possible.

"Hello," she said, making sure that he was still there.

"Are you coming back," he finally ask.

"I want to talk to Tori before I make that decision."

"I'll tell her to call you back as soon as she gets out of work," he said.

"Fine by me," Maddie said before hanging up and not letting Gerard say goodbye. When she went downstairs, Pete was sitting on the couch, flipping through the channels and scratching Hemingway behind the ears. He looked at her when she was standing next to the couch.

"Well?"

"She wasn't home," she replied, sitting down next to the dog and rubbing his back.

"Well I guess you’re staying longer then," he smiled.