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The neighborhood Mikey now lived in looked absolutely nothing like the Newark neighborhood the two of us used to call home. But then again, nothing in Belleville looked like it had in Newark. Things were much more... clean, quiet, safe.

The houses in Mikey’s neighborhood were much smaller than the ones in mine, but anything was bigger than the three bedroom apartments that both his family and mine had lived in. Not the same apartment, of course, but the same kind.

The Way house was cute and quaint. It was white with green shutters, a ranch house with white fence along the outside, fencing in a rather large front lawn. It was definitely not as big as the house I called my own, but I loved it. It seemed absolutely perfect.

When we walked into the front door, the first thing I saw was a set of carpeted stairs. Right next to them was the television set, facing the couch in the family room.

“Hey Mom!” Mikey yelled once we removed our shoes on the front mat. All I could hear was a faint mutter from another room, but that seemed to be enough for Mikey. My brother and I followed Frank and Mikey towards the back of the house and turned right, into the tiled kitchen.

There stood Donna Way, busily putting away dishes and plates from the open dishwasher at her feet. I could only see the back of her head, but I could tell she hadn’t changed much. Her hair was still the same platinum blonde color that she had died it when I was five years old.

“Look who we found.” Mikey said, almost smugly. That was when Donna turned, curious to see what her son was talking about. Her expression when she saw Alex and I was priceless; She looked as if she was going throw the glass plate she was holding across the room.

She let out a high-pitched squeal that I didn’t know could belong to a woman her age. The next thing I knew, I was being smothered by her hug, Alex wrapped in the other arm.

“Oh my god!” she kept saying over and over. Moments like this reminded me how much I missed Donna; She always got so excited over the smallest things, and it made her a great person to be around. She always made you happy.

“I missed you, Donna!” I exclaimed, trying my hardest to talk while still being smothered. Alex didn’t seem like he could figure that part out just yet.

“I’ve missed you, too, honey!” she said, her tone still one of excitement. She finally let go, and I heard Alex take in a sharp breath of desperately needed air. “What brings you two here?”

“Dad got a new job.” Alex answered. “We moved here about two weeks ago, into that new development off the highway.” Donna’s expression got even more excited.

“You guys moved here? As in your living here now?” I laughed, and nodded. Frank looked like he’d never seen Donna even remotely close to this happy in his life. It was amusing to watch his expressions.

“Well, that’s just perfect!” She exclaimed excitedly. “We’ll have to have you and your parents over for dinner tomorrow night. And Spencer and Beth, of course.” She said. The Way’s moved away before the Jon-O era.

“Actually” I said. “Spencer and Beth won’t be able to come. But Jonathon will.” I said. She looked puzzled, and I launched into our life explanation. Mikey, Alex and Frank seemed to sneak out of the room at some point between the fact that Beth had gotten married and Spencer was gay.

Donna seemed extremely surprised at everything I was telling her. She asked me all the typical questions: What Beth’s husband’s name was, What the baby’s name and gender was, What Spencer’s boyfriend’s name was, the works. And I told her without complaint. We needed to catch up on these kinds of things. Before she moved, she’d been like my second mom.

“Gerard will be so excited when he finds out that you’ve come back!” she said once I was done with my explanation. Being perfectly honest, I’d completely forgotten in all the excitement that Gerard lived here, too.

“I’m excited to see him, too.” I said. I moved myself to helping Donna put away the dishes and bowls that my arrival had interrupted. “Where is he?” I added conversationally.

“He got accepted to an art school in New York City.” she said, her pride for her oldest son showing in her words. “But he’s coming home this weekend, since the city’s so close. In fact, he should be home pretty soon.”

The small fact excited the hell out of me. I’d missed Gerard so much; I’d never had a friend that was quite as close to me as he was. Even though we were really little, it was the kind of friendship that you never really forgot. Kind of like the friendship between myself and his brother, only one step stronger.

“That’s great” I said, smiling at her. It was still kind of weird to me, though. Weird that I hadn’t even known that Gerard liked to draw.

We’d tried so hard to keep in touch at the beginning. Donna and my mom would call each other constantly, and they’d give us the phone so we could talk before we passed in on to Mikey and Alex. And there was always the rare occasion that we met up somewhere in between Belleville and Newark to see each other. Soon, though, those times decreased, and eventually they just stopped all together. I still called Gee from time to time, as Alex still called Mikey. It just wasn’t as frequent as I would have liked.

The fact that Gerard was going to an art school signified that he probably liked to draw, A LOT, and he was probably very good at it. It made me sad that I didn’t know either of these things about him before today. I knew he was a big fan of coloring when we were younger, but that was about it.

Donna and I kept talking about random things as we finished putting away the dishes. Once we were done with that, she gave me a tour of the house. The boys had escaped to the re-done basement area to play video games, so we didn’t hear much of them other than the occasional yell to shoot the enemy or get out of the way of the shot gun.

All three of the bedrooms were upstairs, as well as the full bathroom. She was showing Mikey’s room when I heard the door swing open from down the stairs. Three guesses who it was.

“I fucking hate college!” I heard echoing up the stairs, and my heart skipped a beat. Not in a romantic way, but an excited way. I hadn’t seen Gerard since I was no older than eight years old, and after ten years I’d finally get to see him again.

I saw Donna roll her eyes at her son’s vulgar use of language before heading towards the stairs. She got to the top and turned to me, who hadn’t moved an inch, and gestured for me to follow her down the stairs. I did, walking slowly and surely. I didn’t want to run to him; That would just look desperate.

And I was wondering why I cared so much.

“That’s very nice language, Gerard” Donna said sarcastically as she moved down the stairs. That was her own little way of scolding her grown son: sarcasm. He’d get the point.

He didn’t say anything, and I assumed he got the point. Donna stepped off the stairs and onto the floor, walking towards her son, while I was still on the first stair from the top. I kind of wanted to surprise him by being here, in a way. But part of me thought that would be incredibly corny.

Donna didn’t seem to think so, though. “I’ve got a surprise for you!” I heard her say, presumably from a spot in the middle of the family room.

“Oh, really?” I heard him ask. He sounded bored, probably thinking his mother’s surprise was a new shirt or something stupid like that. His voice was so different. It was a little deeper, but not by much. Most boys voices got so deep it was incredible, but not his. It wasn’t girly sounding, just a bit higher than most. I liked it.

“Yes, really.” His mother said matter-of-factly. She walked to the bottom of the stairs and gave me a look; a look that, to me, said ‘get your ass down here’. I took that as my cue to go down.

I walked faster than I had making my way to the stair case. It wouldn’t take long for him to see the pair of feet walking down the stairs, and I didn’t want to torture him before he found out who it was. I stood next to Donna when I reached the bottom of the stairs. His jaw dropped before I even got to say a word. So, I didn’t. I lifted my hand and waved at him.

He looked so different from before. He was still paler than anything I had ever seen, and his hair was still black. It was longer now, though, and his face seemed even paler than before. He was much skinnier, lankier, getting close to Mikey. Gerard had never been fat, but he was a chubby kid. You would have never known that now, though.

“Holy shit!” He yelled once he could find his voice. Apparently Mikey was right; I did look exactly the same. He obviously knew who I was.

He ran towards me and hugged me almost as tightly as his mother had. Even in his now more slender figure, he was able to pick me up off the ground in his hug, and it startled me for a second. But then I laughed.

“I was totally not expecting that.” I said between laughs. I saw his smile as he put me down. I heard Donna mumble something about letting us catch up from beside me, and soon we were alone in the family room.

Gerard was still grinning like an idiot when his mother left. “Holy shit, AJ!” He said again. “I haven’t seen you in.... years!” he said. His voice was still astounded, like I was only a vision that would go away if and when he blinked his eyes.

“I know.” I said, almost guiltily. I hated the fact that I hadn’t made more of an attempt to see Gerard over the years. It wasn’t entirely my fault; He could have done the same, and it’s not like I could drive at age nine. “But still, I’m here now!”

Yes. Yes, I was.

A/N -- So, she finally sees Gerard again. (: I hope you guys liked it, and I apologize if any of you were offended by Gerard's extremely vulgar use of language. =P Please review! I love to know how I'm doing.