My Way Home is Through You

It was well pass midnight and every person in the Way’s basement remained awake. Ray and Bob were playing some game on Mikey’s Atari; from what I could tell Ray was beating Bob badly. Mikey was frantically trying to take the remote from Bob; he just kept pushing Mikey’s hands out of the way.

“Bob!” Mikey whined, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting.

“Oh Mikey, don’t be such a baby! You’ll get your turn.” Gerard said from the couch, he pulled his arm from around me and grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it in his direction. Instead of the pillow hitting Mikey, it hit Ray in the back of the head. He turned around and glared at Gerard.

“Ha! I passed you!” Bob yelled as he hunched over the remote once more, he was in such deep concentration, it was hilarious to watch.

I pulled my attention away from the intensity of the game and noticed that Frank was sitting quietly on the love seat, a very odd thing for him. Frank was never quiet; he was usually the loud, obnoxious one of the group. I tapped Gerard and he looked down at me, I looked in Frank’s direction and told Gerard I wanted to talk to him. He let me go and I got up from the couch.

“What’s wrong, Kiddo?” I asked as I dropped onto the love seat. Frank looked up from the floor and into my eyes; the sadness that radiated from them was heart breaking. I instantly threw my arms around him and pulled him closer.

“You know you can tell me anything.” I told him as he pulled away from the hug. He nodded his head as he wiped at the tears forming in his eyes. “Do you want to go upstairs and talk about it?” I asked him, he nodded.

Frank and I both stood up from the love seat, we walked around the coffee table and towards the stairs. Gerard started to get up and follow us, but I motioned for him to stay there, he nodded his head hesitantly but sat down again.

Once upstairs, Frank and I went into the kitchen and sat down at the table. We sat at least a minute or two in silence before he broke it.

“Aren’t you worried?” Frank said as he fiddled with a folded napkin at the table.

“Worried about what?” I asked.

“About what your parents are talking about?” He said looking up from the napkin.

“Of course I’m worried Frank. But I guess there’s nothing I can do about it right now.” I said.

“I guess that’s true, but what I don’t understand is why your mom sent you here?” He asked, he found a pen on the table and began drawing on the napkin.

“I’m not quite sure either…” I sat there in thought, trying to think up scenarios on why my mother would want me out of the house. Most of them seemed too ridiculous to even be possible. “But I’m sure it’s nothing to get to upset over, so why don’t we head back downstairs?” I said as I stood up from the chair, Frank nodded and got up too.

I wrapped my arm around Frank and gave him a side hug as we walked to the door to the basement. I pulled it open, regretting it as shouts erupted from it. A light flicked on upstairs, and a disgruntled looking Donna Way emerged from the stairs.

“What’s going on?” She asked while rubbing sleep from her eyes.

“Nothing Mrs. Way, go back to sleep.” Frank said to her she nodded and slowly turned and walked back up the stairs. We both waited until the light flicked off before we both walked back downstairs. I made sure that the door was shut, so we wouldn’t wake up Gerard’s parents again.

Frank skipped over to the couch and began yelling that it was his turn to play and that Mikey should get a chance too. I laughed and walked over to the couch Gerard was sitting on; I dropped next to him and let out a yawn.

“Tired?” Gerard laughed.

“Obviously…” I laughed as I rested my head on Gerard’s shoulder and closed my eyes.

“Want to go to bed?” He asked, I nodded, I was too tired to even reply.

“Good night, guys!” Gerard yelled over the boys sitting around the TV. They all raised their hands to show that they heard

Gerard got up from the couch and reached out both his hands and grabbed mine and pulled me up. I sluggishly followed him to his bedroom; as soon as we entered I collapsed onto the bed.

“You do know that getting under the covers is better than sleeping on top of them.” Gerard said to me. I just shrugged and eventually moved to crawl underneath the covers. I was now facing the wall and I could hear Gerard getting changed, I could also see the shadow moving across the wall. The only light came from the lamp that was on the floor.

Eventually the covers were pulled away and Gerard crawled into the bed, reaching over he turned off the lamp and the room was engulfed into darkness. He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me closer to him, while nuzzling his face into the crook of my neck.

The room fell silent, but now that I was actually in a bed, my mind began to race. I turned around in Gerard’s arms, I found the silhouette of his face and tried to make out features, but it was too dark.

“Gerard?” I whispered.

“Yeah?” He said

“Do you…Do you think we would have ever ended up together, if it weren’t for…” I paused for a moment; I didn’t want to finish the sentence.

“I’m pretty sure I would have found a way to break through your shell.” Gerard said. He placed a kiss on my forehead.

“Thank you Gerard, for everything.” I said.

“Mackenzie?” Gerard said after a few minutes of silence.

“Mhm?” I mumbled.

“I, uh…I love you.” Gerard said, barely above a whisper.

“I love you too, so much more than I can even express in words.” I reached up, now that I could see more clearly in the dark and kissed Gerard tenderly on the lips, he returned the kiss with some eagerness to it.

We broke apart and I turned in his arms, as he pulled me closer. My heart was pounding against my chest, I couldn’t have been anymore happier than I was at this exact moment.