I am so sorry this chapter took so long. I have had it written for a while now but I don't really like it so I kept trying to come up with something better unfortunately nothing came. I wanted to try and explain why Mikey has changed so much and how he stayed in touch with Gus because it isn't all that normal.

I will try to get the next chapter out faster and make it more interesting.

This story will be coming to an end very soon….. I think.

Chapter 18

Gus POV

"So what do you think?" Mike asks after we arrive back to his house.

"What about this Elli being Spinelli? I think there is a good possibility that it is her; I mean even the name is ridiculously close. But it doesn't really make sense why she wouldn't run right up to you guys and say hi. I mean being the new person in a school can be really difficult so why not use old connections to help with the transition?" Looking over at Mike I see that he is staring out the window lost in thought.

"Mike? You okay?" I ask after a few minutes of his silence.

"Yeah….. It's just kind of strange seeing the old crew together. I mean we haven't all gotten together forever. It was….. It was just …… Kind of nice... You know?" He says quietly. Before I can agree with him he stands up and mumbles a good night.

Taking his spot by the window in the guest room of his house I sigh. Yeah Mike, it was nice to see everyone together.

God I had been shocked when Mike had come to pick me up from the airport to take me Kelso's to see the old gang. We very rarely talked about old times any more because they tended to upset Mike.

I still remember how upset he was when he found out Spinelli wasn't coming back. I don't know what would have happened if she had stayed but I have feeling that the last couple years would have been a lot different.

When she left we all broke into smaller groups. I thought at the time that it was probably the most difficult for Gretchen because she ended being by herself trying to make friends with the other girls in our class. TJ and Vince still had each other to hang out with and Mike and I still hung out.

Maybe I should have pushed Mike a little harder for us to make more friends with the other kids in our class but I think he was too afraid to lose another friend.

When dad got transferred again I was almost excited to go. Not that Mike wasn't great, he was, but I had been hoping to meet a new group of people like I had when I had entered Third Street Elementary. I of course did make a lot of new friends and I assumed that Mike was also making new friends at his new high school.

Either I would call him or he would call me every couple days to catch up but slowly I started to not call as much. I had other things to do. The phone calls that I did have with him were always so depressing in a way. I guess I really should have picked up on it; but I mean who really pays attention to stuff like that at our age.

It still pisses me off and scares me to death thinking about the call I received from Mike's mom at three in the morning. She was crying not making any sense what so ever. Every once in awhile she would cry out Mikes name and then the crying would begin again. By the time she had calmed down enough she had asked me desperately to come back there for Mike. When I had asked what had happened I had been down right shocked to hear that Mike had attempted suicide. He had actually gone and slit his wrists. Luckily he had cut anything too badly.

Needless to say dad had me on the next flight out. I remember rushing to the hospital wondering what the hell he had been thinking. When I had arrived there I had expected to see some of Mike's friends there; instead it was just his parents. They were in tears saying that he wouldn't talk to them and they didn't know any of his friends other then me. That's when I had tried to think of any of the names that he might have mentioned over the phone but came up with a blank. God I don't think I have ever felt so guilty in my life. My best friends life had been falling apart I hadn't even noticed.

Walking into his room to talk with him was probably the most awkward thing I've ever done. I stood there looking down at him as he looked out the window refusing to look at me. At that moment I had wished so hard for the gang. I could almost hear TJ asking Mike what happened, see Gretchen giving him a hug as she cried, feel Vince standing in the corner giving moral support and then of course the person who would probably have done the most good Spinelli; she would have beaten the shit out of him for doing something like that and scaring her. Mike and Spinelli had had a weird type of bond. They understood each other better then anyone else in the group had understood them. I think it was probably because they both were rather out casts from what society considered normal.

But they weren't there to help me so I had sat in the chair next to his bed and had waited until he was ready to talk. After an hour of sitting in silence he had finally broken down and cried about how everyone at school treated him like a monster. How even the older kids were afraid of him. Teachers for the most part ignored him thinking that he was a dumb oaf. How he had tried to get into the drama club, the choir and poetry club but was turned away from them all.

I had sat there not knowing what to do or to say. I had had no idea of the problems that my best friend was going through and was beside myself.

After this incident I began to call Mike almost every other day and tried to make to trips out a month if possible.

But I was only one person and I knew that Mike needed more then me. What he really needed was the old group.

For the first time in years I felt rather light hearted. If this Elli was our Spinelli then perhaps the old gang would reconcile. And even if she wasn't hopefully TJ's plan would help bring us all closer. Then Mike would no longer be alone and would have someone to watch his back.

Grinning I thought back to TJ's plan. Surprisingly it wasn't all that thought out like our older plans. Even with all of us throwing our ideas out it was a rather simple plan.

It would start off with inviting Elli over to TJ's house to work on their project. They had decided to place a couple of pictures of the gang sporadically around the room to see how she would react. From there we hadn't gotten any really good ideas so had decided to play it by ear.