32. Gabe refers to himself as Gabriel Baberiel in front of Sexy Stranger #4.

In the dead of night, I took Exit #7 and drove the DeLorean into Belleville while Gabe and Brendon, both having obviously consumed far too much coffee for their own good, were dancing and screaming along to my mixtape. We raced through the city until I finally found the Ways' house. A gangly, bespectacled teenager was waiting in front of the house, and he waved when he saw us, although he managed to perfectly maintain his poker face as he did so. "That guy is so hot," Gabe said, while Brendon and I rolled our eyes.

Mikey looked exactly like he did in all of those pictures that he had sent me, but it was still crazy to see him in the flesh. I smiled and waved back to him as I pulled into the driveway, and after I had parked, I ran out of the car and hugged my friend. "Mikey!" I exclaimed. "I don't even know what to say. It's so good to see you."

"It's good to see you too," Mikey said. "I didn't expect you to bring the DeLorean though."

"My dad let me borrow it for the trip," I said.

"All of our neighbors are going to be wondering if we built a time machine out of a DeLorean," Mikey said. We both laughed, and he asked, "How was the trip here?"

"It was fine," I said. "We got a little lost in New York City though."

"Why did you go anywhere near New York?" Mikey asked. "That's not the way here."

"As I said, we got lost," I said. "We made it here though."

Mikey smiled and said, "I'm glad you did. Mom and Dad kept telling me to go to bed, and I was worried that I wouldn't get to see you until tomorrow, or worse, that something had happened to you. Where are Gabe and Brendon, by the way?"

"They're still in the car," I said. I opened up the car doors, and Gabe and Brendon climbed out.

"That's so cool," Mikey said as he saw the doors open and close. "I wish my car did that."

"Me too," Brendon said. "Pete has the best car."

"Gabe, Brendon, this is my pen pal Mikey Way," I said. I gestured toward Gabe and said, "Mikey, this is..."

"Gabriel Baberiel, but you can call me Gabey Baby for short," Gabe interrupted, making Brendon and I groan.

"Mikey isn't Sexy Stranger #4, right, Gabe?" Brendon said, hoping that Gabe hadn't just made the vision come true. Gabe didn't answer, which told us everything that we needed to know.

Brendon turned to Mikey and said, "His name isn't really Gabriel Baberiel..."

"I know," Mikey said. "His name is Gabriel Eduardo Saporta, but everyone calls him Gabe for short. He's eighteen years old, he was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, and his birthday is on October 11th. He speaks both English and Spanish fluently, which is a skill that he mostly uses to hook up with anyone who's willing. He moved to the east coast when he was four, and then to Shermer, Illinois in middle school, which was when he met you and Pete. Gabe and Pete briefly dated two years ago, but they've been best friends ever since then. At the beginning of the summer, Gabe started having psychic visions, and he's been trying his best to stop them before he dies in an explosion with the song he wrote playing in the background, although he hasn't been very successful so far. He's a mediocre bass player and a terrible writer, but that somehow hasn't stopped him from ending up on MTV somehow. Anyways, I'm pretty sure that came here to make you dance tonight."

"How do you know all of this?" Gabe asked, pale as a ghost.

"Pete told me in his letters," Mikey said.

Gabe looked toward me. "Why did you tell him about the visions?" he asked.

"I don't keep secrets from Mikey," I said.

There was a good reason for that. Shortly after I visited Mikey in New Jersey when I was eleven, I wrote a letter to him and told him that I had a crush on a boy in my class. I was terrified that Mikey would take it badly - I had never told anyone that I was interested in guys before. I worried that my fears were confirmed when Mikey didn't reply to that letter for two weeks. After that, I was sure that I had lost one of my only friends just by telling him the truth.

Of course, Mikey's reply did come eventually, and the beginning of the letter said, "I have a secret too. Once, I stuck a fork into a toaster."

After that, I knew that I could trust Mikey with anything. Maybe he wouldn't totally understand everything I was going through, but I was lucky to have a friend who would love and care about me no matter what. I didn't meet Gabe and Brendon until about two years later, but even after I became friends with them, I knew that I would never keep secrets from Mikey Way, and he would never keep secrets from me.

"You still shouldn't have told him," Gabe said.

"Telling Mikey didn't do any harm," I said.

"Pete's right," Mikey said. "I didn't tell anyone else about your visions."

Gabe gave Mikey a suspicious look - he still obviously didn't trust him, no matter how much I did. After a period of awkward silence, Brendon decided to step in and introduce himself. "I'm Pete Wentz from My Chemical Romance," he said.

Mikey laughed and then said, "I know that you're not Pete, but My Chemical Romance would actually be a really good name for a band."

"I know, right?" Brendon said. "I would listen to a band called My Chemical Romance."

"Anyways, let's go inside," Mikey said. "It's getting late."

Mikey opened up the door, and Gabe, Brendon, Mikey, and I all went into the house. It was a quite a bit smaller than any of our homes back in Shermer, but in a way, that made it seem cozy. Mr. and Mrs. Way were watching TV in the living room, and Mrs. Way immediately greeted us when we entered the door. "It's good to finally see you all," Mrs. Way said. "Pete, you've grown so much. How's Dale doing?"

"My mom's fine," I said. "She told me to say hello to you for her."

"That's good to hear," Mrs. Way said. "Who are your friends over here?" Gabe and Brendon introduced themselves to Mr. and Mrs. Way, and this time, they used their real names. "It's so nice to meet you both," Mrs. Way said.

Mr. Way yawned and said, "It's getting late. Maybe we should show them where the basement is."

"I can handle that, Dad," Mikey said. "You and Mom should get some rest. Follow me, guys." Mikey opened the door to the basement, and the three of us followed him down the steps into the basement.

"I'm serious, Pete," Gabe whispered to me as we went downstairs. "Why didn't you tell me how hot your pen pal was?"

"He's straight, Gabe," I said.

"I might be able to prove otherwise," Gabe said. He winked, and I rolled my eyes.

"Mikey's like my brother, Gabe," I said. "He's off-limits."

As we approached the basement, we heard angsty rock music blaring. The lights were off, but I could see a young man with dyed black hair sitting at a desk in the corner of the room, writing furiously. The basement was decorated with posters of rock bands and characters from comics, and the man in the corner barely seemed to notice us as we entered the room. "What do you want?" he mumbled, barely looking up from his project.

"Gerard, you were supposed to be out of the basement by now," Mikey said.

Gerard looked up from whatever it was that he was working on and turned to face Mikey. From the way that Mikey had described him in his letters, I had suspected that Gerard had somehow turned into a vampire since I had last seen him seven years earlier, but he seemed like a somewhat normal, if a little bit geeky, twenty one year old. "I'm not leaving the basement," he said before going back to his work.

"My friends need somewhere to stay," Mikey explained. "Besides, Mom's told you a million times that you can't live in the basement anymore. You have your own room upstairs. Why can't you just work there?"

"The basement is better for my creativity," Gerard said. "You'll understand someday, Mikey."

"When you make it?" Mikey said. "Gerard, you like D&D, Audrey Hepburn, Fangoria, Harry Houdini, and croquet. You can't swim, you can't dance, and you don't know karate. Face it, you're never gonna make it."

"I don't wanna make it..." Gerard said.

Mikey groaned and said, "Just get out of the basement so I can set up the air mattresses for Pete, Gabe, and Brendon."

"But I'm not done working on my comic!" Gerard complained. Mikey didn't seem to care, so Gerard sighed, gathered up his stuff, and shouted, "You'll never take me alive!" as he went upstairs.

"I'm sorry about Gerard," Mikey said after he had left the basement. "He was supposed to have moved his stuff out of the basement a week ago."

"It's okay, Mikey," I said. "I haven't seen Gerard in forever."

"Knowing Gerard, he'll probably come back and try to reclaim the basement tomorrow morning," Mikey said as he pulled an air mattress out of the closet. "You'll have plenty of opportunities to spend time with him and that comic that he's working on."

Gabe, Brendon, and I helped Mikey set up the air mattresses, and before long, we were ready to unpack our bags and go to bed. Despite the ridiculous amount of coffee that we had all drank during the day, Brendon, Gabe, and I were all exhausted. "I'm going to head upstairs," Mikey said. "I'll see you three tomorrow morning."

"So long and goodnight, Mikey," I said.

Brendon, Gabe, and I all quickly got ready for bed, and when the lights were out again, Gabe whispered, "Pete, I know you said that Mikey was off-limits, but what about his brother?"

"Gabe, do you have to flirt with every single person you meet?" I whispered back.

"Yes," Gabe responded.

Brendon overheard us and said, "Gerard had better not be one of the sexy strangers."

"I think Gerard is Sexy Stranger #6," Gabe admitted.

"Well, that's useful," I said. "There's a vision later that's Sexy Strangers #4 and #6 getting robbed, and we now know that they're Mikey and Gerard."

"Why would anyone want to rob the Ways anyways?" Brendon asked. "It's not like there's anything super valuable here."

"I have no idea," Gabe said.

"It doesn't matter," I said. "We just have to stop it from happening."

"That's several visions away," Gabe said. "We should worry about whatever the next vision is first."

"I'll ask Mikey about it in the morning," I said as I buried my face in a pillow. "I just want to sleep."

"I don't know if asking Mikey is a good idea," Gabe said. "He's literally perfect in every way, but you know what they say. Don't trust a perfect person and don't trust a song that's flawless."

"Gabe, I'd trust Mikey with my life," I said. "At least get to know him before you judge him."

"Mikey seems like a pretty nice guy to me," Brendon said.

"There's just something off about him," Gabe said.

"You're being paranoid," I said. "Anyways, I'm actually going to sleep now. I'll talk to you two tomorrow morning." I tossed and turned, not quite used to sleeping in a strange bed, but I did manage to get some sleep, and eventually, Gabe and Brendon did too.

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of the basement door opening. My eyes snapped open as I heard Gerard say, "Mikey, can I have my desk in the basement back?"

"No," Mikey replied.

"Please?" Gerard said, but Mikey didn't respond.

"Pete! Gabe! Brendon!" Mikey shouted.

I rolled out of bed, and shouted, "What is it, Mikey?" while my friends took their time waking up.

"Breakfast is ready," Mikey said. I ran upstairs to see what was for breakfast, and I saw that the Ways had made pancakes for us. It wasn't quite as good as leftover pizza, but it was a close second. I immediately started eating, and a few minutes later, Brendon and Gabe sat down at the table with us.

"Ray's coming over pretty soon," Mikey told us as he devoured his pancakes. "He really can't wait to meet you guys."

"Who's Ray?" Brendon asked.

"He's one of my friends," Mikey explained.

"By the way, Mikey, I need to ask you about something..." I said, but I was interrupted.

All of a sudden, a boy around our age knocked on the door. Mikey ran over and let him in, and I immediately recognized him as Ray Toro - nobody else could possibly have a fro like that. "Hi Ray," I said.

"Mikey, is this your pen pal?" Ray asked. Mikey nodded and introduced all of us to Ray. "It's so nice to meet all of you," he said.

"Pete, you were going to ask me something," Mikey said. "What was it?"

"Nothing important," I said. "I'll ask you about it later." I couldn't talk to Mikey about the visions. Gabe was already mad at me for telling Mikey in the first place. I was sure that he didn't want Ray to know too.

"Okay," Mikey said. "Ray, we should do something fun while Brendon, Gabe, and Pete are here."

"There's nothing to do in New Jersey, but maybe we could go for a run or something," Ray suggested.

Mikey groaned and said, "Let's not. I was up late last night arguing with Gerard, and I'm still kind of tired."

"Where is Gerard anyways?" Ray asked.

"I don't know," Mikey said.

That was when Gerard walked into the kitchen, sat down next to Gabe, and started shoveling pancakes into his mouth. "Gerard, I don't love you like I did yesterday," Gabe said to him. "I love you even more."

Gerard rolled his eyes and then said, "Teenagers scare the living shit out of me, and you're no exception." He went back to eating his pancakes, and Mikey and Ray ignored the exchange and went back to talking about their plans for the day.

"We could watch some horror movies," Mikey suggested.

"Yes!" Ray exclaimed. "That's a great idea."

"I like this idea too," I said.

All of us ended up going on a horror movie marathon, and although Gerard would sometimes join us, it was usually just Gabe, Brendon, Mikey, Ray, and I. Gabe was terrified the whole time and kept clinging onto me every time anything even slightly scary happened on screen. "Can we watch a comedy next?" Gabe asked after the third or fourth movie that we watched. "I'm going to be scarred for life if we keep watching stuff like this."

"No way!" Mikey exclaimed as he put on the next movie.

I never got a chance to talk to Mikey about the visions that day, but it didn't matter too much. Brendon never walked Sexy Stranger #5's dogs, whoever Sexy Stranger #5 was anyways, so there was nothing to worry about. As long as I talked to Mikey sooner rather than later, everything would be just fine. We could stop the visions and have a normal vacation, if there was such a thing when I was around Brendon and Gabe.