All The Same

Chapter 1

Five years later

"I am so proud of you pipsqueak, tomorrow you will be graduating with honors and then come fall you will be going to a top level Law School." Jon is beaming as Arya is face timing him.

"Thanks Jon! It's crazy thinking tomorrow I graduate and then I will be home all summer to bug you guys, This is the first summer I am not taking any classes and I plan on just lounging around relaxing and I plan on enjoying it."

"Yeah, well when you want to double major in Women's Studies and Criminal Justice and then minor in psych you don't have a lot of free time." Jon chuckles while he pats his dog, Ghost, on the head. "Listen I know I probably shouldn't say this but I saw Gendry Waters last week, and he asked about you and I might have let it slip that you are graduating tomorrow and that mom and dad are having a party."

Arya let the information process and composed herself so she wouldn't show any more emotion than she needed to. "Oh really? Where did you see him?" Arya said as nonchalantly as she could manage, and if it was any of her other siblings, she thinks they might have bought her act, but Jon knew Arya too well.

"Are you seroiusly thinking I will just breeze past the fact the last time you saw the guy he made you cry, and I haven't seen you cry since. Because if you think that is going to work, you are seriously insane."

"I was hoping that would be the case." Arya gave Jon a weak smile, hoping the subject of her crying over Gendry would end right there, but Arya knew it wouldn't."

Jon sighed before he answered his sister. "I saw him at that coffee shop that you kept telling me to check out, because of how great it was."

"And, was it not the best ever?!" Arya tries to change the conversation, and hopes that he will bite.

"It was, but I can't bring myself to spend that much on coffee on a regular basis, I am too cheap." Jon chuckled, then a serious look appeared on his face again. "Just so you know, I think it pained him to ask about you because he not only hurt you that day, but it hurt him too. You were one of the best things to happen to him, even if you try to deny it."

Arya felt the sting in her eyes, she was only thirty-seconds from the first tear escaping, and she also knew that once she started crying two things would happen... first was that Jon would feel horrible about it and insist on visiting her right away, and second was that if she started crying she would soon be sobbing, and she had a coffee session planned with Sansa. "Listen Jon, I know you love me, and he was one of your closest friends but he was the one that decided to leave, I asked him to stay, and you know that. Please can we not discuss him anymore? I am supposed to be meeting Sansa for coffee in five minutes and I should have left a couple minutes ago. So I love you and all, but I've gotta go." Arya hit the red button to end the call before he could say anything else.

Arya took a quick glance at the mirror she had next to her door in her apartment, to make sure her eyes didn't give away the fact she was close to crying from remembering her first childhood crush who happened to also be her best friend other than Jon. She was not like her sister, Sansa, who either had a boyfriend or there was a guy wanting to fill the role. Arya was a tomboy through and through, she would rather be out playing a sport with the boys that lived near her, or trying to improve her martial arts skills. She never cared what a boy thought of her until Gendry went away for the summer before Arya started her sophomore year of high school and came back it was like there was a new awareness that Arya had around him. She never told any one of her feelings towards Gendry, although she thinks her family knew about them no one ever mentioned it.

By the time Arya made it to the coffee shop that her and Sansa agreed to meet at; she knew that her eyes no longer showed the tears that almost escaped. Sansa was at a table outside the coffee shop with a coffee cup in hand and her phone in the other. Sansa stood to give her a quick hug.

"Hey, sorry I am a few minutes late, Jon face timed me right before I walked out the door."

"No worries, I just got here two minutes ago. I would have ordered for you, but heaven forbid I order the wrong thing for you."

Arya chuckled because she knew that probably would have been the case. "Thats fine, I am just going to head in and get something real quick, and possibly a cookie or something. Do you want anything? And just so you know I am not going to share."

"No thanks, I have a lunch date in about an hour anyway and I want to enjoy the food at the restaurant."

"Okay sounds good, I'll be right back. Then you can tell me all about this lunch date."Arya wiggled her eyebrows at her sister before she stepped into the cafe.

After Arya returned Sansa told her about her lunch date, he was a guy Sansa met at college, but lost contact with him and reconnected online. They also discussed Arya graduating and being back home, and the fact Arya hasn't even started to pack up her apartment and she had to be out within two weeks.

Arya thought that she would make it out of her coffee outing with her sister without Gendry being mentioned when Sansa dropped the bomb. "You know we could ask Jon if he could come help pack up your apartment and maybe bring a certain friend along."

"I know which friend you are talking about and the answer is no. Jon mentioned bumping into him the other day. I am not interested in speaking to, seeing, or hearing Gendry Waters ever again."

"Alright then, I will not bring he who shall not be named up again, I swear it. But, if you do need help you know we are going to be there for you. I will see you tomorrow. Love you!"

"Thanks Sansa, I love you too." The sisters shared a quick hug, before going their separate ways.

Sansa stopped and yelled over her shoulder at her sister, "Arya, please wear a dress under your gown tomorrow and do something with your hair. Same goes for your party that mom and dad are having this weekend!"

Arya chuckled at her sister. "I will see what I can do."