STOP! Before you begin reading this chapter, please open up YouTube. Com and search the song, Terrible Things by MayDay Parade. It will help as you read a long with the chapter. Thank you.

-x-

Eighteen years later..

I was sunk so far into a leather chair, that if I got up I would knock my glass of punch onto the white carpet. I was hiding away in my study, with my high school yearbook in my lap and I was flipping through the class of 2008. With each turn of a page, a faint smile would cross my face as my old classmates faces ran through my memory. When I landed on Sharpay's picture a small smile crossed my face. My eyes floated to the page previous and onto Troy's picture. I continued to flip through the yearbook, landing on some of the people I didn't know and others I did. When I reached the M's I heard a quiet knock on my door.

"Yes?" I answered after I took a long swig of my alcohol fused punch.

"Can I come in?" a muffled voice asked.

"Sure."

I didn't have to look up from the pages to know who came into the room. I could hear the person speaking, but the words were muffled. My eyes glazed over when my eyes roamed to her picture. Even after ten years of not seeing her face, my body still had a strong reaction to her. I felt that I had been kicked in the stomach, hard, and I had lost the ability to breathe.

"Dad?" A small hand was placed onto of mine.

I looked up slowly. My son, who had a curly mop of unruly hair that sat on top of his head; brown eyes like mine and a nose of his mother's stared down at me.

Milo, who was about ten years old, always tried to stick close to me. I tried everything in my power to be close to him, and for 362 days out of the year I really did pay attention to my son; however, when..May would roll around I would..shut my family out. Even though I did it unconsciously and unintentionally, I would begin to shut down.

"Who are you pointing to dad?"

My lips curled into a smile. I guess he was old enough to know, today was her anniversary and I knew that I was a bit tipsy enough to break the wall I had built up.

I held my glass out to my son. "Will you put this on the desk behind you please?" My son took the glass and turned around. "Don't drink any of it or sniff it."

I could tell by the slight hesitation that Milo was about to raise the glass to his nose or take a sip of it. I heard the clink of the glass being set down on the desk and Milo turned back to face me. I patted my lap and Milo, and all seventy pounds of him landed in my lap. Groaning I ruffled my kid's hair.

"When did you get to be so heavy?"

Milo gave me a toothy smile. Milo was a bit..slow to develop due to being a preemie baby, but he did just fine with the other kids. He was..her level of being smart. Sometimes it pained me to look at my son because he reminded me so much of her.

"Well Uncle Bolton says if I want to be big and strong like you, I have to eat good and healthy."

Nodding my head, I'd have to thank Troy and Gabi next time I talked to them for feeding my kid healthy when they had Milo over with his "cousin" Eli.

"Daddy? Who is the girl that looks kind of like mommy that you were pointing to in your book?" Milo asked.

I sighed and opened my yearbook back open. Milo was able to find his auntie Gabi and I flipped back a few pages so he could see his other aunts and uncles. Then with a sigh, I closed the yearbook for a moment.

"Son? You know that I..love your mommy very, very much right?"

Milo nodded his head. "Auntie Gabi, Auntie Sharpay and even Auntie Kelsi say you love mommy so much that your going to give her another daughter." Milo noticed that my face fell and decided to laugh.

"Minus what your aunts say, I love your mom very much. Just like I love you and your sisters." I decided to spin Milo around to face me. "Son, I'm going to tell you something..something that your mommy doesn't know, and that she can never know," Milo took in my words and thought carefully. "You have to promise me, what I'm going to share with you does not leave this room. Can you do it?"

It was in that moment that Milo's face gave an expression that she'd give off when she was really trying to decide on. Sometimes I was so sure that Milo was part of her, and she decided to gift wrap him to me through another woman.

"Okay daddy. I promise."

I stuck out my pinkie and Milo wrapped his pinkie around mine and we gently squeezed pinkies. After Milo and I released pinkies I had a quick moment of doubt and thought that maybe I shouldn't tell my kid the truth. Make up some lame gift idea to give his mom on her birthday in a few months, but I knew..my son could handle it. After setting Milo straight back on my lap, I opened back up my yearbook and flipped back to the page that held Gabi on it. My finger landed on a girl.

"This girl, son, she was one of my best friends."

Milo didn't believe that. "I thought Uncle Troy was your bestest, best friend of all time?"

I couldn't help but smile. "He is. He's my bestest, best guy best friend," I pointed back to the girl. "This girl though, she was my bestest, best girl friend."

Milo looked over the name and read it out loud. "Taylor Ann McKessie?"

I tried not to come apart. I nodded my head.

"Did mommy know her too? All my Aunties and Uncles?"

"Your mommy didn't know her, your Auntie Sharpay, Gabi, and Kelsi know her and their husbands knew her too."

"Knew her?"

I had to sniffle because I could feel my eyes were beginning to water. I had to take a breath because I knew I starting to lose it.

"She died my senior year in high school buddy."

Milo seemed to take that moment and place his ten year old hands on my cheeks. Milo placed his forehead on mine and just sat there.

"It's okay to cry daddy." Milo whispered, Milo hadn't even said that it was okay to cry because silent tears had already began to make their way down my face. Milo kept his eyes closed and his forehead pressed against mine for a few minutes. A few seconds later I felt Milo wiping away my tears.

I whispered a thanks to Milo before I somewhat composed myself.

"You're probably wondering why daddy is crying over a girl right?"

Milo surprised me. He shook his head. "No daddy, I don't wonder. I think I understand why. This..Taylor lady was important to you, like how important my chemistry set is to me."

I couldn't help but laugh. I nodded. "Something like that."

I wrapped my arms around Milo for a moment. "You know how Mommy and I always tell you that if something was to ever happen to us that we want you and your sisters to know that we love you all so very much?"

Milo nodded his head.

"Well..when we say this we know that you, being the oldest, tends to think about life without your parents," I looked at Milo. "What do you usually feel when you think about something like that Milo?"

Milo leaned into me. "I feel like I want to cry for the rest of my life, and that I'll have this pain in my chest like area and I'll be sad all the time."

I nodded my head and opened back up the yearbook, and back to Taylor's picture. "That's how I feel about Taylor," Thinking about how that came out, I began to retract my words. "I mean, I would feel the exact same way about your mom, but-"

"No no Daddy, I understand what your trying to say." Milo chirped.

I sat back for a moment. I could tell my son was about to say something deep and it was best to just let him say what he was connecting to.

"This..Taylor lady is what Auntie Gabi calls a first love right?"

I nodded my head and looked at Milo. "How do you know what a first love is?"

"Auntie Gabi is always talking about her show and how Raul and Evlyn are each other's first loves."

Leave it to my son to remember something about a soap opera to relate it to love. I smiled at nodded at Milo.

"Yes, she was my first love son. Although..I never told her that I love her before she died. I was going to..but, life had a different agenda for her."

Milo took in this information and didn't say anything for a few moments. "Is this why in the month of May, you tuck yourself away from everyone?"

I didn't want to admit it, but Milo was right. I always shut everyone out around the time of..Taylor's death. I nodded my head. My son had picked up my anti-social ways too. I sighed, maybe this was the alcohol talking or maybe it was my hurt, but when I looked at my son and realized that I had to warn him.

"Son. You know that love is a great thing, but at the same time it can..hurt. If I lost you, or your sisters my life would not be the same. You and your sisters bring so much joy into my life. So does your grandma, grandpa and your Aunts and Uncles."

"But..when you get older, you'll fall in love. And..I advise that you..don't fall too hard. It won't make sense to you now, but when your older you'll understand."

Milo took in what I said and after a long pregnant pause, he nodded his head. I patted my son's knee, just as my wife called through the closed door that it was time to wash up for dinner. Milo and I exchanged a look and I put my finger up to my lips. Milo nodded his head and slipped off of my lap. I told Milo to go and get washed up and to let his mother know that I would be up shortly. Milo nodded his head and turned to walk towards my study door. Milo had opened the door, and was about to walk through the open door; but not before turning around to face me.

"Daddy? Have you thought about maybe visiting Taylor's grave? She might be waiting to tell you goodbye as well." With that Milo walked through the door and closed it quietly behind him.

Staring after Milo, I couldn't help but stand up. Milo somehow knew that I needed more closure. I reached over and grabbed my mixed drink and looked at the glass. I always drank punch on the eve of her death to signify that she would never again get to drink the punch that I brought her. The punch always burned going down my throat and I would be completely shit-faced, throwing up tomorrow while my family was at work and school, but the punch always had a way of getting me drunk enough to not think about her. I chugged the rest of the drink before following behind the same way that my son left a few moments prior.

-x-x-

I woke up with an amivity barbell on my head, and bright sunlight on my face. I had just groaned before I was up on my feet running to the bathroom. My puke barely made it into the bowl. After flushing down my dinner from last night, and getting a whiff of the alcohol as it swam around the bowl, the phone rang. I was on my feet and hand the receiver in my hand.

"Danforth residence." I spoke.

"Hit it a little to hard last night huh tiger?"

I groaned into the phone and flopped back onto the bed. How Gabi always knew when I had been drinking, I never knew.

"It's that time already isn't it?" Gabi questioned.

Gabi was never one to beat around the bush. After Gabi got out the questions about the baby on the way, her nieces and Milo, she was onto business.

"I guess so." I mumbled.

Gabi paused. "Milo told me last weekend that he wanted to drink punch because you had bought a lot of it."

My conversation with Milo came back. Was I wrong for telling my ten year old kid about how love sucks and to never love a girl, boy or whomever he wanted to love?

"We're all getting together tonight at the hill to release paper lanterns for her."

"We are?" I questioned.

"We are now. Monique already said she'd watch the kids tonight. I told her we needed to go out to dinner, just us Wildcats and celebrate Troy's team winning Friday night."

Good old Gabs.

"Troy and I'll pick you up at 6:30. Be ready to go Wildcat." Gabi hung up after that.

I started at the dead phone and realized that I had some great friends.

-x - -x - - x-

I held my purple lantern in my hand. We had lit the candles inside a few moments ago and we were going to let them free soon. Gabi walked forward with hers in hand. Troy, Sharpay, Kelsi, Zeke, Jason, Ryan, Violet and myself stood on top of a grassy hill. We had drove to Lava Springs and we all stood on the same hill that we had back, sophomore summer, that we would all have each other's backs.

"Taylor, we all stand here, eighteen years later to send our love to you. We know wherever you are, you're watching over all of us and keeping us out of trouble. Never once do you leave our thoughts and we love you all so much." Gabi said as she let her lantern go.

Everyone murmured something similar before letting their lanterns go. No one looked in my direction and began to walk off towards the country club. Everyone patted my shoulder though on the way passed me. Gabi did stop though with Troy's hand intertwined with hers.

"Take as much time as you need. There is no rush, come find us when your ready."

Gabi kissed my cheek, and Troy patted my shoulder. As I watched their retreating frames, I turned around. I sighed and tried to think of what I was going to say. Here goes nothing.

"Taylor Ann McKessie. My best friend, my shoulder to cry on and..the love of my life. You didn't know it, but I did. I can't say how much I wish I told you sooner, but I feel that wherever you are you can feel how much I'm still in love with you. I know you had a small hand in creating my son Milo, you even already know that Devann, is a small part of your name. The Ann part obviously."

I couldn't help but smile at Milo's middle name. Monique loved how adamant I was about his middle name being spelled that way. I lifted my lantern to the sky.

"Let this be the kiss that I never got to give you, let this also be the regret that I have for not getting to you and Star sooner. I'm so sorry Taylor."

I sighed, kissed the paper and let the lantern float into the sky. I knew that the hurt I always felt around this time would never go away, but I knew that every year I would be coming back to Lava Springs to send off my love to Taylor until my last breath. Turning on my heel, I walked towards the country club and joined my friends.

-x-x-x-x-

I guess..I killed Taylor off. Oh well. I'm horrible. I know. So I made an error, when I said that we only had two more chapters left; I got carried away. We are going to go to 40 chapters, so once this is uploaded it will be two chapters away. Sorry about that error. Most of you are probably hating me right now, but I promise like Chad said, I'm so sorry guise. Till the next chapter! If you missed my directions at the top of the chapter, please please, I beg you to go to YouTube and listen to MayDay Parade's song, Terrible Things. That song is what made this chapter, and it totally fits. Leave an angry review, leave a sad one, just leave a review it might make Taylor come back.