It hadn't quite settled into Phil's brain yet, even though it definitely happened he just watched a news report on it. One of his best friends since childhood, his girlfriend, the love of his life... disappeared. He wanted to believe that he was stuck in a horribly vivid nightmare that he'd awake from at any moment, but that hope died quickly as he turned to his crying family.

"Phil... this... is... your fault," Lil remarked, heartbroken.

"What?"

"You heard me... This... this is... your... fault." She began to walk towards her brother, exoression beginning to glow with sadness and anger at once.

"Lil, how's this my fault!?" And how could you even... what would give you the-"

"The what, Phillip? The nerve? The same nerve you had dropping off your girl, the one you claim to have love so much, into a dark neighborhood that she's going to make a slightly lengthy walk in? You think common sense would tell you 'maybe it isn't safe to drop 20-year old off, small and completely defensless young girl in the dark.' Why did you even drop her off in the first place? Why didn't you just take her to Dakota's house!?" Tears streamed down Lil's red-with-anger face and her voice began to break.

"Because it... she said that... it was confusing and hard navigating and..." All Phil could do was listen to how moronic he sounded giving these dumb excuses and how ashamed he was for doing what he did at that point. He really did think it was his fault.

"You... you didn't feel like navigating?" she continued to tear up. Phil just looked at her as his eyes began to tear up as well, but that's when she broke. She lunged towards him, letting out an angry scream, and slapped him across the face with everything she had. She hit Phil so hard he was disoriented for a brief period, which gave Lil a chance to pounce on top of him, getting her a few more hits in. Their parents had to pull her off, and literally drag her to her room.

"You bastard! If she's dead, you'll never hear forgiveness from me!" Lil yelled.

"You insane bitch!" Phil yelled back. After he screamed, he heard her door close and he fell to the floor to tears. That's where he was, and what he did for almost twenty minutes, just sitting... crying... staring.

Later on that day, Phil went to see the Finsters, since he had to sooner or later. He knocked on the door, ready to face what's behind it. Chuckie's the one who answered, much to his relief as he didn't wanna start out with contact with Kira and Chaz.

"Chuck... I um... need to-" he started, but was cut off by Chuckie.

"Yeah, I know... come in."

Phil looked into the living room to see Chaz comforting a tear-stained Kira, and he simply looked at him as Phil followed into the room with them. Kira simply pulled away from her tissue and looked at him. She rolled up her tissue and threw it away before looking sternly at him. It was only a matter of seconds before Phil noticed Chuckie and Chaz were doing the same thing.

"All I need... is an explanatin," she told Phil with determination. He just looked back at her for a few seconds, and then looked down at his feet and gave himself a few seconds to think how he was going to word the awful-but-true excuse that he had so it didn't sound so bad. But after a few seconds of thinking, he came to the realization that there was no chance avoiding how bad it was going to sound, and it needed to be said. He looked back up at Kira and she didn't change positions one inch.

"Well, Mrs. Finster.. I can't honestly say to you that... what I'm about to tell you will mak you feel any better, or that it'll change anything, but all I can tell you is this... we were coming back from the movie, and we were pulling into Dakota's neighboorhood..." Phil started, feeling butterflies in his entire body as he prepared to say the next and worst part of his story. "As we came up on it, I noticed that the neighborhood was... really big and.. the roads wew narrow, windy and had a lot of turns. I made a remark about it all... That's when Kimi insisted that she... get out and walk to Dakota's place herself... so... I let her..."

A strike of silence hit the room as Phil finished explaining. Kira had yet to move even an inch. Chuck kept looking at him, but he could tell his emotion was changing.

"You let my daughter... 20, mind you... walk into the darkness of the night... alone... nothing to defend herself with... you just... let her go?" Chaz asked DeVille. Phil felt the tears coming but they were extra strong this time.

"We... have entrused you with the saftey of our daughter EVERY TIME you've taken her out since Junior High. And you, just.. toy with my trust like that? The trust I gave you with my daughter?" Chaz's voice grew louder each word. Kira looked at her husband, and looked back at Phil.

"...Ok," she said.

"...Mrs. Finster?"

"...Okay."

"...I don't under-"

"Okay, I said, OKAY! You mad a mistake, Phil... A bad one, a really bad one. But mistakes happen... but you can't say that when somthing's as irreplacable as Kimi... my daughter... is lost. But you WILL dedicate EVERY HOUR of free time you have af assisting in the search of finding my daughter. I don't care if that consists of you searching in the damn woods! As long as it's something that'll possibly find Kimi."

Kira continued. "We need you to understand one thing. If..." she paused because of the tears and the heavy quivering of her lip. "If my daughter is found... you... you'll no longer date her."

Phil paused for a few seconds before speaking. "But... Mrs. Finster... you don't-"

"It's been decided. We're sorry... but as horrible as it is to say 'if'... IF she's found... well, you have proven to us that you lack the capabilities of properly caring for our daughter... so... you both will no longer be dating, period."

Phil looked at Chuckie, and all he could do was lookat him as the tears rolled down his cheeks. He got up, nodded for Phil to come with him, and began walking toward the door. He out with him, and the boys began walking towards Tommy's down the steet.

"So uh.. you.. mad at me?" Phil asked Chuck, realizing he just asked a seriously dumb question.

"...Phil, it's hard to really think right now." They both just simply kept looking forward to Tommy's. When they got there, Dil answered the door, he looked like he'd just woken up.

"What're you two doing here so early? It's like.. 11. And why the hell do you look like your dog just got ran over or something?" Dil asked them, but neither of them answered his question and just kept walking.

The two guys walked into the living room and saw Didi, who had definetly been crying, while Stu wasn't but was also upset like the rest of them. Tommy just sat silently on the couch and didn't look at anyone.

"What's up? Why's everybody so down? Oh shit, I slept past the game! Did the Packers lose?" Tommy asked, not knowing what'd happened. Dil hastily grabbed the remote and turned the TV on... But what was on the TV answered his question.

'The search continues into this afternoon for Kimi Finster, a young girl who went missing last night at around 11 PM. She was seen by her boyfriend, Phillip DeVille, who was dropping her at a friend's house..." The story continued as Dil looked on with horror and disbelief.

"This... is... this is some kind of joke, right?" he asked, but no one answered him. "Phillip! This is a joke! Come on, 'ol Kimi... she's not..."

Phil looked into his eyes and had about five seconds of eye contact before he really realized it.

"...Dude... did you... did... did you lose Kimi?"

Phil just looked down at the ground in shame.

"Yeah... you lost Kimi."

"...Yeah... I guess I did."