"Hi, is Johnny in?" Taylor asked as he tied his shoelaces.

'He's not here.'

He smiled, "Well, this is Taylor. Do you know where is?"

'Taylor, he's gone.'

His face scrunched up in thought and confusion. Johnny's mom was crying? "He's not there?" He asked slowly. "Where'd he go?"

'He's just... not here.'

"Okay," He murmured quietly. "Bye."

It took him ten minutes to skateboard to Johnny's house. And the sight made him stumble. Jace was being arrested and helped into a squad car while his parents were standing in their front doorway, arms wrapped around each other, and tears falling freely.

He ran up to them, "Where's Johnny?" He asked quickly, his eyes scanning around him. "Johnny!" He shouted into the house.

The painful twist his mother suffered scared him. "Johnny!" He croaked.

Mr. Mathews gave him a solemn look, "Johnny's dead, Taylor."

He a scream tore from his throat. "No!"

Taylor stalked towards Jace Mathews, an angry fury building inside of him. “He would have done anything for you!” He shouted harshly.

Jace only stared at him with wide frantic eyes. “It wasn’t my fault!” He defended.

Ignoring his statement Taylor grabbed Jace by his hair and dragged him closer. Oblivious to the on-lookers, “Look!” He yelled roughly.

But Jace wouldn’t. He closed his eyes and swallowed the large lump of nausea in his throat.

“Look, damnit!” Taylor shrieked wildly. He started to shake him and tightened his grip on his hair.

The biting pain was too much for Jace. He opened his eyes and looked down.

“See what you did to him?!” He screamed. “He loved you. And yet your love killed him!” Taylor started to tremble violently. “You loved your precious drugs so much, that you didn’t even think that he wouldn’t have been able to handle it!”

Jace tried to back away, but only succeeded in feeling his hair getting ripped out of his head. “I’m sorry, Tay!” He shouted back, crying unabashedly.

“Sorry?!” Taylor cried. “You’re sorry?!” He asked. “I bet Johnny’s sorry too, Jace!” He shouted back.

After that Taylor threw Jace away from him. He looked down at the tiny coffin. The person that was lying inside was not Johnny. Johnny was tan, not pale. His eyes were always opened, not close. He was always smiling, now his lips were in a small line. The dimples weren’t even showing in his cheeks. His hair was too perfect, not messed up like he always had it.

He started to back away. Scared.

Jace watched as Taylor ran away. He looked over at his family members and Taylor’s as well. Amy, his girlfriend, wouldn’t go near him. And Jamie, Johnny’s girlfriend, wouldn’t even admit that he was a live. But the families were all staring at him. Curious as to why such a scene had happened. Katie, his sister especially wouldn’t go near him. She blamed him, and he accepted that blame.

After a few seconds, he looked down at his brother’s lifeless body. He didn’t know why people thought that death could be a beautiful thing. Because when he saw his brother, he saw how uncommonly still he lay, and how differently he actually looked.

Nothing was beautiful about this death. Nothing was. The flowers were too heavily perfumed. The mourners didn’t offer any words of comfort. No one had said anything besides him and Taylor.

He was kneeling now. Watching as the coffin lid was brought down and closed. Watched as it was laid low in the ground. Watched as people began to walk away. Watched as two men came up and started to shovel dirt over his brother.

He thought back a few days. Wondering exactly how this all happened. Already rumors were passed around school. Drugs, Cancer, Aids, and even suicide were mentioned.

But it actually was drugs that got his brother. And it nearly got him too.

His parents had been fighting when he started dealing the first. But once his parents divorced, he started taking them too. Angry as hell at the world and his parents.

He was so wrapped up in his own misery that he rarely noticed his little twelve year old brother’s misery.

He just wanted to end his own pain. And so Johnny took after him. Always trying to be like his older bro. He took the drugs, not knowing how much to take. He took too much, and over dosed, stopping his heart almost immediately.

Jace got up and walked away then. His own love of his drugs took away the one thing that really mattered in his life. His brother Johnny.

He took away Taylor’s best friend, his mom and dad’s son, Katie’s brother, and Jamie’s boyfriend.

Jace had tortured himself for two days over his brother’s death. Trying to prove to everyone that he was okay. Even going to school for one day to face them all. But once he got home he couldn’t take it. So he wrote a letter to Taylor. Apologizing and begging for forgiveness.

Taylor,

I know that I have taken away your friend, believe me I know that I have. I tried to prove to everyone that I was going to be okay. That I was okay. But I’m not. I can’t help but miss Johnny, and I can’t forget what I’ve done.

I went to school the other day, and everytime I walked by a hush fell over everyone, and once they thought I was out of earshot they started whispering. I'm a damn walking conversation stopper now.

Amy and Jamie have been worse lately. And Katie doesn’t even talk anymore. At least not to me, and not of what I've seen. She looks so sick and lost, Taylor. Help her.

I just wanted to say that I was sorry about what I did to you. About what I had did to Johnny, Katie, Jamie, Amy, and my family. I know none of you deserved what you have gotten. But I think I’ve found the remedy to it, to it all.

I know that you cannot forgive and forget what I have done, and I can’t even ask you to let it go. All I can say is that I’m sorry. And even I know that that isn’t enough, and that it means nothing.

If you believe anything I say Taylor, know this, I loved Johnny more than anything in this world. More than my own life, and I would have killed and died for him. And I’m more than sorry that he died because of me.

Taylor got that letter early the next day. He was stunned into silence. He refused to speak for two days straight. The emotions to raw and harsh to deal with.

Emotions and ideas and thoughts flooded his mind, and jumbled haphazardly. Confusing him more than what he already was.

It was almost a year later when he was on a bus with his family to Los Angeles, California, him and his brothers finally got the record deal that they had been waiting for.

He remembered conversations he had with Johnny. Telling him all about his dreams of singing for thousands of people. Johnny had encouraged him even more. Setting up a whole scene that he could picture so clearly in his mind.

Once he had sat down in the recording studio for the first time, he had a good idea for a song and written a few of the lyrics out. He didn’t think much about it, and put it away to work on later. After about a month of recording they started talking about some other song ideas and Taylor gave it to them then.

Isaac and Zac were skeptical but one of the writers that was there and helping them out, helped out with this song. They started 'Project Johnny’ together.

He wrote to Amy, Jamie, and Katie all of the time still. Keeping up with them, and making sure that they were doing all right. One day when he was expecting a letter from them when he got a package instead. Inside was the yearbook for school year 1995.

Johnny’s and Jace’s pictures weren’t in there. Taylor had signed the book for them. Using what he had hoped would send a message to his friends.

In the end, the song became ‘Yearbook.’

As an additive, Taylor put his voice in the background asking himself Could I, could I have done something?