“Tim, I’m so worried she’s going to find out,” Joey rubbed her temples as she thought about Alex’s outburst the other night about not knowing who her father was.

“Jo, you need to tell her. She’s your daughter and she deserves to know the other half of her family. I talk to Diana and Walker all the time and they love you and they want to see their granddaughter,” Tim told her softly as to not sound condescending.

“It’s so hard, though. I don’t want her to think that she’s different because her father was the famous Taylor Hanson. I don’t want other kids to treat her different because her mother was the only one that survived the accident that killed Hanson.”

“That’s not what she’ll think, Jo, and you know that. Alex is a good kid, and she just wants to know her background. She has a right, Joey. You’re making her feel more alienated by not letting her know about her father than if you would tell her about him. It’s gonna hurt like hell, I know, but it will save so much pain than if Alex found out from somewhere else.”

“Hell, you’re always right. I guess I knew this was going to happen sometime, I just hoped it wouldn’t be now. She’s old enough to handle it, I guess. I’ll tell her, but I want you here,” Joey requested. Tim had always been her moral support. Ever since right after the accident, he’d been there for her every step of the way. He’d been there for her for the past 15 years and there wasn’t any way that Joey could ever forget that. She loved him more than any other person living besides Alex. For some reason, they’d never thought about becoming involved romantically, though, and it seemed better that way. Even though Joey dated, she just never felt right about it. Like she was somehow betraying the perfect love she seemed to have shared with Taylor as a teenager. She knew that it was love, but unfortunately she’d never be able to secure that fact by spending forever with him.

“When do you want to do it?” Tim asked gingerly.

“How about a week from today. That’ll give me a little while to think about what I’m going to say. God, this is going to be hard,” she sighed, exhausted from the conversation. “Tim, I’ll call you later. I think I’m just going to go to take a nap before Alex gets home from school.

“Okay. Take care of yourself, Joey.”

“I will, Tim. Love ya.”

“I love you, too, Joey.”

Joey hung up the phone and put her hands up to her head and laid back on the couch she had been sitting on. How was she going to tell her daughter that her father was the infamous Taylor Hanson?

“...and then I just left.” Payton finished. She was sitting in Alex’s room after school on Friday talking about what had happened with her and Matt.

“I’m so sorry, Payton. That must have been awful,” Alex hugged Payton sympathetically.

“I guess it’s kind of okay now. I figure that I’m really better off if I learn how to be alone,” Payton shrugged it off. She searched for something else to talk about. “Oh! I was going through my mom’s stuff the other day, and I found this old CD. It’s got some really fine guys on the cover. Mom said it belonged to Aunt Carol. I was listening to it the other day, and it’s a lot different than the rest of the 90’s crap; it’s actually good.”

“Middle of Nowhere? Kind of a strange name. We’ll have to use the stereo system in the living room. Mine only uses High-speed CDs instead of the old ones,” Alex got up and led Payton to the large CD player in the living room. Payton sat down on the floor while Alex inserted the CD and pressed play. “What number?”

“Two. It was supposedly their big hit,” Payton instructed. Alex obeyed and then took a seat beside Payton as the song began to play. Pretty soon, both teenagers were enthralled by the upbeat song. The volume soon got turned up and both teenagers were dancing to the beat. Suddenly, Joey came tearing into the room.

“Hey Mom! Listen to this CD! It’s awesome!” Alex grabbed mother’s hands to spin her around.

“Where did you get this?” Joey demanded, pulling away from Alex. “Joey’s Mom found it,” she responded, confused by her mother’s reaction.

“Oh...thank goodness,” Joey sighed and quickly exited the room.

Joey laid in her bed listening to the CD through the door of her room. Alex and Payton fully intended to play all of it, and Joey was glad. It had been ages since she had heard the three familiar voices. After “Madeleine” ended, Joey sighed and thought about the summer that the CD came out. Soon after, she heard “With You In Your Dreams” begin. Joey didn’t allow the tears to form, but instead just listened to the song silently. It now had so much meaning--so much pain behind the words had formed since the last time she had listened to it. She quickly shut the bedroom door and ran to the bathroom and shut that door, too, in an attempt to shut out the words that threatened to wrench every emotion from her body. Love, hate, pain, and regret felt heavy in her chest like someone was suffocating her. But there was one emotion that seemed to penetrate through and prove its presence her eyes--Fear.

After Payton left Alex went into her room and locked the door. She immediately ran over where she had placed the box and opened it. Her eyes lit up as she saw numorous photos and miscellaneous objects with the group that was on the cover of the c.d. they had listened to earlier. Hanson was the name. She pulled out a ton of things, including personal pictures, letters, c.d.’s and some paper articles.

“Whoa, dude, my mom was friends with some famous people.” She noted from all the pictures and everything, she picked up the articles. “Hanson in fatal car crash; Two plus Hanson in car crash; Car crash that killed 4, 1 surviver; Hanson crash: 4 fatalities, 1 alive” She read aloud. There were many more news articles, but she picked one to read in depth. “Just a few days ago a car crash happened that could change the lives of many. Hanson, as in Isaac, Taylor and Zac, the pop rockers of 97, died at different times. The press was not notified until all three deaths confirmed. Two other girls were involved, one, Kathryn Samantha Thomas, died as well. The only surviver of the car accident was one that wanted to remain nameless, was the 15 year old and was the girlfriend of Taylor Hanson...” The article was long and this was sad to read for Alex. She wondered if any released the name of the survivor. She checked some more articles. She checked about ten, then she was about to quit when a Star magazine, she guessed a hoax paper, caught her attention. “Hanson dies in crash with 2 girls.” Silently, she read the article. Aloud she read, “The only surviver was Josephina Meredith Baldwin the 15 year old girlfriend of Taylor Hanson.” She put the article down. “Gosh, my mom’s name is Josephina Meredith, that’s weird.” She thought about it for a bit, that was an awfully strange name to see twice, but it could happen. “Wait a second,” She put it all together, “mom said my dad’s name was Taylor, and he and his brothers and her best friend died in a car crash! THATS MY DAD!” Alex didn’t know what to do, she wanted to go scream at her mother and ask her why she hadn’t told her anything, she wanted to cry, she wanted to shout and dance around, she wanted to do so many things, but only decided on one. “I’VE GOT TO TELL PAYTON!”

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