“Taylor! What are you doing here?!” I ran and flung my arms around him.
“Well I’d ask you the same thing but it’s pretty self explanatory.” He said laughing returning the hug. We let go and just looked at each other not knowing what to say. I was speechless.
“God, I missed you.” He said.
“Haha I missed you too! You look great!” I said standing back and taking a good look at him. He wore a pair of baggy khakis shorts and a green Alien workshop T-shirt. His hair hung well below his shoulders, maybe 2 or 3 inches. His face had the same delicate features. Still the Taylor I remembered but this one was a grown man, not the teenage heartthrob Taylor. His shoulders were more brood and arms muscular.
“Thanks, but wow..look at you! You don’t hardly look the same. I had a double-take to make sure it was you before I said anything.” Tay said laughing. “So how you been??”
“I’m all right. How about you?” I asked.
“Fine, fine. You have some explaining to do though.” He said looking at me becoming suddenly serious. I knew what he meant. The tour.
“I- I’m sorry Tay.” I stuttered. I had so much explaining to do but I know none of my reasons were fairly good enough. “Katie and I couldn’t make it to any of your local appearances.”
“I thought we would see you guys again for sure.” Tay said looking down. I motioned him over to the picnic table to sit. He started talking again once we were seated.
“The three times we came to Ohio we were looking for you everywhere. We asked around backstage to see if your Moe cards were presented yet. We even told my Uncle John who was in charge of Moe to select your guys names for backstage passes.” Taylor said confused.
“I know, I’m sorry.”I said interupting, it didn’t reister what he said. “What? you picked us to have backstage passes??” I said looking up at him suprised.
“Yeah, you mean you didn’t see them?” He asked.
“No..I mean..no. It’s a long story. I wanted Taylor to understand how bad Katie and I had felt. “It’s such a long story.” I said shaking my head and finding the tiny colored pieces of wood embedded into the table suddenly amusing.
“We can talk about that later. Why did you pick Florida??” He asked his eyes suddenly bright and sparkling.
“Well they had everything I wanted to major in and just different reasons.” I said thinking about how bad I wanted to get as far away from home as humanly possible.
“Where’s Katie?! I thought for sure you two would go to college together!”
“Yeah that’s what we planned, but all the colleges we applied for together didn’t except us both. Indiana, Illinois, UCLA, and Washington, they either excepted one of us and not the other or didn’t except us at all. South Carolina excepted her and not me, then Florida excepted Me and not her. So we went with it. That was the closest we could get to each other... It was just crazy..” I trained off. I hated to bring this up. I missed Katie so bad. We’ve NEVER been apart this long and every day that went by was more and more agonizing.
“Oh. I’m sorry. But hey! look how it turned out for me.” Taylor looked at me with that shy sort of grin...that grin where you could see his front teeth, where he doesn’t show off every tooth. I had to giggle.
“What?” He asked with a weird expression on his face.
“Some things just never change about you boy!” I said giving him a light shove on his arm.
“So how’s she doing? Katie I mean? God! we should have kept in touch! That’s one thing I’ve always regretted.” He said sitting back where the end of the picnic table touched a tree that shaded us from the hot Florida sun then crossing his arms over his chest.
“She’s doing all right I guess. Taylor! she’s ganna shit a brick when she finds out about this! haha.” I said trying to figure out how I was going to break it to her that Tay was going to my college.
“Oh god..your right. haha But don't tell her just yet. We'll suprise her or something!” He said laughing.
“Katie was so upset when she found out we couldn’t make it to the Cleveland appearance. My sister was in the hospital. She had gotten into a car accident 2 days prior to the concert. Taylor, we wanted to make it up there so bad.
“What about Toleto and Pittsburgh??” Taylor said with a non-understanding tone. He leaned forward to hear me clearer over the voices of other students walking by our table.
“I don’t know. We didn’t hear about those concerts till almost 3 days before. And by then the tickets were sold out. Oh and we never got our renewal for Moe that we ordered..so that’s how we never saw our names!” I said.
“Are you serious?? You never received it! Why didn’t you e-mail us! we gave you our address...” He said. “...And why did you stop responding to my e-mails?”
“That’s another long story.” I said with an innocently look on my face. Someone had broken into my hotmail account near the beginning of the summer. I tried to e-mail Taylor from my other account but I was blocked.
“ SHIT!” Taylor said looking at his watch. “We’re going to have to talk later.
Right now we gatta get to class.”
“OHGOD! Your right! I forgot about class.” I said jumping up and grabbing my book bag. Taylor followed suit.
“What do you have right now?” He asked curious. I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out my crumpled schedule.
“Economic Studies-Course One.” I read out loud.
“Oh. I have Biology 8.” Taylor said disappointed.
“Okay well..um, I guess I’ll talk to you later then? We have A LOT of catching up to do still.” I said reaching for his hand and giving it a light squeeze.
“Yeah... your right. See ya later.”
We both parted our own ways to each of our classes.
“Hey Abby?” I turned at the sound of Taylor calling me.
“Yeah?”
“I’ll meet you outside your class in 2 hours, all right? Then we’ll go do something.” He said smiling then turned and disappeared around the corner of the college library.
“Yeah..2 hours..” I whispered to no one in particular.

After class Taylor was standing there leaning up against the brick outdoor hallway just like he said he would.
I approached him and he grabbed my hand.
“I still can’t believe your here. This is crazy.” I said, still in awe that Taylor was going to my college. “You have a lot to tell me hun.” I smiled and gave him another hug.
“I know I know.” He said laughing.

“So where do you live? Dorms?” Tay asked, as we walked across the huge stretch of green lawn that was in the center of campus. It was nearing 4:00
so the campus had calmed down a bit. Students mingled here and there. Some sprawled out in the grass reading, or against a tree. The day was fairly hot. Around 80 degrees. I loved Florida weather. Ohio was always so chilly this time of year. I should have been in shorts. I was burning up. These damn silver tab jeans weren’t helping. The tank-top I had on felt good though.
“Actually no, I got an apartment. Over on Walnut Hill Ave. You know where that is?” I asked looking over at Tay as we trudged along the moist grass. I had my sandals in my hand so I was walking barefoot.
“Are you serious! So do I. I live about five minutes from there. Maybe a little more. On West 53rd.” He said suprised.
“Oh! that’s awesome! I know where that is. I said, recalling the drive down 53rd to get to my Apartment. It was more like a strip of mall and plazas along the road. We approached the parking lot where my car sat.
“Hey, would you like to go out tonight and do something?” Taylor asked.
“That would be fun.” I said nodding my head in agreement.
“Great! Is this your car?” He said pointing to my purple eclipse.
“Yup that’s me.” I said pulling my book bag off my shoulders and grabbing my keys out of the side pocket.
“Wow. I like it! That’s me over there.” Tay said pointing to the Forrest green Wrangler 2 rows down.
“Oh! A wrangler boy..aren’t we tough now.” I said laughing.
“Hey! I happen to like 'Lucy' so be quiet.” He said in a hurtful voice but at the same time we both busted up laughing.
“LUCY!!!” I choked out. “You named your jeep after one of your old songs!”
“Well, yeah. Got a problem??” He said sobering up a little. “As I recall..You liked that song. So that’s kind of why I named her that.” He said. “In memory of you..my #1 fan.” Tay looked at me with a sweet smile.
“Oh. That’s so sweet..” I said trying to stifle my giggles. But failed miserably when I busted out again.
“Okay forget it!” Tay said laughing along with me.
“Sorry...Sorry..I’ll stop now.” I leaned against my car. “So who’s apartment do you want to meet at?” I asked, changing the subject.
“How about I’ll pick you up at 7:00. What apartment’s do you live in?” He asked, shifting his backpack on his shoulders.
“That sounds good. Greenhill Apt’s. Room A8.” I said opening my door and getting in.
“Okay I’ll pick you up then.” He said smiling. I got back out of my car and gave him another hug.
“It’s so good to see you again.” I said, looking him in the eyes.
“Yeah you too.” He said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. I squeezed his hand as we parted and he started walking away.
“See ya soon.” I said.
“Later.” He replied. I watched him walk over to his jeep and get in. He looked so good. I can’t believe I lost contact with them for so long. How stupid could I be. It
was so clear that we were such good friends. Even if we only saw each other maybe once a month. With that thought I got back into my car and pulled out of the parking behind Taylor. He gave me a slight wave and turned the opposite direction.