So I doubt anyone remembers me, but if you do you're probably thinking that I suck, and you're absolutely right. I posted one oneshot on here and then kind of disappeared for months. I don't have an excuse, except major writer's block and being busy and everything. I've started a ton of stories but never managed to finish any...well, except now. This is so crappy I almost didn't post it, but I was so excited to finally finish something and I figured I really owe you guys something anyway. My Wedding Bells oneshot got TWENTY-FIVE reviews. Twenty-five! My first story ever! That's just, like, ridiculous and I know it must have been a fluke or something but it's seriously really amazing and I'm so thankful to everyone who reviewed or even just read it. Everyone was so nice and then I had such writer's block I couldn't write anything else for you and I felt and still feel really awful and I'm sorry. Really sorry. But this AN is getting too long so I guess I'll let you read this now.
The title and the lyrics at the end are from Find You There by We The Kings. It inspired this story and was playing on repeat as I wrote it.
He still dreams about her.
He figures it's probably kind of creepy that he does, and he tells himself that if he had any way to control his dreams he would put a stop to it, but deep down he knows he wouldn't because those dreams are all he has left and to lose them would likely be too much for his bruised and battered heart to handle.
They're lovely dreams, too. He always wakes up to a feeling of pure happiness and peace after he dreams about her. It only lasts about two seconds before he remembers everything and then his heart breaks all over again, but it's worth it. Sometimes he thinks those two seconds of joy are the only things keeping him going every day.
She looks different in his dreams. Her eyes are that same deep, pale blue he'd fallen in love with, but there's always something in them that's not there in real life anymore. He's not entirely sure what it is, but he thinks it might be happiness. Not that he thinks she's unhappy in real life, because he doesn't think that no matter how much part of him kind of wants to, but the look of happiness she'd given him when they were together was always...different than the one she gave to anybody else. Just something special reserved just for him, and he'd always been able to see it when he looked into her eyes. Just a little...spark. Like the one his mom would always get when his dad got home from work, or the one Kevin gets when he talks about Dani. His worst, most gut-wrenching nightmares involve her looking at someone else with that spark in her eye, knowing it's just for them.
He's glad that in his dreams, it's still his.
Another different thing is that in his dreams she always has long hair, and that's the way he likes her best. It's not that he particularly dislikes her hair short, because he doesn't – she could dye it neon pink or shave it bald and she'd still be the most beautiful girl in the world –it's just that back when she was his, her hair was long. And the Miley that was his was, of course, his very favorite version of her.
So that's how she looks. Happy, sparkly eyes and long, wavy brown hair and a big bright smile just because she's happy to be with him. She laughs a lot in his dreams, and it's still the most beautiful sound he's ever heard. He wishes he could bottle up her laughter and keep it in his pocket and just listen to it whenever he has a bad day, which has been most days lately. Her laughter had always made everything better. She had always made everything better.
He misses her.
He misses her so fucking much. He always feels it, but it's not often that he allows himself to say it or even think it. He's not supposed to still miss her. He's not supposed to still be in love with her. He's supposed to be over it, to be moving on.
It's not supposed to still hurt so goddamn bad.
He's so tired. He's tired of missing her, he's tired of being alone. He's tired of waking up every morning without the girl he loves in his arms. He's tired of her being with someone else when he knows, he knows, they're supposed to be together. He's been tired of it all for so, so long.
And he guesses it's about time he did something about it.
He's always thought that if he could ever find the words to write their story down it would be the greatest, most epic love story ever told. More exciting than any of those cheesy novels his mother's been reading his whole life, more dramatic than Romeo and Juliet (minus all the violent deaths, though he's pretty sure if he and her asshole Aussie ever ended up in the same room for long enough it would be a definite possibility).
He'd just never thought that it would end up being a tragedy.
Every story that's ever been told has had a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning of their story had been wonderful, just the two of them in love. The beginning was the happiest he'd ever been. The middle, though...that's when it started to go downhill. Fighting and crying and yelling and wishing and wanting and missing. Regretting and yearning and much, much more crying. On-agains and off-agains and girlfriends and boyfriends and an engagement ring. And that, he guesses, should have been the end.
For a while, he'd tried to tell himself that it was. That their story was over, and he had to move on. But lately...lately he's been thinking that maybe he was wrong, maybe this part of the story was still the middle. Maybe he'd closed the book too soon, and he just needs to open it back up and look a little harder between the lines.
Maybe they've been stuck in the middle of the story for years and the ending won't come until he finally swallows his pride and puts his big boy undies on and makes it come, one way or the other.
And that's exactly what he's going to do.
He stares at his phone for what feels like hours before he finally gathers the courage to dial her number, and when he does he's informed that it's been disconnected. She must have changed it since they last talked. He pretends it doesn't sting that she hadn't bothered to tell him as he dials another number and waits.
"What?" comes a voice from the other end. Charming as ever.
"Demi," he says slowly, willing himself not to lose his nerve. He's chickened out one too many times and he's not going to do it again. "Do you have Miley's new number?"
He's met with silence, a rarity with Demi, and he swallows hard, listening to his heartbeat in his ears.
"Miley's?" she says finally, as if she thinks she'd heard him wrong.
"Yeah."
More silence.
"Nick..." she eventually says, sounding confused and worried and concerned and a lot of other things he doesn't want to hear because he's just barely holding onto his courage as it is.
"Please," he breathes out. "I just need to talk to her. I know what I'm doing."
He actually has no idea what he's doing, but he's hoping if he keeps his voice steady enough he can convince Demi otherwise. She sighs after a moment and he knows it didn't work.
"Okay," she says slowly, in kind of a glad it's you and not me tone of voice. "It's about time, to be honest. I'm only telling you once so get something to write it down."
He does and she gives him the number, and by the time he's done writing it out his hand is shaking.
"Thanks, Demi," he says sincerely, staring down at the numbers and not recognizing his own handwriting. He's actually going to do it.
"Yeah, no problem," she says back, and then pauses.
"And, hey."
He swallows. "Yeah?"
"If you two idiots you aren't back together by the end of this week, I'm gonna kick both your asses."
And then there's a click and it takes him a few seconds to realize she just hung up on him.
It seems like he waits for hours for her to pick up, but once she does it feels like it's only been seconds.
"Hello?"
He takes in a sharp breath. Her voice sounds the same as it always did, and he isn't sure why he'd somehow been expecting it to sound different. He bets her laugh sounds the same, too. He swallows hard and wipes his sweaty palms on his pants and suddenly it hits him like a ton of bricks that he has absolutely no idea what he's going to say.
"Hello?" she presses again, sounding annoyed and a little confused. He recognizes the tone well, but that's really not something he should think about right now if he wants to have the nerve to really do this.
Come on, Nick. Deep breath.
"Hey," is what he finally says. He's hoping she'll recognize his voice and save him the embarrassment of having to tell her who he is. There's a long silence, even rarer with Miley than it is with Demi, and very suddenly he realizes what he's actually doing and every single cell in his body goes into panic mode. Oh god, he's such an idiot. This was such a stupid idea. She's going to -
"Nick?" she jostles him out of his crazed thoughts. Her voice is soft, quiet. There's some kind of emotion in it but he can't quite tell what it is, and that scares him.
"Y...yeah," he finally gets out. He feels like he's drowning. "Hey."
She says it back this time. "Hey." Still with that soft, gentle tone of voice. He thinks it's a little more soothing than it should be.
"How..." He pauses, breathes in and breathes out. "How have you been?"
Another long silence. "Fine," she says finally, and he thinks it's an interesting word choice. Just fine? Not great or awesome or even good? It's the first time in a long time that she's been given an opportunity to remind him that she's perfectly happy without him and hasn't taken it, and he hopes to God that's a good sign.
"Uh, good," he says once he figures out that it's his turn to talk again. "I mean, uh, I'm glad. That you're fine. I, uh, I mean - "
"Nick!" She laughs, and he takes in another deep, sharp breath because he was right, it sounds just the same. He pretends she's laughing with him and not at him and tries to memorize the sound. For all he knows this could be the last time he hears it.
"You always get so freaked out when you're nervous," she says, still giggling a bit, but then she stops abruptly, as if she'd said something she hadn't quite meant to. He just sits there for a moment and thinks about how, yeah, he does freak out when he gets nervous and as insignificant of a fact as that may be, it was something about him she still remembered. She hadn't completely forgotten about him, hadn't buried their relationship and their history and their feelings so far underneath her new life that she could no longer find it. Some part of her, however big or small it might be, still cared about him enough to hold onto this little insignificant memory about him getting freaked out when he was nervous.
He breathes in and then out again. He wonders what else she remembers.
"Yeah," he finally breathes out, almost in a whisper, "I guess I do."
They're both quiet.
"Nick," she says again after a while, and he stops trying to convince himself his heart doesn't still skip a beat every time she says his name. "What do you want?" That stings a bit, but not as much as it probably should because he can practically feel her cringe through the phone as she realizes how rude it must have sounded. So she's not being rude to him today, either. Is that another good sign?
Is he actually doing this?
"I mean, like," she continues quickly, "I'm sure you didn't just call me up out of nowhere to ask me how I've been."
He opens his mouth to respond but then realizes he has no clue what to say. What does he want, exactly?
You, he thinks before he can stop himself. I want you. I want to wrap my arms around you and smell your perfume and stroke your cheek with my thumb and hold you tight and kiss your perfect lips and tell you I love you and make you laugh and I want you to look at me with that spark in your eye and tell me you love me too.
It takes him a few seconds to swallow around the lump that's suddenly in his throat.
"I just..." He almost says I just wanted to hear your voice, but he thinks that sounds a little too creepy and while his brain struggles to find something else to say instead his mouth opens all on its own and says, "Are you happy?"
He can tell that's not what she was expecting. "What?"
"Are you happy?" He's already said it, he's not taking it back now. "I mean, like...without me, I guess. Are you happy with your life the way it is now? Really, truly happy?"
Seconds tick by, and then minutes, and he's never heard such loud silence in his life.
"Nick..." She's nearly whispering. He figures that's as good as 'yes' and he ought to find a way out of the conversation while he still has at least a little of his dignity, but dammit, he's come this far and he's not backing down until she at least answers his question.
"Tell me," he presses, gently but firmly, and he wonders briefly where all this confidence came from. "Tell me if you're happy or not. I just...I need to hear you say it, I need to know for sure."
He hears her take a deep breath and then let it out and he tries to mentally prepare himself to get his heart broken all over again.
"Where are you?"
"I - wait, what?"
"Where are you?" she repeats, sounding suddenly determined. "Are you in LA?"
"Uh...yeah." Just when he'd thought he was gaining control over this conversation she'd snatched it from him. It's so typical Miley that he almost smiles. "Joe and I are staying in an apartment here."
"Give me your address." There's a fire in her voice that wasn't there before. "I'm coming over."
It's barely forty-five minutes later that his doorbell rings, and he doesn't think he's breathed the whole time. This is quickly turning into the craziest day of his entire life. He'd rushed around the apartment keeping himself busy, tidying up (after Joe, mostly) and even changing out of his t-shirt and sweatpants into a pair of black jeans and a plaid button-down - the kind she'd always loved, but he's almost positive he didn't do that on purpose. He'd texted Joe, in short, not to worry but to please not come home for a while, and then turned his phone off so no one would interrupt them. He takes another deep breath and runs his fingers through his hair and opens the door and...she's there.
She looks so simple that she's almost not what he'd expected. A white tank top, blue jeans and flip flops. Short blonde hair and hardly any make-up and and a very small, almost shy smile.
She's still the most beautiful girl he's ever seen.
For a long moment they just stare at each other, looking each other up and down, analyzing everything that had changed and everything that had stayed the same. She's standing with her hands behind her back, which he's sure wasn't an accident, and he's a bit thankful because this is the first time he's seen her in person in years and seeing another man's ring on her finger would have almost ruined it.
Eventually, he finds his voice and invites her in.
She looks around the apartment for a few minutes, keeping her arms crossed over her chest. He watches her face as she takes it all in, smiling slightly at the pictures on the walls and the guitar on a stand in one corner of the living room. He wishes she wasn't seeing it for the first time, that it was all familiar to her. He wishes she had her very own key and strolled through that door every day and took whatever she wanted out of the fridge and relaxed on the couch and played video games with him and Joe and woke up in his bed more mornings than she woke up in her own, giving him that sleepy smile he remembered so well and leaning in close for a good morning kiss.
When he snaps out of it he realizes that something's caught her eye a few feet away and he walks over to find her staring with deep interest at the laundry basket just inside the door of the laundry room. He blushes, hoping she isn't looking at his underwear or something, and takes a few steps closer only to bite back a laugh when he realizes exactly what object has peaked her interest - a bra.
"Joe's girlfriend," he explains, trying his hardest to pretend he isn't a little satisfied with the thought of her being jealous as he reaches over and closes the laundry room door. "She spends the night sometimes."
It's her turn to blush. "Oh," she says quietly, sounding more embarrassed than she'd probably meant to, and he can't help but smirk. He almost wishes he'd let her mind wander for a little longer, just to torture her. Give her a taste of her own medicine. She's the engaged one, after all - what right does she have to even care about whose undergarments are at his apartment and why?
He laughs for a second at the look on her face, but then he sighs and gathers his courage. They can't avoid it forever. "Miley, why are you here?"
She sighs, too. Then she brings her left hand up and brushes her short hair away from her face and his heart almost stops right then and there.
She's not wearing her engagement ring.
"Ask me again," she says slowly, avoiding eye contact. "What you asked me before."
He stares at her for a moment, his breath caught in his throat, but she keeps her gaze focused intently on the wall behind his head.
"Are you happy?" he finally asks, slowly and quietly. For a long moment she says nothing, staying so still he almost thinks she hadn't even heard him. Then, finally, she swallows hard and opens her mouth.
"No."
She brings her eyes down and locks them onto his, and it takes every ounce of control he has to keep from getting lost in them. She shakes her head slowly, keeping her blue eyes firmly on his brown ones, and he tries hard to read the emotions in them but he can't.
"No," she says again, almost whispering, and her voice breaks as she goes on, "I'm not happy."
He has no idea what to say or do and even though he isn't quite sure if he's allowed to, he feels like he should touch her so he does. He carefully reaches one arm out and rests his hand on her shoulder ever so gently, and before he knows what's happening she's in tears.
"Woah, hey!" He panics. He's never, ever been able to handle seeing her cry. "Hey, it's alright. Come...come here."
He pulls her to him gently and wraps his arms around her, rubbing comforting circles on her back. He's surprised she doesn't pull away and even more surprised when she buries her face into his chest, just like she'd done a million times before, and wraps her arms around his waist tightly. He has no idea how long they stand there, pressed closer together than he'd ever thought they would be again. Cautiously he leans his head down slightly and rests it on top of hers. He breathes in deeply, still rubbing her back. She still smells the same.
"It's okay," he whispers to her as she cries into his shirt, "It's gonna be okay."
She makes an odd noise, like a sob that she tried hard to hold back but couldn't, and pulls away from him, leaving him feeling more empty than he had in a while without her in his arms.
"It's not!" She yells, her voice rough. "It's not okay! I'm not okay! I'm not..." She sniffles, swallows roughly. "I'm not happy. I thought about that stupid question the whole drive up here. Am I happy. I kept trying to think of a way to answer it but I couldn't. I'm so, so not happy, Nick. And I didn't even realize I was until you asked."
He still doesn't know what to say. He just looks at her, at his ex-girlfriend standing in the middle of his apartment crying, and he wishes he could cuddle her close and kiss all the tears away and god, even with tears streaming down her face she's still so beautiful.
He watches her wipe her eyes and try to pull herself together and a feeling he can't describe washes over him, and suddenly he's hit with the thought that calling her up today, taking control over the ending of their story, hadn't been a stupid idea after all. It had been the greatest idea he'd ever had.
"It's over," she says after a long silence. "With Liam." She cringes slightly as she says his name, glancing up at Nick as if expecting some dramatic reaction. He just blinks.
"I think it's been over for a long time. I can't even remember the last time I felt like he actually cared about me...like anybody actually cared about me."
She's looking down at her feet, speaking so quietly he almost can't hear her, and his heart has never felt so broken. Very gently he reaches out and takes her arm, and he guides her over to the couch and they sit down together. He pauses with his arm halfway around her, not sure if that's okay or not, but then she leans her head on his shoulder and his breath catches and he rubs gentle circles on her upper arm, trying to comfort her in any way he can.
"He cheats," she says suddenly. She states it as if it's a simple fact. "Not cheated, cheats. As in, regularly. Probably right now. And he rolls his eyes at me. I mean like, all the time. Every time I'm talking. He never pays attention, ever. He doesn't care about me at all."
She sniffs, apparently done crying for now, and he's glad. She picks her head up from his shoulder and shifts a little bit on the couch, so she's facing him.
"But you know what's funny?" she goes on, before he can even begin to think of something to say, "I don't care about him at all either. I haven't for months. On the way up here I was trying to remember the last time I really, truly listened to something he was saying. I can't. I literally can't remember any meaningful conversation we've had since, like, January at the latest. I can't remember the last time I kissed him because I wanted to, not because I felt like I had to. I can't remember the last time we just sat and enjoyed each other's company without one or both of us texting someone at the same time. He doesn't feel like a fiancé or a boyfriend or even a friend anymore, he's just...there. We were together because we were supposed to be, and not for any other reason. And...I didn't even realize it."
For a moment they're both quiet.
"Mi," he finally mumbles, and he hadn't meant to use that old nickname and he almost blushes and backtracks but then he notices her lips twitch up in a small smile. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying..." She pauses and then glances away, as if trying to gather her thoughts. "I'm saying I'm not happy. I guess I thought I was, but I'm not, and I haven't been for a long time. Nick..." She takes a deep, shaky breath, and he hopes to God she's not about to start crying again.
"I don't know how my life turned out this way. I hardly even have any friends, Nick. Most of them are way older than me and we only ever hang out if we're too drunk or high to talk anyway. Demi and I barely talk anymore. My brothers have practically turned their backs on me, my older sister never talks to any of us anymore and my younger sister looks at me like...like she's disappointed, like I'm not the role model she used to think I was. My dad doesn't have a clue what's going on with any of us and doesn't care unless it involves money, and my mom...God, you should see her. If she was twenty years younger she'd be the one planning a stupid wedding. She was dropping so many hints she probably would have started begging if he hadn't proposed when he did."
She swallows hard, and before he realizes what he's doing he's reaching out and taking her hand. She laces their fingers together and he wonders if she notices how perfectly they still fit.
"I don't remember the last time I did anything, absolutely anything, for me. I do so much stupid shit so my so-called friends will keep thinking I'm grown-up enough to hang out with them. I do even more stupid shit so the world will think I'm grown-up enough to get married. I do this to keep my mom happy and that to keep my fans happy and I do so much, you wouldn't believe how much, to keep everyone from realizing how much I still think about you."
He breathes in quickly, but she just sighs and keeps on going.
"Everything I do now is to please somebody else. Everything! Do you know I didn't even want to cut my stupid hair like this? One of my friends said it would look good, and Liam heard and he wouldn't drop the idea because he knew it would get a lot of attention." She pauses, chuckles darkly. "That's the only thing he's even liked about me for the past couple years. My attention."
"Mi..." he tries, but she shakes her head slightly.
"Nobody cares what I want. What I want to do or who I want to marry. Demi used to try, but I pushed her away so many times she doesn't really bother anymore. I would get so...don't laugh at me, but I would get so jealous of how close she was with you. That she was so happy and had her life so together and that anytime she wanted to she could call you up and you two could go hang out. It drove me nuts."
She sighs again. "On the way here I was trying so hard to remember the last time I was really, truly, completely happy. The last time somebody else even cared if I was happy or not. And..."
She trails off, looking into his eyes, and he holds his breath. He waits for her to finish her sentence, but she doesn't. Instead she slowly moves closer to him and brings her hands up to the sides of his face, and he'd almost forgotten how much he'd missed her touch there. She keeps her eyes on his and they tell him everything he needs to know.
"Nick," she says softly after a moment, "I've missed you."
They're snuggling. He can't think of a better word to describe it. He's stretched out on the couch and she's half beside him, half on top of him and they're snuggling. The room is silent and they're just breathing each other in. He has no idea how long they've been like this.
"Nick," she breathes out eventually, pushing herself up on his chest to look into his eyes. God, those eyes. "Why did you call? Like, for real?"
He holds in a sigh. Gently he reaches up and brushes her short hair back out of her face, and he truly can't believe how much he's been allowed to touch her today. He'd thought he'd never have the right again.
"I told you. I wanted to know if you were happy."
She raises her eyebrows, smirking slightly. "You seriously want me to believe that after nearly two years without saying a word to each other you called me up solely to ask if I was happy?"
He shrugs, as best as he can with her on top of him. "I missed you, Mi." His voice is raw and honest and he hears her breath catch. "I missed you so much and I just...I was tired of missing you. And if you really, really want something you gotta fight for it, right? So I got your number from Demi and I called you and after you picked up I realized I didn't know what to say, so I figured I'd just ask you if you were happy. And if you said you were, and you sounded convincing enough to make me believe you, I would have said okay and hung up and...and missed you for the rest of my life, I guess."
She's smiling, ever so slightly. "And if I said I wasn't?"
He smiles back. "I would have told you I wasn't happy either and that I thought it was about time we both grew the hell up and started being happy together."
She laughs. With him, not at him. He didn't think it was possible but the sound is suddenly even more beautiful than he remembered, and he can feel all the broken pieces of his heart being put together again.
"I wanted..." he pauses, looking for the right words, "I wanted an ending for our story. A happy one or a sad one, I just needed an ending. I was tired of being stuck in the middle. So I guess if you'd said you were happy, that would have been the ending, and it would have been a tragedy. But now..."
"Nicky..." she says with a grin, nuzzling her nose against his, and his breath catches, not just because of the nickname he hasn't heard in years but because of the look she's giving him. The spark in her eye. She's looking at him like he's the only person in the whole world and she's smiling, a big bright smile just like the ones in his dreams, only this time it's real. She's happy, he thinks, and he's happy, too. Really, truly, completely happy.
"I don't think our story is going to end for a long, long time."
Even when the sky falls and I've lost it all
I know I will find you there
Even when my heart stops I'll keep looking cause
I know I will find you there
I'll find you there
Eh, I still don't love this one, I don't feel like it's as good as my usual stuff. I hope some of you liked it though. I'm going to try really hard to get some other stories finished and posted soon. If you wanna review it'd be great, even though I don't deserve it.