A/N: Obviously it is not the 4th of July anymore, but I got the idea watching the fireworks (I know, you never would've guessed on your own!) with my family. This kind of goes from narrative 3rd person to Miley's POV.

The beginning has pretty much nothing to do with the story later except to like, flesh out background which I sometimes go into a lot. It's just that I skip years, usually. So like, in the show they're freshman but I stick them in senior or after times and everyone is all "What happened inbetween?" so I tell them, but it takes up 2 pages! Haha, so yeah I'll stop talking.

Disclaimer: Don't own Hannah Montana!

The summer had finally come when the trio couldn't make bets on what the coming year would be like.

They had all graduated high school now and were unsure what their life plans were going to be. Well, Miley wasn't sure what she was going to do, but Lilly and Oliver knew.

That's right, I, Miley Stewart, don't have any idea what I'm doing with my life. Crazy, huh?

I obviously want to go into music, but try something outside of Hannah. I still get called out to don the wig time after time, and I'm writing my own songs now, but producing and writing it is so much more…I don't know how to describe it.

When I write my music I feel, I don't know, whole, in a way. It doesn't make sense, I know, but if you've ever written an entire song with lyrics and sung it to a bunch of adoring fans who loved it, you'd understand.

And, during junior year Daddy and I opened a new recording label mostly directed towards upcoming teenagers. We decided to call it Split Identity because we (the company) give any of our signed artists a second identity to hide behind, like I do for Hannah, so that they too can separate their home lives from their famous lives.

So I've gotten a taste of it all, but I want a college education to back me up. I was also thinking about dipping my toes into the Education career waters so that maybe, with my musical education, I could also go on to teach kids how to love and understand music too.

My only problem is that my dream school is Columbia in Chicago. Which definitely isn't Malibu, or anywhere near California.

At least Lilly and Oliver will be together, if I get accepted. Which I probably won't.

Oliver wants to be a doctor. He says that it's all thanks to having to clean himself up after all his adolescent "accidents", which includes a hairline fracture on his wrist from falling off the side of my house trying to climb into my bedroom (Daddy was not happy with that), a sprained ankle from a trip while running away from Hannah fans when we were at a concert, and his usual assortment of falls that he had almost everyday.

He's staying at home and going to UCLA so he can start saving up money.

Lilly, on the other hand, has gotten into acting. Can you believe? She thanks me for this one, since she got into acting as "Lola" whenever she came to Hannah's gigs.

She got accepted to UCLA, too.

I mean, it's not like I didn't get accepted to UCLA, because I did. It's just that my heart was so set on Chicago, and I didn't realize until my letter came from UCLA and I haven't even heard from Columbia.

Talk about a bummer. Oliver says not to let it hold me down, because I'm better than Columbia anyways. He keeps trying to convince me it's a bad school. I believe his words were, "The 'c' in Columbia is for 'crap'". When he says things like that it makes me worry for the wellbeing of his future patients.

Part of me is happy that I haven't heard back from them. Because until I get a yes or a no, I can imagine that nothing is happening and I won't have to leave. The truth is that, yes, of course I love my best friends, but I think I love one of them in a more than friendly kind of way.

I can't believe I just admit that. That boy has been a thorn in my side since I told him my secret, but over the years I grew to see the rose attached to that thorn, and now I want it stuck in me for however long it—he—wants.

Ugh, how cheesy was that? Sometimes I disgust myself. Most of the time I disgust Lilly.

She's the only one I've told. Well, okay, so maybe she really helped me a little in realizing how I felt about him. Right now she thinks I just like him, since I haven't had the guts to tell anyone that it's grown into something more.

Maybe I should tell her, and then test out my thorn line…

It's not like he likes—or loves—me back anyways. He got over that when I told him I was Hannah. He never even really liked me in the first place! He loved Hannah Montana.

Sometimes I dread the day I decided to don the wig.

Oliver is something of a stud now. He's grown to a nice 6'1", worked his lanky form into a well defined work of muscle (nothing too extreme either, but he can pick me and Lilly up at the same time and barely shows any strain), and finally learned how to turn the real charm on. Plus, his voice got deeper in a really nice way.

Lilly says that's how he must've sucked me in. Before he was allowed to practice his charm publicly, Lilly and I had made sure that it would be effective and not just embarrassing and have negative effects.

So we experienced many different sides of Smokin' Oken, until a girl would have to be stupid to not want to ride the Ollie Trolley. Me included, and Lilly excluded since she's been dating my brother for the past few months. Well, okay, maybe those months are more like…Years. Well, almost two years anyways.

She wants me to tell Oliver my feelings soon, because now that she has a real relationship going she turned into Ms. Matchmaker and sunk her "cupid claws" (Oliver and I dubbed them that) into Oliver and myself.

This was the end of junior year. A whole year has passed and she still hasn't given up! Lilly is convinced he likes me back.

"You don't see the way he looks at you sometimes, Miley! It's enough to make a girl's heart break at how oblivious you two are to each other."

I have caught Oliver staring at me sometime. It's not the dreamy, faraway look of an admirer that I know I get every time I stare at him, but that of a boy who doesn't want to pay attention in class and happens to be staring in a certain direction (which, at the time, is the direction towards me).

That's another reason I want Chicago so bad. Yes, I will miss my best friends more than I have ever missed anything in my life, but Chicago has to have a good looking population, right? Maybe I can find a guy to soften the blow of Oliver not loving me in return… Or maybe, as all those proverbs say, "Distance makes the heart grow fonder."

If I leave and Oliver sees what it's like without me there, maybe he'll realize he made a mistake, and he does love me! This one gets my hopes up for awhile, but then I remember how many times I've been gone for Hannah tours and he never acted any differently during the time I talked to him.

Lilly says moving to Chicago will be different, because with the tours Oliver always knew I was coming back. She says that when the danger of losing me finally breaks through his thick skull he'll come running confessing his, well, "like" for me, and we'll live happily ever after. The End.

I don't think so!

Seriously, he just broke up with a girl he met at his gym. Her name is Nina, I think, and she's a lot prettier than me. She's really skinny and, as Oliver has told us many times, curvier than the ocean. She has dark red hair and bright green eyes and a smile that just pulls you in, like Oliver's.

Okay, I'm disgusting myself again.

So tonight is the fireworks show we've always attended and Lilly wants me to confess.

"No way!" It's possible I'm slightly overreacting about this, but these are my feelings! And I don't want them out in the open right now. It's uncomfortable enough discussing them at the beach!

"Miley, just listen to me real quick, okay? When you get accepted to Columbia—don't roll your eyes like that, I'm serious! You're going to get accepted. Anyways, when you get that letter in the mail it's going to be soon. I know it, you're too stubborn to accept it, and everyone is waiting for it to happen. Except Oliver."

At first I didn't get it, and I told her so. Se kind of smiled at me in an annoyingly condescending way.

"Honey, haven't you noticed that every time you start talking about Columbia Oliver gets kind of…withdrawn? He always pulls out of the conversation or tries to change it. Have you heard him say one good thing about Columbia at all?"

"No, but what does that matter? So he doesn't like Columbia, big deal!" I know she had meant it to be rhetorical, but whatever.

"It's not that he doesn't like Columbia as a school, it's that he doesn't like how Columbia means you leaving, but he doesn't want to say anything because he wants you to be happy. Now, I think tonight is best because you can always subtly pull him away at some point and tell him during the show, and it would just be so romantic…" And she heaves this gigantic sigh that makes me want to hit her, or yell and throw a tantrum.

Deep down I knew that there was no way that Columbia was actually going to say no, just like I knew that I love Oliver and that I couldn't possibly tell him how I feel. So I was really confused when I found my mouth saying,

"If it'll get you off my back, I'll agree to tell him tonight, alright? During the stupid show. And when he rejects me and walks off leaving my heart shattered on the ground in front of me from where he ripped it out, you can know that it's your fault my life will be over and one of my favorite holidays ruined forever."

Lilly just shook her head and laughed and danced and hugged me. She wanted to help me with what I'd say, but I wasn't even sure if I was really going through with it, and if I did I didn't want Lilly's words.

"But, Lilly, before I tell him I just- I want you to know that I, well, I think I love him."

"Of course you love him, silly! He's your best friend too!" Was she making this purposely difficult?! Here I am, telling her my feelings when she already knows I like him, and she takes now of all times to thicken her skull.

"No, I mean I'm in love with him!" Her eyes widened and her mouth opened a bit.

"You look like a goldfish, say something please!"

"Glub, blub, glubblubblubglub?" Clearly I had accidentally caused a blackout in Lilly's brain. The lights are on but nobody's home!

"Lilly, I really need to know if you think I should tell him that, or if I should play it cool and act like my feelings are less or-"

"Hey ladies, whatcha chatting about?" Oliver's voice rang behind me. Every time he said something to me, I could feel his voice bouncing around in my chest. It made me want to swoon, it was so deep.

"I, er, nothing! Nothing at all, just minding our own business!" I squeaked, turning to face him. Oh no, I am ruined.

"Glub, flub, glubber?" Lilly was still floundering around—no pun intended—and so I needed to think up a story, fast.

"We're, uh, rhyming words with 'flubber', you know, like the Robin William's movie? All we've gotten are blubber, glubber…Um, shudder?" I couldn't look him in the eye. Well, it wasn't hard to avoid his eyes since he was, you know, 6'1" and I reach a measly 5'4". I barely reach up to his chest as it is.

Lilly had stopped babbling and was looking at me dubiously. Even she wasn't buying my lie!

I chanced a look at his face and saw the amused set to his eyes, but then noticed the fake frown on his mouth. I hate seeing Oliver frown, and not just because I love him and want him to be happy no matter what. It screws up his face. It tenses his jawline, makes his nostrils flare and pulls at the sides of his face.

I mean, I know Oliver and I know that he wasn't seriously upset that I was lying to him. He was probably giggling like a little girl inside at my bad excuse for a cover story.

"So will you tell me what you guys were really talking about, Miles?" He reached out and pushed my shoulder a bit so I'd look up at him.

"No way, Oken! Miley Stewart does not reveal information to people who push her! That is assault, my good man, and I WILL take you to court." I stood on my tiptoes and prodded him in the chest with each emphasized word.

Oliver snatched my hand away and held it above my head. When I poked him with my other hand too, he grabbed my waist and threw me over his shoulder. I could hear Lilly laughing, that traitor!

"Oliver, you better put me DOWN before I scream bloody murder!" I pounded on his back as he started walking.

"Your bathing suit is on, right?"

"…Yes. What does that matter, just PUT ME DOWN!"

And so he did. In the water.

I came up spluttering while he and Lilly had twin fits of hysteria.

"Oh yeah guys, real funny, dumping Miley in the water to get completely soaked! Definitely how an 18 year old should be acting!"

"My thoughts exactly, Miley! This is so great; we're on the same page and everything, so now I don't need to worry. Isn't that how friends treat each other anyways?" The "friends" line stung me more than the salt water in my eyes.

He grinned. I seethed. Lilly laughed and laughed until she started crying and gasping for breath.

He kept smiling down at me, and I finally broke and stormed past him in a huff. Whatever, you know? I knew he didn't feel the same way, but I let myself believe it for awhile anyways.

Now I was the one in a bad mood and totally wet, and he was the one laughing and having a nice old time with his "buddies".

Just the way he smiled at me made me warm inside. That was my problem with him, my one weakness. He always got past my defenses somehow. I built them a long time ago for other boys, and then had to strengthen them when I started crushing on him.

Still, Oliver Oken had some magic trick in his bag that always found the tiniest space in the walls and broke them down. That sounds so cliché but it was true. Everything he said or did affected me somehow, and almost always visually. It's not like I'm the master of hiding my feelings to begin with, but he managed to make it worse than normal.

To be honest I wasn't storming too fast, and definitely not fast enough to out-storm someone almost a foot taller, so when Oliver caught up to me and grabbed my arm, I wasn't too surprised. Even though I did scream kind of loud.

He flinched but held onto my arm when I tried to tug it out of his grasp. It isn't like I was trying too hard.

"Miley, I'm sorry I dropped you in the water, alright? It was supposed to be a joke, I didn't know you would take it so seriously-"

"Don't worry about it, Oliver," I cut him off, "I just want to be alone right now. I'll see you tonight at the show?"

He nodded, but had a defeated look on his face. I gave in and hugged him really fast.

"Everything's cool with us, alright? I know you and Lilly wanted to hang out today, but I've got a lot on the brain lately. So tell Lilly that I'm sorting stuff out right now, so I would appreciate it if she lay off calling me for a few hours."

He shot me a wide smile (swoooon) and bade me farewell.

And now I'm alone in my room, and it's five in the evening and the fireworks don't start until 9:20. I tried pacing, practicing dance moves, writing lyrics and music, and surfin' the internet, but to no avail.

I couldn't keep Mr. Oken out of my mind. His laugh (amazing), his eyes (make me want to fall into them), his hair (his shaggy thing is so cute) and his smile (makes me want to stare at him forever)… The way it felt when I was slung over his shoulder (not too bad), the way my hand feels when he holds it (like our hands were made for each other), and how it feels when he wraps me in his arms for a hug (heartbreakingly marvelous because I love him so much but he'll never feel the same way).

When my phone buzzed I about leapt through my ceiling.

"You should tell Ollie the whole truth! –L"

A text from Lilly. Oh no, I can't possibly tell him how I feel! Especially not that he means more to me than the air I breathe or the music I play and that I think about him when I wake up and go to sleep at night, and anytime he's not near me…

"You're crazy! I can't face him today. –M"

I got a quick reply.

"YOU ARE GOING TO TELL HIM YOU LOVE HIM AND THAT IS THAT! –L"

Eep. This isn't going as well as I thought it would.

"I'm planning on staying home tonight anyways. –M"

"You can't miss fireworks! Plus what will Oliver think? –L"

"He'll think that I'm avoiding him. Which I am. –M"

"Are you feeling alright? –L"

"No. I got a letter in the mail from Columbia today…It's more like a package. –M"

"OMG! Did you open it? I TOLD you you'd get in! –L"

"I'm afraid, Lils. I don't know if I can handle leaving everyone. –M"

Lilly didn't reply to that one, so I was left sitting in my room, staring at the package and thinking about Oliver.

The doorbell rang and I leapt down the stairs to answer it to the person I least wanted to see: Oliver.

"Hey, uh, it's 8:45 and Lilly told me to come over and get you because she said you were planning on ditching. Are you okay, Miles?"

How does he manage to look that good all the time? The concern in his voice plus the crumpled look on his face had me regretting my bad mood.

"I don't want to pull you down with me, Oliver, so don't worry about me! I can handle myself; I'm a big girl."

He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Don't I know it…" but I couldn't figure out if he was joking or serious and I let it drop.

"Come with me!" Holding out his right hand he gestured towards the beach where we sat to see the show.

"I got a letter—well, a packet, really—from Columbia today." I said quietly. His hand dropped back to his side and his face fell.

"Oh, well, congratulations, then, Miley! I know you really wanted this and I'm so proud of you for getting it!!" He gave me a halfhearted hug while his "happiness" didn't reach his face.

"I'm going to go, okay? You can meet us all down there if you change your mind."

Oliver turned to leave, and I told him to wait. "Lemme grab my shoes."

That brought a smile to his face, and when I got outside I casually slipped my hand into his, even though the action didn't feel casual when I did it.

Lilly saw us holding hands when we arrived at the beach, but I shook my head quickly.

"I need to talk to Lilly, I'll be right back!" And I let go of his hand (which was harder to do than I imagined) and scurried over to Lilly who squealed at me.

"You got in1 You got in! I told you you would get in, Miley,and now you have! This is so great, we need to celebrate, we need—why aren't you celebrating?" See? I'm no good at hiding my emotions!

"Oliver kind of 'congratulated' me but he just seemed so…dejected. And it's making me second guess my decision. I mean, UCLA has a fine music program that I could mix into education and then I could teach! It's not like the label is going to disappear because I don't go to Columbia!"

"Miley, going to Columbia is your dream. When have you ever given up on your dreams?"

"I do every time I don't tell Oliver the truth," -a bang and a flash in the air signaled the beginning of the show.

"Wait, tell me what? What have you lied about?" He always hears the most incriminating parts of our conversations!

"It's not important right now, Oliver, alright? So just butt out!" They started firing my favorites, the fireflies. They're the ones that shoot up into the air and look like regular fireworks until they start moving around in the air, like fireflies.

I blocked out whatever he said next while I looked up and watched them. For a second I imagined they were real, and that I was one of them. Just to be a simple firefly; flying in the sky without a care in the world except to not get smashed on some car windshield.

It was clear by the way Oliver was looking at me and not the fireworks that he wanted me to fess up. Lilly had disappeared the minute Oliver showed up, and now I was virtually alone.

"Listen, Oliver, I—I… I love fireworks, okay?! So can we just watch them please and talk after?!"

I can't believe I chickened out like that! I could hear Lilly smacking her forehead and berating me.

"Miley, what have you been lying to me about? What, you've met someone who's going to Columbia too? You've actually had your letter for months and you've been holding out the news? You're never actually coming back from Chicago? I'm tired of waiting for you to tell me!"

"How could you even think that?! Of course I am coming back from Chicago, and how could you think I've held my letter back from everyone? My dad doesn't even know yet! And when do I have time to meet someone new to date in Chicago, Oliver, huh? I waste all my time being in love with you—"

Oh. My. God. My life has ended. I can imagine my eyes as wide as saucers and my jaw on the floor as I realized what I blurted out. I stopped looking at Oliver's face and high-tailed it out of there.

The only thing I was aware of was the booms and flashes of the fireworks overhead, reminding me that time was passing and I wasn't stuck in some kind of rift that slows down time.

I was running in the vague direction to my house, but I still wasn't fast enough for Oliver. He caught up with me, not even breaking a sweat, spun me around and kissed me.

Oh. My. God. I have died and gone to heaven!

At first I didn't respond, because I was so totally in shock from what happened, then it all computed in my brain and I wrapped my arms around his neck while he stooped down to place his hand on my cheek and the other around my waist.

I opened my mouth for air and he took it as an invitation to go in.

Wow, that's just one more thing to like about Oliver's mouth, besides his smile, laugh, and voice.

He broke it off, breathing heavily (finally). I was a bit dazed, and I couldn't stop breathing like I'd just run two marathons.

"Miley, I-I love you too." Oliver choked out. My heart soared, but then my mind kicked in.

"Oliver, oh God, I don't want to go to Chicago alone, but I want to go to Columbia so bad and it isn't that I want to leave you guys, that isn't it at all, but I just want-"

He never got to find out what I want because he'd bent over to kiss me again and I just went with it like a silly girl in love.

Really, that is what I was anyways.

We came up for air again, and I noticed that the firework show was in its finale, and so the claps and cheers I heard couldn't be for the end of it.

"Lilly!" we both laughed out at once, his hands around my waist and mine around his.

So our night ended very happily. Lilly came over and congratulated us, then had to leave to meet up with Jackson. Olive and I… well, I'll leave it to your imagination.

Inbetween our activities, we talked about it and apparently he and Lilly had been holding out on me for quite some time.

"I sent an application to DePaul and Lilly sent one to Loyola in Chicago, and we got our acceptance letters two days weeks ago! This entire time I thought Lilly was going to tell you and that's why I kept listening in on your conversations so she wouldn't ruin the surprise."

I hugged him tight against me. "I'm so glad you're coming. We can all rent an apartment together downtown! It'll be amazing! Just wait, it'll all work out for the best, Oliver!"

He was smiling at me, and I was smiling at him.

"Oliver, I really do love you." He was grinning now.

"I know, Miles. I love you too."

A/N: Voila!! This is my first HM fic I'm publishing. I've written a couple more, but I haven't posted them. They're longer than this one by a lot, so I wanted to see how you'd react to 10 pages before throwing more at you! The ending was kind of bad but I rushed it bcause I'm exhaustamated. Hope you liked it and were able to deal with all my repetitiveness! I know I say "so" a lot. I do when I talk too:P Well, I'm out folks. Baai!