How could he have missed it? All the signs, all the hints. And now, it's all too late. He softly outlined her delicate features with his fingertips. Those beautiful blue eyes will never open again to see daylight; those soft lips can never kiss again. It seemed like just yesterday when he told her that he loved her, and she said that she felt the same way. But now, she can never mutter those three words to him that could make him do anything. Seeing her in the coffin, he felt so strongly that it was his fault, his fault for not looking into the matter further. Had he only done that, this whole thing could have been averted. He felt like he didn't care for her enough. He thought that it was her mother's death that brought on the drastic change in her. How would he have known, it was something far more serious. She was only seventeen, a week shy of her eighteenth birthday. He had even got her a present. And now, she will never get it.

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Her whole closet was filled with only long-sleeved turtle-necks and long pants. She wore them all the time. Even in sweltering 100 degree summer days. She never went out to the beach anymore. All she did was come to school and go back home. Come to school, go back home. Come to school, go back home.

"Is something wrong?" he would ask as he cupped her heart shaped face. "Nothing. Everything's fine," she reassured him. Nothing could be further from the truth. "Are you sure?" he asked skeptically. She nodded vaguely, he gave her a soft kiss on her lips. The lips that are never going to stretch into that smile that made him go weak in the knees.

She started wearing more and more make-up. The make-up she had most was concealer. Mac, L'Oreal, Revlon, all kinds. She did away with her contacts, replacing them with her thick-framed glasses that she used to hate. She kept her head down most of the time, afraid to look up in case someone noticed something. She became a fan of huge sunglasses that covered half of her face too. She said that it was too bright outside, even when it was cloudy.

As the months past, she isolated herself even more from the rest of the world. She wouldn't even talk to him, her boyfriend, or her best friend. She ate her lunch in bathroom stalls. Eventually she dropped out of school.

A week had gone by since she had stopped going to school. She called him, and told him to come to her house at 9.30 p.m. sharp that night, and he did, eager to see what the love of his life had in store for him.

Climbing through her window at 9.30 p.m. that night, what he saw forever changed his life. There she lay, on her bed, in a pool of blood. She did away with all her make-up and long pants and shirts, she lay in a tank top and shorts, revealing her scarred and bruised arms and legs. They were once flawless and smooth, now, they were black, blue and purple. Her right wrist was slashed with the razor, the razor that cut his heart out at the same time. Without her, he was nothing. Without her, he was as good as dead. The note she left for him would shatter his heart into even more pieces.

To my one true love,

I know that it is very selfish of me to do this, but I cannot continue like this anymore. Being punched, slapped and kicked every single day is too much. I am sorry that I haven't been talking these past few months, but I was afraid that you would find out and report my father's abuse to the police. Then he would be arrested, and, with my mum dead from cancer last year, I would be sent to my aunt at Denver. I thank both of you for everything, and remember: my heart always was, and always will be, yours.

Salty tears plopped down onto the paper as he held it to his chest. It was the last thing she touched, the last thing she held before she departed.

He started doing CPR on her. She couldn't die! She just couldn't! He frantically dialed '911' on the phone on her bedside table. He was in hysterics now. Her blood was all over him, his tears wouldn't stop flowing.

She was immediately pronounced dead in the ambulance. Everyone was there, and there was not one person who didn't cry. He had it worst, though. His best friend, his lover, his everything, gone.

After the pathologist's analysis, she was found to have been abused extremely badly, over a long period of time, thus forming blood clots. She wouldn't have lived for long anyways. Her father didn't show any remorse, though. In fact, he was dancing for joy. He smashed his fist into her father's face repeatedly. That cold blooded beast should have been the one dead. Not her. She had done nothing wrong.

And then there were two left of the trio.

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A week had gone by after her funeral. But the week felt like an eternity. He was practically a zombie. He didn't talk to anyone, he didn't eat, he didn't sleep. He spent all 24 hours of a day crying, locked up in his room. And he couldn't take it anymore. It was her eighteenth birthday that day, the very same day he drowned himself in the waters of Malibu, her present in hand.

And then there was one.

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How could she live with her two best friends dead? She had been strong enough to get through her mother's death, but her two best friends not on this earth, too? She could never live through that one.

They were so in love, everyone knew. They shared a special bond, they didn't have to be next to each other to know what each other was thinking. They were a match made in heaven, he was the kind of other half every girl had ever dreamt of; she was every guy's dream girl. In fact, she was the one that got the two of them together. On their own, they didn't exist. When one died, the other stopped living too.

She now saw the world as black. Nothing. Nothing but people dying every single day. The two people she shared everything with, the two people that knew her from inside out, dead. Gone, forever.

Standing at the balcony of her house one night, she screamed "Lily! Oliver! I'm joining you!"

And then, there were none.

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A/N: Tear, tear. So sad. D: Tell me what you think of it, because I've never written a tragedy, and I wanna know if I have a knack for it, so I will write more. Not too many, though, I'm not a morbid person by nature. Well, press that little button down there! XXOO, Bernice.

P.S. Miley's death is open to interpretation.