"You what?"

Miley sighed, running a hand through her hair. "I'm moving back to Tennessee," she repeated, closing her eyes so she wouldn't have to see the shocked faces of her two best friends. She hated that she had to do this, but her dad had given her no other choice. Well, he had given her two choices: tell them herself or have them find out when they found the moving truck parked in the Stewarts' driveway.

"You can stay at my house," Lilly said, thinking quickly. "Like when you let me stay at your house for a couple months? It can be just like that until we graduate! My dad won't mind."

The brunette struggled to hold tears back. "You don't understand," she whispered, looking away from their confused faces. "I want to move back to Tennessee. I asked my dad to move back."

There was a heavy, tension-filled silence. Miley waited anxiously for them to say something, anything, so she would know that she never had to repeat that ever again.

"Why?"

It was Oliver who asked, confusion twisting his face. She trained her eyes on his, struggling not to look at Lilly, because she knew that if she looked at Lilly then she wouldn't be able to hold it together any longer.

"I miss it," she whispered. "Everything about it. The space, the solitude, the quiet, Blue Jeans, Mamaw, everything. I love Malibu, but…I think it's time to go back home. Jackson's staying here for college. Dad's helping him get an apartment right now and as soon as Jackson gets moved out, we're going to pack everything else up and rent the house out."

"You're renting?" Oliver asked.

"Yeah, Dad doesn't want to sell the house because he's attached to it, so he's just going to rent it out until I graduate from high school and move out, then he's going to be moving back here," Miley said.

"So the only reason you and your dad are moving is because you asked him to," Lilly accused. Miley winced. "You didn't even think to ask us, did you? Do you know how much this affects Oliver and me?"

"Lilly…."

"No, don't even talk to me, Miley," Lilly said coldly. "And when you change your mind, you know my phone number. Don't plan on seeing me or talking to me until then." She turned and ran out of Miley's house. Oliver watched her leave with a bewildered expression on his face.

"I'm sorry, Oliver," Miley whimpered, shaking her head as tears began to stream down her face. "I… I can't do it anymore." He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Miley, allowing her to bury her face in his shoulder and cling to him as she sobbed. She took fistfuls of his shirt in her hands and squeezed as tightly as she could until she finally calmed down.

"Hey, it's going to be okay," he encouraged, letting her go and patting her on the back gently. "Lilly'll come around when she realizes that her best friend is going to be moving to the other side of the country. And you can still keep in touch with us. There's e-mailing, writing, calling, texting, and video-conferencing. It'll be fine."

"Thanks, Oliver," Miley sniffed, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. "You should go after her, though. It isn't good for her to be alone when she's upset, and since she isn't talking to me right now…."

"I'll talk some sense into her," Oliver promised, giving her a lopsided smile before he jogged after his girlfriend.

As soon as Oliver left, Miley collapsed on the couch, putting her face in her hands as sobs shook her body. She heard someone walk up beside her and felt the weight of someone sitting down next to her before a gentle hand was placed on her back.

"Are you sure you want to do this, bud?"

"Yeah," Miley whispered. "I… I can't stand seeing them together. It hurts too much. I love Lilly too much. And I can never tell her that."

"Only if you're sure."

She hesitated for a moment. "I'm sure."

Miley found Lilly sitting on the beach by herself later that night. She stood a few feet behind her, watching her silently. The blonde was sitting cross-legged on the sand, her hands resting, palms facing down, on her knees as she stared out at the ocean. After fifteen minutes, Miley stepped forward and sat down next to her best friend, not saying anything to break the silence.

"You know, I've always hated change," Lilly whispered suddenly, not turning her head to look at Miley. She continued to stare out at the ocean, watching the waves lap at the sand. "Ever since I can remember. When I was really little, three years old, my mom and dad got divorced. They just didn't love each other anymore. And when I was seven, my brother went to live with my dad. I barely ever saw either of them. Then I didn't get to see my brother at all when he graduated from high school and went to the other side of the country for college. My mom moved to Atlanta, Georgia, for work and I moved in with you. I moved in with my dad when he moved to Malibu."

They were both quiet.

"I don't want to move away from you," Miley said quietly. She paused, biting her lip nervously before she continued. "If I could, I would bring you along, but… you have Oliver and your dad here. You have school and classes and you've been here all your life. I would never ask you to leave all that. My dad wouldn't care if we brought you along, but… but I could never do that to you. Never. I could never make you choose."

"And I would go with you in a second."

"Maybe at first, but once you realized everything you were losing, you would change your mind," Miley corrected, looking over at Lilly. Their eyes met. "Lilly, you're my best friend in the world and I never want to leave you, but I just have this feeling… I have to go back. I don't know if you understand, but I have to."

"I know," Lilly whispered, placing a hand gently over Miley's. "And I'm not going to try to stop you from going."

"We can stay in touch, though," Miley said quickly, grasping Lilly's hand tightly in her own. "We can arrange times that we can call each other, and we can text each other all the time. There's e-mail and snail mail, too. We can write out long letters to each other. And then there's video conferencing…."

"Don't fool yourself," Lilly whispered, pulling her hand out of Lilly's grasp. "You know that long distance friendships rarely work out. Sure, we'll call and write each other diligently in the first few months, but it's going to start trailing off until we're only texting forwards to each other and occasionally asking how the other person is doing."

"Lilly, don't say that!" Miley cried. "It's not going to be like that with us!"

"You're my best friend, and I never want to let that happen, but I don't want to get my hopes up," Lilly said quietly.

Miley pulled her into a hug.

"That's the last of it," Miley's dad said, loading the last box into the moving truck and slamming down the door. He secured the latch and locked it in place, turning to Miley and wiping his hands on his jeans. "You ready, bud?" he asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Miley whispered.

"Go ahead and say goodbye," he said softly.

Miley turned to see Lilly standing in her driveway, her hands in her pockets and one foot on her skateboard. The brunette walked forward, struggling to hold back tears as she came to a stop in front of her best friend. A few minutes passed before Miley was almost bowled over. She clung tightly to the blonde, who had her arms wrapped around her neck and her face buried in her shoulder.

"I'm going to miss you so much," Lilly sobbed.

"I'll miss you, too," Miley whimpered.

They held on to each other for as long as they could before Lilly finally pulled away. "I got you something," she whispered, pulling a small, wrapped box out of the pocket of her cargo shorts, which Miley remembered that she hadn't worn clothes like that since before she had started dating Oliver. She took the box Lilly offered her and opened it, giving Lilly a watery smile when she saw what it was.

"Can you put it on me?" she asked, picking up the silver necklace gently and handing it to Lilly. The blonde nodded and took the necklace from Miley, gently putting it around Miley's neck and clasping it in the back. Miley fingered the charm hanging from the necklace: two hands holding a crowned heart. "It's beautiful. Now I feel bad because I didn't get anything for you."

"Don't worry about it," Lilly said with a wave of her hand. "Just… just promise never to forget."

"How could I forget you?"

"Come on, Miles!" her dad yelled. "I don't mean to cut this short, but we have to get on the road if we want to get to our hotel before it gets too late."

Miley gave Lilly one last hug before she got in the car with her dad. The man they had hired to drive the moving truck for them was already pulling out of the driveway and her dad stepped on the gas to catch up to him. Miley turned and watched as Lilly skateboarded behind the car, trying to keep up with them, until they were going to fast for her to even think about keeping up. She watched Lilly until she shrunk to a miniscule size and they turned the corner.

I got this idea the other day when I was home sick and watching three hours of Hannah Montana. The preview for Miley Says Goodbye? kept running and I finally decided that I would write a story based on the title and how I think the episode should go. Of course, that's never going to happen, so it's just my wishful thinking. I'm thinking that this is going to be somewhere between two and five chapters, depending on how in-depth I get with it. And I'm thinking about doing a sister fic from Lilly's POV. Tell me what you think. REVIEW!!! Thank you all for reading.

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