Here's the next chapter. Enjoy and please read the note at the end of the chapter!!!

"Watcha thinkin' bout?" Miley asked, flopping down on the be next to Lilly, jolting her out of her thoughts.

"Just the first time I saw you," Lilly said carefully.

"Oh?" Miley asked, raising her eyebrows, indicating that she should elaborate.

"You know, just how you…I don't even know," Lilly sighed, turning away from Miley as she sat up, staring out the French doors in Miley's room. She felt a hand on her shoulder and her body tingled as she turned to see Miley looking at her intensely with those big, clear blue eyes. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply, forcing herself to slow her breathing and trying to keep her heart from beating its way out of her chest.

"Hey, I know something's wrong," Miley said gently, and Lilly looked at her with a surprised expression on her face. She had thought that she was doing a good job of hiding it. "Yeah, Lilly, I'm your best friend and I know when you're faking it. Every time you look at me, you're faking a smile or a laugh and you always space out. Is there something I did to make you upset with me?"

"No, no, it isn't you," Lilly said quickly, seeing that Miley was starting to get upset. "It has nothing to do with what you've done. You're perfectly fine, there's nothing you can do, I promise. It's me. I just…I've been feeling really weird lately."

"Are you sick?" Miley asked worriedly, pressing a hand to her forehead, which only made it harder for Lilly to breathe. "Do you want me to get my dad to drive you home or something? Here, I'll get him to take you home right now and then I'll go out and get a movie and some chicken noodle soup and we can just lie around…"

Lilly pulled away from Miley's touch, tears threatening to spill down her face. "No, Miley, I'm not sick," she said in a thick voice. "It's just…I have these weird feelings and I don't know what to…I can't figure out what they are. I just…need some time to myself. I'm sorry, Miley, I know that you have a concert tonight and everything, but I…I just need some alone time. I really am sorry."

"Do you want me to do anything for you?" Miley asked worriedly.

"No, I'll…I'll just walk home now," Lilly said, cutting Miley off as she opened her mouth again. "Really, Miley, I just want to be alone right now. Your dad doesn't need to drive me home, okay? It's a fifteen minute walk. I'll text you went I get home."

Miley nodded dejectedly as Lilly stood up, walking towards the door. She glanced once over her shoulder to see Miley sitting slumped on her bed and felt guilt gnawing at her stomach, but she pushed the door open, running down the stairs, and out of Miley's house. Mr. Stewart looked at her in surprise as he finished up washing his car and called after her, but she was already too far away to hear him, running down the street with tears running down her face as she tried to get as far away from the girl who was unknowingly hurting her so much.

Bursting into her house, she ran up the stairs and into her room, slamming the door behind her and collapsing on her bed. There was a soft knock on the door and someone came in, sitting down on the bed and rubbing her back gently.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Does this have to do with Miley?"

Lilly turned away from her mom, wiping her face on her arm. "I just want to be alone right now," she said quietly, trying to keep the fact that she had been crying out of her voice.

"Well, if you need to talk, I'm here for you." There was a pause before her mom got up and left the room, gently closing the door behind her. Lilly burst into tears again and buried her face in her pillow, not noticing that her phone was ringing. Gradually, her breathing began to ease and her sobs subsided as she fell asleep.


"Go away," Lilly muttered as someone tried to shake her awake. The shaking persisted and she sat up quickly to see her mother stand back with a worried expression on her face. "What's wrong?" she asked immediately, suddenly wide awake. "It's Miley, isn't it?"

"You should probably go over there right now," her mom said. "You can take the car. Just be careful, okay?"

Lilly had already grabbed the keys from her mother's hand and was running down the stairs, pulling her jacket on and trying to get her shoes on at the same time. She ran out to the car, getting in quickly and spending two minutes trying to jam the wrong key into the ignition. Finally, she managed to get the key in the ignition, back out of the driveway, and drive to Miley's house. When she got there, she left the car idling in the driveway, not even bothering to put it into park, and raced into Miley's house.

"Where's Miley?" Lilly gasped when she saw Mr. Stewart.

"She's upstairs, and you left your car on!" he yelled after her as soon as she took off. "Well, I guess I'll have to go turn it off myself," he muttered to himself.

The blonde dashed up the stairs and turned towards Miley's room, bursting through the door to see the brunette lying on the bed, tears streaming down her face and sobs wracking her body. She sat down on the bed, pulling Miley into her arms and rocking her back and forth, unable to bear seeing her in any type of pain. "Shhh, it's okay," she whispered, rubbing comforting circles on her back. "It's gonna be okay."

But even as she held Miley, she could feel her heart start to pound, hear her pulse in her ears, and her breathing started to get short and shallow. Closing her eyes, she tried to focus on the fact that Miley was hurting, but the butterflies were erupting in her stomach, tingles travelling all over her body, and her face getting flushed. She was suddenly aware that Miley had pulled away from her and was now staring at her.

"What's wrong that I'm making you act like this?" Miley whispered, tears still streaming down her face. "What have I done?"

"You exist," Lilly whispered, backing away from Miley as she stared into her eyes. "I…I don't know why…every time I see you, it gets harder to breathe and I can't stop staring at you. My heart starts beating faster and my face gets red. My whole body tingles and the palms of my hands get all sweaty, like I'm nervous. And when you're talking, I can't hear anything except for your voice, and when you sing…it's like we're the only people on the planet and you're singing right to me."

She blushed even redder as she continued. "When you touch me, I feel like my whole body is on fire and I…I can't help wanting to grab your hand, your arm, touch your face, your shoulder, your leg, keep some part of you in contact with me. And when you let go, it feels like someone just dumped a bucket of ice cold water all over me. When I'm not with you, I'm always thinking about you, wishing that I was with you, and when I am with you, I'm thinking about how I wish I could spend even more time with you."

Standing up, she backed away from Miley. "Look, I understand if you don't want to talk to me again after I say this, but I think that I love you. I think I have for a long time. Because when I'm with you, I'm always happier than when I'm with anyone else. And I can never stop thinking about you and…I should just stop talking and leave now."

Lilly turned to leave.

"You never texted me."

Turning around, Lilly looked at the brunette to see that she still had tears streaming down her face and her eyes were bloodshot from crying so much. "What?" she asked.

"You told me that as soon as you got home, you would text me to let me know that you were safe," Miley whispered. "I waited for half an hour before I texted you. You never texted back. I kept calling and calling and calling, but it just rang and rang and rang and went to your voicemail. All these pictures kept going through my head. You lying on the road in a puddle of blood because you had been hit by a car. Getting kidnapped and stuffed into the backseat of a car. Someone putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger. I…Lilly, I can't live without you."

"I'm so sorry," Lilly whispered. "I just…as soon as I got home, I pretty much collapsed on my bed and fell asleep crying. It slipped my mind, I completely forgot."

"Why do you think I've been trying to spend so much time with you recently?" Miley whispered, stepping around the bed and walking slowly towards Lilly. "I don't know how many boys I've turned down, how many times I've told Oliver that I just wanted to spend time with you, how many times I've turned down interviews, charity events, and concerts for Hannah Montana just because I wanted to spend more time with you. I thought it was obvious. And all this time it's gone right over your head."

"Wait, what are you saying?" Lilly asked, confused, a single spark of hope igniting in her heart. Maybe there was still a chance of saving her friendship with Miley and maybe even turning it into a relationship.

"Is it really not obvious?" Miley wailed. "What do I have to do to make you see?"

"See what?" Lilly asked, getting frustrated.

Miley crossed the short distance between them with two quick steps and pressed her lips against Lilly's, wrapping her arms around her neck. Lilly froze in shock, but quickly recovered, wrapping her arms around Miley's waist, placing her hands on the brunette's back as she responded eagerly. They eventually had to pull away, gasping for air as they stared into each other's eyes.

"How long?" Lilly whispered.

"Months, now," Miley said softly. "And you?"

"The same," Lilly whispered, softly kissing the corner of her mouth, moving slowly down to her chin, kissing along her jaw line and to her ear. "You're so beautiful," she murmured. "I don't deserve you."

"We need to talk," Miley said quietly, and she pulled away from Lilly, grabbing her hand and drawing her down to sit on the bed next to her. "I…I can't just…randomly jump into this. There needs to be…some form of a relationship. And I don't want to be friends with benefits. I like you a lot more than that and I don't think I could ever stand seeing you with someone else. Every time I've seen you with another boy, or even another girl, other than Oliver in the past few months, I felt like walking over and slapping whoever it was you were talking to and then dragging you away and kissing you."

"But you didn't," Lilly said.

"Because I was afraid," Miley said softly, looking down at her lap. "I was so afraid that you wouldn't feel the same way and that you wouldn't want to be friends with me anymore. So I decided it's better to be just friends and just crush on you for my whole life than tell you and have you leave me alone for the rest of my life. I've never liked anyone more than I like you."

"I wish that we had both had the courage to tell each other how we felt earlier because we would have had so much more time together," Lilly whispered, taking Miley's hands in her own and kissing them gently. "And I felt the exact same way when I saw you with other boys. I've always felt that way. When you dated a boy, I always wanted you to break up with him so we could spend more time together. Because I didn't want to hurt your feelings, I just threw myself into random relationships to try to distract myself. It sort of worked at the time, but now that I look back, I can see that I was even more miserable in those relationships than I was just watching you with your boyfriend at the time."

"Well, we both know better now," Miley said, smiling as Lilly wiped a tear away with the tip of her finger. "Would you…would you want to be my girlfriend?"

"I was just going to ask you the same question," Lilly whispered. "Of course I will." She leaned forward, giving Miley a chaste kiss on the lips and pulling away quickly. "Are you going to tell your dad?"

Miley bit her lip nervously. "I don't know," she whispered. "I think he deserves to know since he's my dad and all, but I don't know if he'll approve of our relationship. How about you, are you going to tell your mom?"

Lilly blushed. "She sort of already knows," she whispered, looking away in embarrassment. "She managed to get it out of my while I was asleep. You know how I can have conversations with people in my sleep. Whenever I don't tell her something, she'll just wait until I fall asleep and get it out of me then. It's horrible because whenever I lie to her, she ends up finding out the truth anyways."

"And she doesn't care that you…you like girls?" Miley asked.

"No, because I don't like girls," Lilly whispered, glancing over to see a shocked and hurt expression on Miley's face. "I only like one girl," she whispered, and Miley blushed, smiling happily. "And I think that you should tell your dad. I'll be right there with you if you want and I'll stand with you no matter what happens. Even if your dad gets really mad and tells me to get out of the house."

"I don't think that'll happen," Miley whispered. "He really likes you. You're already like a second daughter to him. The more I think about this, the more I think that he'll be perfectly fine with it. I mean, you already eat over here at least three times a week and he's sees you every day. This just means that he'll see you a bit more and he'd love to have you around more often. He even told me that if…if you ever got kicked out of your house or something, he'd be more than willing to let you move in with us."

"That's not true," Mr. Stewart said, walking into the room. "I didn't exactly say it like that. I said that if anything happened and Lilly needed a place to stay then she would be more than welcome to move in with us until everything got situated. Or until she graduated from high school and headed off to college."

"Dad! How long have you been listening?" Miley asked, quickly scooting away from Lilly and standing up, her face getting red as she yelled at her father.

"I just heard that last part," Mr. Stewart said, confused. "What're you two talking about up here? Does this have to do with boys again?"

"Sort of," Lilly said cautiously, also standing up and glancing over at Miley. "Mr. S, there's something we need to tell you. Just…promise that you won't freak out at us when you hear."

"Is one of you pregnant?" Mr. Stewart asked, his eyes getting wide. "Miley, how many times have I told you to be careful when you finally decide to have sex and use protection? And Lilly, I'm sure your mother has had this talk with you before, more times than one, I'm sure."

"Dad!" Miley yelled, getting even redder.

"Actually, Mr. Stewart, it's kind of the opposite of that," Lilly said, stepping closer to Miley and putting an arm around her waist. "You see, Miley and I are together. We're dating."

Mr. Stewart looked between Miley and Lilly for several seconds before a grin stretched over his face. "Thank the Lord, finally!" he yelled. "Do you know how long Jackson and I have been watching the two of you breaking each other's hearts and then fixing them and then stomping all over them again? And Oliver, poor Oliver, has been trying to get the two of you together ever since he and Lilly broke up. Miles, I'm gonna have to call your grandmother in Tennessee and tell her that you're finally with Lilly, and then I can call Jackson…" He walked out of the room, naming everyone he was going to call as Miley looked at Lilly with wide eyes.

"I can honestly say that I never expected him to react like that," Miley said seriously.

"Well, at least he's not screaming at me to get out of his house and threatening to take the shotgun off the wall of his bedroom and chase me down the road," Lilly said optimistically.

"But every Stewart in the country will be knocking down our front door by tomorrow morning wanting to meet you," Miley said. "And by Monday, it'll be all over the school because my dad is gonna call Oliver and you know how well Oliver keeps secrets like this."

"Do you want to keep our relationship a secret?" Lilly whispered, drawing Miley closer to her.

"No, no, no, it's just…I didn't know if you wanted to keep our relationship a secret," Miley said. "I never, ever want to hide our relationship, no matter what. When Hannah and Lola see each other again, Hannah will definitely be asking Lola to be her girlfriend."

"What if Lola wants to ask Hannah first?" Lilly asked, grinning.

"Then Lola's going to have to live," Miley said.

"Lola's going to have to propose, then," Lilly said, shocking Miley. "Once we graduate from high school and maybe even after we graduate from college, too," Lilly said quickly, afraid that she had gone too far in her joking.

"I just…hadn't thought of that yet," Miley whispered, leaning into Lilly and sighing in contentment as the blonde wrapped her arms around her. "You know, this is what I've been dreaming of for the past few months. The perfect moments like this."

"Me too," Lilly whispered, resting her chin on the top of Miley's head.


Lilly sat on the floor of Miley's bedroom, tears streaming down her face as she unfolded Miley's letter with shaking hands. Wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt, she started to read the letter to herself. "Dear Lilly…" she whispered.

Well, there you go, Chapter One, the second installment of Remembering Miley. Just giving you guys a sort of warning, well, not really a warning, but more of a heads up: I'm going to be dropping hints in the story about how Miley dies. If you didn't know that she dies, I'm sorry for spoiling this, but I tried to make that apparent in the prologue. So, I would be interested in hearing your theories. I didn't put any clues in this particular chapter, but if you have any theories, I would still be interested in hearing them. Just put it in your review!

While we're on the topic of reviews, I would like to thank Sophi20, ChannyFan4ever, and JustAnotherSlowGoodbye for reviewing. I really appreciate it when you guys review, and if you can, please try to put stuff in your reviews that I can use, like constructive criticism, advice, and ideas. I don't mind just hearing that you like the story, but I really appreciate when people tell me what I can do better. And if you don't like the story, feel free to tell me. Just try to be at least halfway nice about it. Thank you all so much for reading this and I'll update as soon as I can.

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