That afternoon as Nick stood at Miley's door waiting for someone to open it he couldn't shake the feeling of disappointment he got when he saw Miley interacting with the people at school.

It might sound stupid, but yesterday Nick had seen something in her he wasn't expecting and then to see her acting like she was just some other dumb popular was a bit of a let down.

The door swung open, but instead of being greeted by Mrs. Stewart, Miley opened the door. But it definitely wasn't the same Miley he had seen at school earlier.

She was wearing oversized grey sweatpants that hung low on her hips and a tiny black tshirt so that at least three inches of bare skin showed. More surprising though, was her hair up in a tight pony tail and her makeup free face.

"What are you looking at?" Miley snapped, putting her hands on her hips and staring at Nick. They were about the same height, but Nick still felt like she was looking down at him.

"N-nothing," he stuttered as she moved out of the way to let him in. She slammed the door closed and then began to trudge up the stairs. Nick followed after her, trying to ignore the fact that the top of her thong hung out of her sweatpants. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to make Nick blush and look away.

Miley walked into her room and sat down in front of her desk. Nick wondered why she was in such a bad mood, but he didn't know how to ask her without sounding like an idiot.

"So what's the homework for tonight?" Nick asked her. Without saying a word, she showed him the assignment. He opened it up to the page. Not surprisingly, they were still working on parabolas.

"Okay, so, when the parabola is in the right form, you can sketch it just by looking at the equation."

Miley nodded silently.

"You remember vertex form, right?" he asked her, trying to get her to talk.

"y= a(x-h)2+k" Miley recited and Nick smiled at her. She smiled weakly back.

Nick continued to explain to her what all parts of the equation meant and showed her how to sketch it. She didn't respond or ask any questions and Nick felt uncomfortable, like he was talking to himself.

"How about you get started on the homework and if you have questions you can ask me?" Nick suggested just to break the awkwardness.

"Kay," Miley said looking down at her notebook and copying down the problem. Nick opened his book and began his own homework. At least something good was coming out of this session, he got to work on his own work. Which was good because he had an English paper due the next day.

But he couldn't concentrate. He couldn't help but think that something was off about Miley. And it wasn't just how dressed down she was. He wasn't stupid enough to assume that she was dressed up all the time and he figured she didn't think it was worth it to look good in front of him. Although they weren't really friends, she was certainly friendlier yesterday and more talkative.

He watched as she leaned over her notebook and deliberately made the marks of the problem. Even without makeup her skin was nearly flawless, with just a hint of pinkness in her cheeks. With her hair pulled back away from her face, Nick was suddenly struck by how delicate her features were. Her eyelashes were naturally long and without all the junk around her eyes they were an even more stunning shade of blue. Nick watched as she bit her lip and scrunched her nose, trying to figure out the problem.

Her face turned suddenly and she was staring at him staring at her. Instead of looking away, Nick froze like a deer in headlights.

"What are you-"

"You're beautiful," Nick blurted out suddenly and then mentally slapped himself. Why was he such a loser? He had no idea where that had come from, but once it left his mouth he realized it was true.

She looked at him with a puzzled expression on her face and even though he wanted to look away he felt like he should keep eye contact with her for some reason.

"Really? You think I'm beautiful?" she asked softly and Nick let out a small sigh of relief. For a moment he thought she was going to shut him down.

Nick studied her face one more time, "Yeah, I do," he said honestly.

A wide smile broke over her and face and was she... blushing?

"No one's ever called me beautiful..." Miley explained, looking down at her paper and tugging at the ends of her hair.

Nick couldn't believe his ears. No one had ever called Miley beautiful? Didn't her boyfriend?

"I mean, I've been called other things," she said, her blush more prominent on her natural face, "but not beautiful."

For some reason it made Nick feel good that he was the first one to say that to her and make the pink flush in her cheeks come out. He felt proud. In his opinion, girls should be cherished and should be told that they're beautiful all the time. If he had a girlfriend, he would let her know that everyday. Although, considering he had never had one, maybe that wasn't the right thing to do.

Miley suddenly leaned in and brought her hands to his face. He tensed at her touch, but fought the urge to move. Or maybe he was just petrified and couldn't move. Her fingertips were cold against the side of his face and she smelled like vanilla lotion.

It took him a moment to realize that she was removing his glasses. The room blurred slightly, he wasn't blind without them, but Miley was so close that she stayed in focus.

She folded them carefully and placed them on the desk before turning to look at him. To say Nick was confused would've been an understatement.

"You're pretty cute without your glasses," she stated as if it were a fact. Then upon seeing Nick's offended face she elaborated, "I mean, your glasses just block your face and chop it into sections to the human eye, but when they're off you can take in the whole picture. But I like your glasses too... Very nerd-chic," she joked.

Nick was struck by her intense explanation of his face. It wasn't just a normal point of view, but instead an artistic evaluation and he wondered where she had gained that type of knowledge. There was so much he didn't know about her, but he wanted to find out.

"Nick?" Miley asked waving her hand in front of his face. Nick snapped out of his own thoughts.

"Huh?"

"I said, could you help me with this one?" she pointed to a problem in her book.

"Oh yeah, of course," he said, leaving thoughts about her behind and looking over the problem to help and returning to their normal distant manner.

***

Nick couldn't get her off his mind and he didn't know why. But all through chemistry he was counting down the time until lunch when he could see her.

He squirmed in his seat and tapped his fingers on the desk. He wasn't sure if he could ever see her in the same way after seeing her without wearing makeup. He wondered if there would be something different about her even though his logical thoughts told him nothing would have changed over night.

"Hey," Selena whispered, it was the first time she had talked to him all period, "We're on for lunch right?"

Not for the first time, Nick wondered why she asked every single day. He always agreed, as mentioned, it's not like he would have other plans. But nevertheless he nodded and offered her a small smile which she returned.

Nick walked quickly to the lunchroom, not bothering to wait for Selena. As soon as he got to the cafeteria he scanned the room for Miley. It wasn't hard to find her, she was surrounded by a group of girls who were all laughing. She had on a denim skirt and a tight top on with a little jacket thrown over it. Her makeup was all on again, but Nick didn't mind. She looked beautiful either way. She must have felt him staring because she looked up and locked eyes with him for a second. She smiled at him and gave a little nod and for some reason Nick's heart was racing. Then she looked back at her friends again.

Nick walked over to the lunch line and got his food. Selena was already sitting at the table where she had her own home brought lunch laying out.

"You must have been hungry," Selena giggled, "you were out of chem in a flash."

"I, uh, yeah," Nick stuttered awkwardly. It was probably better that she thought that anyway. He couldn't even imagine the look on her face. She would probably be disgusted and no amount of explanation from Nick would change her mind.

She laughed again and Nick sat down to start eating.

She was going on about some thing or another while Nick just nodded. She was talking about something that happened between one of her friends and her boyfriend and Nick just didn't care.

"So I was thinking..." Selena said putting down her sandwich and waiting for his full attention.

"Yeah?" Nick asked. She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and took a deep breath.

"Maybe we could, like, hang out tonight?" she asked him hopefully. A slight blushed crept onto her cheeks and Nick felt trapped. He didn't want to hurt her, but he didn't want to lead her on either.

"I have to tutor Miley this afternoon and then I have to get my own homework done," Nick explained to her. It was mostly true after all.

"Oh," Selena said quietly, looking down, "you can't cancel?"

"Not tonight, she has a big test coming up," Nick lied, "and she really needs to pass it."

"Yeah, I guess we want her to pass right? So we can finally get her out of here," Selena said with a laugh. Nick couldn't help but notice how she seemed to draw confidence from making fun of Miley.

Nick didn't know what to say to that so as usual he stayed silent.

"But another time maybe?"

Nick took one look at her hopeful face and he knew he wouldn't be able to turn her down.

"Yeah, of course," he assured her and she smiled brightly making Nick feel a small pang of guilt.

***

"So if there's a negative in the front, it flips the parabola upside down?" Miley asked hesitantly.

"Exactly," Nick said with a smile. Slowly, but surely she was catching on.

"So this one would look like this," Miley drew a upside down U shape on her graph paper.

"Perfect," Nick felt like they were really making a break though.

"You know," Miley said, "this isn't that hard when you explain it. I don't know why, you just make it all so clear."

This pleased Nick and not just because it was a compliment. For once he felt like something he was doing was making a difference. Before his good grades and smarts didn't seem to be important, but with Miley it felt like it was being put to a good cause. Maybe teaching was his forte.

"I gotta go to the bathroom, be right back," she told him, getting up from her chair and heading into the adjoining bathroom.

Nick decided it would be a good idea to move on so he picked up her notebook and flipped back to try and find her notes from that day to see what they were working on in class.

While he was flipping a loose piece of paper slid out and fell onto the floor. Nick bent over to pick it up and eyed it curiously. There were lots of words, but most of them were scribbled over or crossed out and edited. At the bottom though, were a few lines of untouched words.

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose
Ain't about how fast I get there
ain't about what's waiting at the other side
It's the climb

Nick read the words to himself and smiled. He wasn't sure what it was, but it was good. It was inspirational, but not overdone. He was reading it over again when he was suddenly interrupted.

"What are you doing?" Miley asked loudly. Nick jumped. He didn't even hear her come out of the bathroom.

Nick just stood there and didn't move. Miley leaned over his shoulder and then realized what he had in his hands.

"Where did you get this?" she asked, snatching it back from him.

"It fell out of your notebook," Nick explained nervously. He couldn't really tell if she was mad or not. "Is this like a poem or something?" he asked her.

A wave of emotion Nick couldn't decipher flashed over her face and Nick felt like something was off. He just didn't know what.

"Yeah, it's a poem" she said with a sigh of relief, "Can we get back to work now?"

"Did you write it?" Nick pressed. He was just curious. He kind of figured she liked to read, but he didn't know she wrote too. It excited him that he had found something special out about her. It was clear she wasn't used to sharing her stuff by the look on her face.

She hesitated for a moment before answering, "Yeah, I wrote it."

"It's really good," Nick complimented her earnestly.

She looked uncomfortable and embarrassed, but Nick couldn't understand why. She had talent, why did she hide it?

"I really need to get this done," she insisted, pointing at her homework, "Can we please continue?"

Nick nodded but his mind was swimming trying to figure that girl out. She was popular and beautiful, but she was also creative and smart. He couldn't wait to figure her out

Even as he rode his bike home and as he did his own homework and throughout dinner he couldn't stop thinking about how good they were. And how real. They weren't just some silly heartsick teenage girl stuff. Not that there was a problem with that type of stuff. It had just surprised him that Miley could be so deep.

Miley was like a mystery. She was so many things wrapped up into one person and Nick was just starting to get a glimpse of it. And even though it was probably pointless, Nick wanted to know her completely. Somehow it felt like she was letting him in, even if it was only in his imagination. Before Miley, his life was boring a predictable, but she added a whole new element to it. He was determined to figure Miley Stewart out.