AN: Thanks to applepips16 who caught a few errors in the last chapter. You rock!
Who said I can't wear my converse,
With a dress?
Well baby…that's just me!
Oliver chuckled to himself as he walked into the house. He tried to picture the girl in question ever pairing a pretty sequined dress with a pair of black hi-tops. When that didn't work he tried low-tops hidden by a long Cinderella-esque dress, even that didn't come to him. So he took the stairs up, two at a time. Her room was seemingly empty and the music seemed to come from nowhere at all.
Who said I can't be single?
And have to go out and mingle?
Baby, that's not me!
He shoved apart the clothes in her closet and knocked on the door. "Lilly!" He heard from the other side. The music stopped, and he saw his friend in his face all of the sudden dressed as her blond persona. "You're not Lilly."
Oliver smirked, despite everything that had happened that last hour. "I hope not, otherwise I have some serious problems."
Miley laughed at him, going over to her mirror and fiddling with her new wavy wig. Her wig was light blond enough to hold the spray without turning brown. It just turned a nice dirty blond color he loves. "Like what?" She asked twirling around as she pulls off one of the heels she's wearing. He stopped admiring her hair, snapping his head up towards her eyes.
"I'd be in love with myself." Something snapped, and the girl turned to look at the shoe in her hand which is now in two pieces. She pulled the other one off, and sat on the chair nearby.
"She told you?" She didn't look at him as she spoke. And he wondered if she felt guilty for not telling him.
"No," He told her. She still didn't look at him. No one wanted to look at him lately. His heart skipped a beat, was she in love with him too? As if responding in denial to his thoughts, her head turned up at that moment.
"So what, you just stopped being oblivious all the sudden? Or did Dad or Jackson figure it out and blab?" He blushed at her opinion of him. He was always the goofy, ditzy best friend. God forbid her could be anything but funny, that he could figure things out for himself. The little voice in his head reminded him that he hadn't, that she'd as good as spelled it out for him. Remembering the crumbled piece of paper in his pocket, he pulled it out.
"What is it?" She mumbled and he realized he was too far across the room for her to read it.
He smoothed it out on his knee and held it up to his eyes. "I feel alone, and I don't really know how to fix it, it's hard for me to acknowledge these simple things that hurt, I've been seen as the 'strong one' and 'the smart one' for so long, I feel like I'm lost admitting them. I've stayed like this for a while now, and I think it's time to admit you hurt me more than I realized, I know you didn't mean to, and I know I'm just a friend to you, but you soothe me. I don't know if it's been this way all along because before I really didn't need it, or if it's just that when things started to change, you stayed the same. I could be wrong, it could be anything, but one stupid little joke from you is better than a thousand useless words I could put down on paper, or this revolving door of hopelessness I've been pushed through, and I don't want to wish my loneliness on you, but maybe we could be alone together."
Now Miley got up and grabbed it from him, looking pissed. "That's not how you read it." She looks at it herself.
"How would you know?" He knew it was stupid but this little piece of hope held on. Maybe she was the one who wrote it. She was the amazing songstress. Lilly was just an optimistic amateur. He'd always been there for her before her too, doing his best to scare away any fear she had.
She came over and stood next to him, smelling of something floral yet musky. He didn't know the name for it. It was just the Miley smell. Just like Joanie's hair always smelled like coconuts and her lips always tasted like orange starbursts. And Lilly always smelled like freshly cut apples, the green kind. The fact that he didn't know exactly what she had on though, it made her so mysterious so…
"See how each comma has a spare line between that and the next part? You're supposed to pause, just like in a song…although you probably wouldn't pause in a song for as long."
And then she's gone again, pushing out of the closet and into her real sprawled herself down upon her bed, taking up so much of it he's forced to take the seat by the window. She studied the list, playing with her glossed lips as she did. When she finished, she pulled off the wig and tossed it on the bedside table. "This is actually really good. Daddy could probably make a kick ass song out of it." She glared at him, "Too bad you stole it from her and I can't ask her."
His eye narrowed at her, "I did not steal it…she crumpled it up and tossed it on the floor of my living room."
"And you just had to open it up?" The brunette drawled. He snatched the paper out of her hands and looked at it again. The same line caught his attention, And I know I'm just a friend to you. If she already thought it, how could he feel so guilty confirming it was true?
Is it true? The little voice in the back of his head asked him. He tried to shove it out but it kept going. After you've had a fight with Joanie do you ever think of going to Miley, who you love, before you crawl through Lilly's window? "No," He said quietly.
"Then why did you?" He glanced up to the bed, where Miley was staring quizzically at him hoisted up on one arm.
"I don't know," He shrugged, and it was the truth. Why was it so easy to be honest with Miley when it was so hard to be honest with Lilly? Maybe because she knows when you're lying even better than you do? The voice asked again.
"You need to talk to her, Oliver," Miley mumbled, moving over onto the ledge next to him and putting a hand on her shoulder.
He looked up into her perfect blue eyes, "I know," He murmured, leaning in. For a second, he could have sworn she would meet him in the middle…and then-
Hello, hello,
I'm at a place called vertigo, (Hola!)
It's everything I wish I didn't know, (Dónde está?)
Except you give me something,
I can feel, feeeel,
Connor's ringtone rushed through the room and Miley dashed up to get it. He frowned, not only at the interruption but at the sound. Miley hated U2, even more than she hated Avenged Sevenfold. Connor had insisted on changing it when he'd walked into her at the mall while calling and heard "Hot" by Avirl Lavigne blasting throughout Target. And Lilly wondered why she still hadn't told him the Hannah secret.
"Lilly!" Shit, she had just walked into Miley's room. She still looked pissed at him. "Hey," He smiled tentatively.
She wasn't even looking at him though. Instead she stared at the paper clutched tightly in his left hand. He moved it behind his back but it was too late. She'd seen it and he knew he looked too guilty to pass it off as anything else. "Give me that, Oliver," She ordered, being too careful not to look at him.
"What?" He asked, shifting his feet. He could never lie well. God, she probably knew everything else he'd lied about lately too.
"Oliver Oscar Oken!" Her head jerked up at him, and her head jerked up suddenly. Her eyes looked so blue it was scary, they didn't have traces of gray or green like usual they were just blue. "If you don't give that to me, I swear on my life I will rip you to shreds making-"
"Lilly!" Miley hissed, turning in her spot near the bathroom door where she had been gabbing away. She covered the receiver with one hand, "I'm in the middle of something important."
"Well then tell him to hand it over because it's just gonna get louder," She threatened. Her gaze didn't leave his faze and he gulped.
"Come on, Lils, you don't want to kill me," He backed up, hitting his head on the wall behind him. "If you do, who will go skating with you? And make snide comments with you when Miley uses those stupid pet names on guys?"
Her face went completely dark now, rather than just her eyes. Her forehead crinkled and her mouth became a flat line that Oliver had only ever seen her use on Rico. "I'm sure your Love Doodle will be more than competent for that."
"Crayons, Lilly! Remember the crayons!" Her face fell as if he'd slapped her, and his heart sank.
She looked at the ground. Her head shook slowly. Her blond hair had fallen out of the ponytail in little wisps and bobbed up and down around her face. "Were you thinking about crayons when you read that without my permission?"
He opened his mouth, "No, you weren't. You were thinking about yourself." She looked out the window, biting her lip. He could see tears forming at the corners of her eyes again. Why was it that the only thing he was good at was making her so very unhappy?
"It's ironic, isn't it? Every time I think I'm making better choices I always prove myself wrong." She sat down, and Miley clicked off the phone, watching them. He was so painfully aware she was watching them. "You're no better than Jake. At least he knows the way he is, you act all noble. You're all the same though, using me to get to Miley." Shit, Lilly knew. He never considered it a remote possibility with all the time he'd spent with her that she'd figure it out. She knows you better than anyone, the little voice reminded him.
"He's not the same as Jake," Miley whispered, leaning against the wall on the other side of the room.
She glanced over at her, seeming to just realize she was still there then she looked back at his face. "He is though."
"Don't," He pleaded with her, "For me."
She let out a cackle, the most un-Lilly like laugh he'd ever heard, "I've done enough for you, Oliver." She turned back towards her best friend, "Oliver's in love with you, in case you didn't know."
Miley's eyes became roughly the size of saucers, "No, it's not…" Lilly was halfway out the door though. She turned to the boy in question. "You," She said, looking at him expectantly.
"I'm gonna, uh, yeah," He stumbled out of the room, pulling the knob with him as he shut the door. He let out a huge breath when he got out. Then he heard movement behind him, so he did what he was good at. He ran.
AN: This is part of what Oliver was holding out on me but I get the feeling that there's definitely still more to come. I hope you don't hate Lilly too much. Let's think about what she's going through for a minute before you blame her. I mean, how many of you have trusted someone completely and had them go betray your confidence like that? I mean, not only did he read a poem he was never supposed to see, but he also went and gave it to Miley. Not to mention, how long do you think Lilly was watching from the door? I think she at least saw their almost kiss. And that hurts, trust me. So the songs in this one are La La Land by Demi Lovato and Vertigo by U2. The next chapter will be more Lilly-centric, if you have any songs you think would go well with her angst let me know.
