OKAY CLEARLY I AM TOTAL FAIL. SORRY. THIS IS JUST RIDICULOUS.
John Chubb: I don't know. I mean, I guess the "left turn" in this case would be Miley being (only) Hannah. But on the other hand, I feel like the universes are more different than that, and not everything in them was the same up until one point in time when Miley decided to just be Hannah or to be both. Even if you don't think Miley and Lilly are right when they say the double life thing wouldn't work in their world, and this Miley could have chosen to do that...why didn't she? What made her make a different choice than canon Miley? Because that's not as simple of a decision as whether to turn left or right. In any case, I'm extremely glad that this Miley won't ever know that this is the major/root difference between their worlds. I think it would crush her if she did.
mileymadness: Haaaa, that would be hilarious and awesome. That is exactly how this Lilly would react, too. Although I kind of doubt Miley would write stuff like that in her diary, because you know Lilly probably reads that thing on a regular basis. Those girls are all up in each other's business to an astonishing degree.
lita rocks LbC: I KNOW RIGHT. I think I started laughing around "What the shit is this." and didn't stop until the end. "It takes two of you guys to do that?" Hahaha, oh, Sam. Truly no one is as awesome as you. God, if I could write iCarly like that, I'd NEVER STOP.
You guys are all so awesome it makes me look bad. Thank you so much for all of your comments.
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Chapter Four: It All Feels Like A Fight
———————————————
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
– Stevie Smith, "Not Waving But Drowning"
———————————————
16 – 18 October 2006
First thing Monday morning, Oliver asked, "Did you find the diary?"
"No," Miley said. She hadn't looked for it. It still didn't feel right to go into Miley's things more than she had to.
"Check under her mattress."
It wasn't under her mattress. No one hid their diary under their mattress. That was the first place everyone always looked. "I will."
"Did you study?"
"I studied." She had. Some. But none of it had made any sense, and the dates all got jumbled up in her head, and there had been that song to finish...
"Did you bring the project?" he asked Lilly.
"Chill out, Oliver. I have it right here." There was half an eye-roll in Miley's direction. Miley met it with a one-sided smile.
"All right," Oliver said. He took a deep breath and visibly forced himself to relax. "Okay. Sorry. I'm just...I'm just worried. About classes, and everything." About them. He didn't say it, but she heard it all the same.
"It's okay," she told him. "They'll be okay."
"Sorry," he said again.
The bell rang and they began to move down the hall. Miley didn't need to consult the schedule or check the map; she'd memorized both last night. The chaos of the halls seemed normal already, almost comforting, since it wasn't directed at her. She felt hidden in the middle of it, protected, nearly invisible, and she savored the still-novel sensation.
She thought she was the only one who felt that way. Beside her, Lilly held herself rigid, tense, as though she thought she was too visible, like all eyes were on her, judging her. Miley knew that feeling well.
Amber and Ashley passed them going in the other direction. Lilly slowed down a bit and moved slightly to the side so that Oliver blocked her from their view. They aren't looking, Miley wanted to tell her. And if they are, they only see her.
But maybe that was what Lilly was afraid of. There were none of Miley's friends from home that she would have trusted to know her as anyone but Hannah.
Oliver hadn't seen anything, his gaze on something far away and his eyebrows drawn together in worry. "What?" he asked, catching her watching.
Miley smiled and shook her head. "Nothing," she told him, and thought, I wish I'd known you.
———————————————
No one noticed when she walked down the hall, or stood at her locker, or took her seat in class. It was probably a good thing, with what she had on. Definitely a good thing when it came to Amber and Ashley. She knew what they would say, what they had said, what she had said. But this had been her school for the time she'd been here. She and Amber and Ashley had ruled it, and now no one noticed when she walked down the hall. She wasn't important enough to notice. And she wouldn't be until she changed things.
Lilly turned away from staring out the window and found a tiny square of folded paper in the middle of her notebook. She glanced around, saw Miley's raised eyebrow and raised one back. Miley's eyes darted to the slip of paper. Lilly unfolded it, read, Cheer up. Only seven more hours to go!
She bit her lip to keep from laughing. Miley's eyebrow edged up further and a smile started in her eyes.
Yesterday, after Oliver left, Miley had come back upstairs. "I almost feel like I should apologize to you," she said.
"What for?" Lilly asked.
"All those crazy things Miley made Lilly do."
Lilly shrugged, uneasy. What did they have to do with those girls? "They're friends. And that's what friends do for each other, right?" she said, even though in her experience it was not.
"Right," Miley said, but she sounded as uncertain as Lilly felt.
Lilly wrote back. You should change careers. Motivational speaker.
Miley made a face at Lilly when she read it. She scribbled something and tossed the scrap of paper back on Lilly's desk. Be nice. I have worms and I know how to use them. Lilly gave a dramatic shudder and Miley snickered. Lilly couldn't help grinning.
"Lilly. Miley. How many times do I have to ask you not to pass notes in class before you actually listen?" Collins said. They both looked up at her in complete surprise. Lilly had forgotten that she and the rest of the class were there.
"This is the first time!" she protested.
"Today, maybe," Collins said, narrowed eyes signaling her patience was wearing thin. "One more time and you both get detention and I'm moving your desk to opposite sides of the room." She went back to the lecture and Lilly slumped down in her chair, unsettled. She was getting used to people pointing how different she was, the disapproval that was clear every time they did. It felt strange to be caught doing something right. Oliver would probably be proud, but Lilly didn't like it. They were not those other girls. She was not that other Lilly.
Another note landed on her desk. Cheer up, it said. Only six hours, fifty-five minutes to go!
Lilly folded the note back into a tiny square. She didn't let herself smile or look in Miley's direction.
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School went much faster now that she was paying attention. Too fast, in fact. Miley was so behind. She had dismissed school as unimportant, and everyone around her had let her. They had agreed, at least tacitly, that it was, or that it was less important than so many of the other things that ate her time. But so far today she'd spent four class periods furiously scribbling down everything Miley's teachers wrote on the board and she'd only understood ten percent of it.
She was two years behind, maybe more. She had a sixth grade education. Sixth grade. All the other kids were relaxed, laughing and joking before class. And bored out of their minds once it started, secure from having been there last week, last month, last year. Miley felt like she was sprinting the whole day, racing to catch up. She was out of her depth. The last time she'd felt that way had been the day her father left for his honeymoon.
She hated it.
So she wrote down everything, even when her hand started cramping up from writing so much. She'd figured things out last time. She could do it this time. She would do it this time. She wasn't going to let Robby Ray take Hannah away from her or Miley. No one and nothing was going to do that, not even whatever had brought her to this place.
Kunkle put something else about the circulatory system up on the board and Miley copied it down. She didn't understand it, but she would. She would.
———————————————
"Okay," Oliver said at lunch. "I guess we can rule out the sleep thing. It's been four days."
"I don't want my banana," Miley announced. "Either of you guys want it?"
"Any ideas why you haven't gone back yet?" Oliver persisted.
"Lilly? You want my banana?" Lilly took it so she would shut up about it. Oliver was asking dangerous questions. Lilly didn't want either of them stumbling on the idea that they wouldn't be going back anytime soon.
"Maybe we have to do something," she said.
Miley and Oliver stared at her. "Do something? Like what?" Oliver said.
Lilly shrugged. "How should I know?" She peeled the banana and ate it quickly, trying to look like she didn't care if they listened to her suggestion or not.
"Or," Miley was saying slowly. "Maybe they have to do something."
Why hadn't she thought of that? Even better. That way they wouldn't have to waste time trying to do things to get them sent back. "Yes," Lilly said immediately.
"Do what?" Oliver asked again. "And what makes you think they'd have to do it and not you?"
"You were the one who said it wasn't us," Miley pointed out. "So if that's true, then maybe this is because of them and maybe they have to do something to switch it back."
"Are you blaming them for this?" Oliver demanded.
"No!" Miley said at the same time Lilly said, "Well, we sure as hell didn't do it."
Miley shot her an irritated glare. "I'm not blaming anyone. I'm just...I just don't know what it is that we could do."
"And what are they supposed to do?" Oliver said, still annoyed. "Fix all your problems for you?"
"Hey, I didn't have any problems," Lilly snapped. "Not until this happened."
"Look, let's just calm down, okay? Maybe we're wrong and no one has to do anything. For all we know, we could be – "
"Yeah, it could be like that movie," Lilly said. "You know, where that guy wishes he was never born and then the angel shows him how screwed up everyone would be without him and he's happy again. Maybe it's like that and there's nothing we have to do, just something we have to learn."
"Then maybe you guys need to figure out what it is you're supposed to learn so I can get my friends back," Oliver said. "Because this is not their fault." He snatched his tray up and stormed away from the table.
That was close, Lilly thought. Miley started half-heartedly pushing creamed corn around with her fork, eyes trained on the shapeless blob. "What?" Lilly asked, hoping that her thoughts hadn't gone back to what she was saying before Lilly interrupted.
Miley looked up, her expression troubled and more than a little sad. "I think I've learned enough already," she said. "I don't want to learn anything more."
———————————————
There was a note from Robby Ray on the kitchen counter when Miley got home. In meetings, it said, and went on to instruct her to have leftovers for dinner or get something from Jackson at Rico's.
Meetings? What meetings? He'd told her there wasn't any Hannah stuff this week. That it was all on hold.
Robby Ray didn't answer her call. Miley called again. "Miley?" he said finally, picking up right before it would have gone to voicemail again. "Did something happen? What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong."
"Well, I'm kinda busy right now, so if you and your brother are okay, I'll call you back when I get done with this meeting."
"Wait," she said. "I want to know what meeting." He asked what she was talking about. "Is it a Hannah meeting? Why didn't you tell me? I could have gone with you."
"You had school," he said. "And you don't need to be here for this."
Miley bristled. Who was he to say what she needed to be there for? It was her career, and who knew how much longer he would be there for any of it?
"I'll be home by eight," Robby Ray said, and hung up before she could say anything else. She immediately called back. It went straight to voicemail. Damn it. She'd said he wouldn't take Hannah from her, but this was like he already had, and she was helpless to stop it. All she could do for now was play by his rules.
She set the phone down carefully so she wouldn't slam it on the counter. It didn't matter, she tried to tell herself. This wasn't her world. This wasn't her life. She didn't care about Miley or this man who was not her father. She'd be gone soon and this place would fade like a dream.
She told herself that at least twenty times, but it didn't make concentrating on her homework any easier.
———————————————
The first few nights here, Lilly had fallen dead asleep as soon as she got into bed, like flipping a switch. But the last two nights had been restless, her mind tossing and turning as much as her body did. Distraction had always been one of the advantages to having someone else in bed, and Lilly wished she had that boy here now, the cute one from the party, whatever his name had been. If she'd gone with him last week would she still be here now? Why was she here?
That question kept coming back, the one question she couldn't answer and wanted to avoid. It was fine for Oliver to say that Hannah and Lilly had gone together, that they would not have done otherwise. But she knew they hadn't. They couldn't have. It didn't explain why Lilly had switched when she was sixteen instead of a year and a half ago. Oliver was wrong. They hadn't gone together. Hannah had gone first. And then...what?
And then something had happened and Lilly had gone. Not too much later, not enough time later to account for the time Hannah had been alone – Lilly bent her thoughts from that word – in the other universe. But some time must have passed, something must have happened, something to make Lilly go to a different point in time than the one Hannah had.
Was her first guess right? Maybe Hannah had finally discovered how to switch back, only it had made Lilly switch in the process. But then why hadn't Lilly switched with her sixteen-year-old self? Why was she here, now, with Miley, instead of eighteen months from now with Hannah?
And would Hannah have done that? Listening to Oliver's stories, remembering how Hannah had treated her, Lilly couldn't think that she would. Not if she'd known it would make Lilly switch. Hannah had always acted as though Lilly was something precious and very fragile. It had been bewildering to Lilly, who knew she wasn't the first and wouldn't allow herself to be the second.
Why didn't you tell me? she thought at the other girl, but she knew the answer to that question, at least. It wouldn't have even occurred to Hannah to tell her, the same way Lilly didn't consider for a second telling anyone here.
She wondered if everything Hannah had done, said, if all of that was because of her Lilly, if there had ever been a moment when Hannah looked at her and saw her, not the person she'd left behind. If there had ever been anything in the time they spent together that was real, that was something more than Hannah chasing a memory. She didn't know if she wanted there to be or not. If there had been, Lilly had destroyed it. Hannah would not confuse her with the other Lilly, would not think her precious after what she had done. What she had done...
Lilly turned over in bed, turned her mind from that, landed on Oliver, which was –
His front door gaping open, Oliver's body blocking out the space, barring her from a house where she'd been welcome her whole life.
"Go away, Lilly."
"Oliver, I'm sorry."
"I don't care. I don't want to hear it."
"It was a joke! I didn't think they'd believe me!"
"Great. Is that supposed to make it better? You gave me up and you didn't even think it would work. You sold me out for nothing. Our friendship really must have meant a lot to you."
"It does, Oliver, I just thought – "
"It doesn't matter what you thought, Lilly. It doesn't even matter what you said. Just that you said it."
"Oliver, I – "
"Go away, Lilly. I'm done talking to you. I'm done with you. I don't ever want to talk to you again, so just go away. Have fun being a bitch with your new friends. I'm sure you'll be a lot happier with your own kind."
"Oliver – "
And then the door slamming in her face.
– which was worse.
Lilly sat up and rubbed at her face, reached for the water on the table beside her bed. She needed a drink, something stronger than water, or a boy. A party. She needed out of this bed. Out of this house. Away from Oliver and her mother. She needed money. It all came back to that.
———————————————
At lunch on Tuesday, Oliver asked about the diary again. Miley said she still hadn't found it and slid her side salad onto Lilly's tray while the other girl was distracted watching Amber and Ashley holding court at their table across the cafeteria. He told Miley Hannah's schedule for the next few weeks, and told both of them about the assignments he knew they had due that week. And after school he took them to the skatepark.
"This isn't the one we normally come to," he said. "That's good. They don't know us and no one will be wondering why I'm teaching Lilly how to skate." He must have known Lilly wouldn't want to do it, because he didn't tell them where they were going until they got there.
"You're not teaching me how to skate," Lilly said.
"Yes, I am." He pulled a helmet and a skateboard from his gym bag and thrust the helmet at her. "Lilly skates. You need to know how. Your mom already thinks something weird is going on. You can't stop skating on top of everything else."
Lilly inspected it, arching an eyebrow. "Do you honestly expect me to wear this? It'll ruin my hair."
"Lilly doesn't care about her hair!"
Miley put a hand on his arm to calm him. "You could show me," she said. "I think it looks like fun." The label probably would have thrown a fit if she'd gotten on a skateboard back home. What if she broke her ankle and couldn't tour?
"You don't know how to skate," Oliver said.
"I know," Miley said. "That's why I want to learn."
"No," Oliver said. "I meant you – the other you doesn't know how to skate, so you don't need to know how."
"I got that," Miley said. "But I'm saying that I want to learn how. Like the surfing."
"Great," Lilly said, jamming the helmet on Miley's head. "She can learn instead of me." Miley frowned, took the helmet off, and put it back on the right way.
Oliver shut his eyes and clenched his hand into a fist. "I don't think you guys are understanding the point of this. You're supposed to be getting more like your other selves so no one figures out what happened. That means you – " He pointed at Lilly. " – skate. And you – " He pointed at Miley. " – hate sports. You suck at them."
"Who's going to figure out what happened?" Lilly demanded. "We don't even know what happened. And even if we did, no one would believe us if we told them."
"No, but you don't want them getting suspicious and asking too many questions," Oliver said. "If they find out what we think happened, they'll think you're crazy."
"But, I mean, people change," Miley said. "Can't I just say I changed my mind and decided I wanted to learn how to skateboard?"
"Yeah, and can't I just say I got bored of it and quit?" Lilly asked.
"You know what?" Oliver said angrily. "Fine. Do whatever you want, I don't care. I don't even know why I'm wasting my time with you guys. I was only trying to help." He started to stomp away but Miley ran after him.
"Wait, Oliver, come back." She grabbed his arm. "We're sorry. We want your help, we really do. We need you."
Oliver stopped.
"But Oliver," she continued. "We aren't them."
"I know that," Oliver barked. "You think I don't know that?"
"I know you know," Miley said. "What I meant was that maybe we don't have to be just like them. Because we'll never get it, we'll never be able to be them because we aren't. But Lilly was right. No one's going to guess what happened. I went surfing on Saturday and nothing happened, right?" She waited for his reluctant nod. "As long as we don't make any huge mistakes everyone's going to think it's just puberty or something, just...teenage hormones."
"I know," Oliver admitted. "But I want everything to be like it was. For when they get back."
"So if someone asks, Lilly will say she doesn't feel well and that's why she hasn't been skating," Miley coaxed. "And I'll say I drank too much coffee and I'm hyper and I wanted to burn off some energy. But no one will ask, Oliver. This is a small thing."
Oliver met her eyes and Miley's heart clutched at the pain in them. "It doesn't feel small to me."
"To me, either," Miley said softly. "But to everyone else it is. They won't even notice, it'll be fine. You'll keep us from screwing up anything big and it'll all be fine and when we switch back their lives will be just the way they left them." She held her breath until he nodded again.
"Okay."
"Good," Lilly said. "Because there was no way I was going to wear that helmet. It smells."
Miley rolled her eyes at Oliver and got a tiny smile in return. She grinned at him. "So you wanna see if I can stay on this thing longer than I did the surfboard?"
"I don't know," Oliver said doubtfully. "This board isn't the best to learn on. It's pretty fast."
"You were going to teach her on it," Miley pointed out.
He gave in, finally, and showed her how to stand – left foot just behind the front bolts – and how to push off – pushing foot in front of her foot on the skateboard. "Now watch my feet," he instructed, and demonstrated pushing off and then getting his other foot on the board. "Try to do it fast or the board will get away from you. Your back foot should be on the fishtail, behind the bolts, and you have to turn your front foot sideways. And you kinda need to lean right on this board. Think you got it?"
She didn't, but he walked beside the board with an arm up for her to grab for balance and coached her through it a couple times. "Long pushes," he corrected. "And push harder. Your back foot's landing on the bolts, it needs to be farther back. Okay, now try it by yourself."
"But it's so wobbly!"
"You can't learn to skateboard hanging onto someone. You'll be fine, just try it."
Miley carefully put her left foot on the board and went to push off, then halted. "Wait."
"What?"
"How do I stop this thing?"
Oliver laughed. "For now? You don't. Just jump off."
That was hardly reassuring. She pushed off anyway, in slow, stuttering starts. "Bigger pushes!" Oliver called. She tried to push a little harder but otherwise ignored him, just glad she hadn't fallen off yet. "Now get on!" he yelled when she'd pushed herself several feet away.
She pushed off one more time and tried to bring her foot onto the board, but she couldn't get her front foot to twist right and her back foot wasn't in the right spot and all of it too slow. Way, way too slow. The skateboard slipped away from her and she crashed to the ground, landing mostly on her butt and right elbow and the back edge of her borrowed helmet. Ow.
She lay there until Oliver appeared above her. "I think that was even less time than the surfboard," she said.
"Are you okay?" He offered her a hand and hauled her up. "Let me look at your arm. I should have made you wear pads."
"It's all right," she said, though she could see she'd skinned it pretty bad. Blood oozed up in long lines of tiny droplets that started to join up and run into each other. "But I'm starting to get why Miley doesn't do sports."
"Don't worry, it's a skatepark," Oliver told her. "Someone always has something around here." Lilly was stretched out on one of the benches, her head pillowed on her bookbag, and Miley sat on the next one over while he went away and came back with a water bottle, a square of gauze, and some tape.
He washed the grit out of the scrape, hands gentle, and Miley hardly felt the sting because she was too busy watching him. "How did it happen?"
"Huh?" He ripped a piece of tape off the roll and used it to secure one end of the folded gauze.
"How did you find out? You know, about Hannah."
"Oh," he said, taping down the other end of the gauze. He patted her arm and Miley shivered. "That. It's...well, it's kind of embarrassing."
"More embarrassing than the fall I just took?"
Oliver laughed. "I guess not. You did look pretty stupid."
"Thanks," Miley said wryly.
"No problem." He leaned back against the bench. "I used to have a crush on Hannah. That's how I found out. I was maybe a little obsessed with her, and it got so bad Miley finally had to tell me it was never gonna happen because she was Hannah."
"Then what happened?"
"Nothing!" Oliver said. "Nothing happened. I certainly didn't pass out, if that's what you're thinking."
It hadn't been. "You passed out? No, never mind. I meant what happened after she told you. Did you guys go out?" Surely he would have mentioned something about that by now, right?
"No. Of course not."
"She didn't like you?"
"And I didn't like her. Not like that."
"But you had a crush on her!"
"On Hannah," he corrected her. "And once Miley told me, it was like...it was like Hannah stopped existing, you know? She was just Miley in a wig. And I don't feel like that about Miley."
Could it really happen like that? She badly wanted to believe it could. "What about Lilly? What happened when she found out?"
"Oh, man, Lilly was pissed." He laughed at the memory. "She found out first, so I didn't know why at the time, but she got pissed and then they got into a big fight and didn't talk for a couple days."
"But do you think the same thing happened?" Miley persisted. "Do you think Hannah stopped existing for her too?"
"Well, yeah, of course," Oliver said, apparently oblivious to how incredible the idea was to Miley. "I mean, Miley's Miley, you know? And Hannah is just something she does. Like if she was on the soccer team. She never would be, but you get what I mean."
Miley remembered being angry at the other girl, thinking at her that Hannah was important, not some stupid extracurricular activity, and now she almost laughed out loud because here was Oliver telling her Hannah was exactly that. Did Miley know how lucky she was to have friends like this, friends who reacted like that when it could have so easily gone the other way?
She'd lost touch with all of her old friends when they moved from Tennessee. She was so busy, and they didn't have anything in common anymore. Her friends now were people like her, people in the business. They were okay, most of them, but they were really only friends because of proximity, geographic and fame. They were around when you were up and the spotlight was shining, but make one mistake and there was always the chance you'd pick up a magazine and find them condemning you in an interview. She knew it. They all knew it. If she ever stopped being Hannah, if the spotlight on her ever faded, she didn't expect that any of them would stick around.
She wondered if Miley knew what a fantastic, unimaginable thing it was that Hannah had been the one to stop existing for Lilly and Oliver, not Miley.
———————————————
Lilly relaxed a little once Oliver left them partway back from the skatepark.
"Oliver said I'll get better if I practice," Miley said, holding out the skateboard Oliver had loaned her and eyeing it. "But I'm not sure I believe him."
"You don't trust the board," Lilly told her. "You think it's going to get away from you, so it does." Miley had fallen almost a dozen times before she gave up for the day. Lilly remembered how much that hurt. Miley had to be pretty sore right now.
"You were watching?" Miley asked.
"A little." She'd watched Oliver with her. It was like going further back in time, to when Ben had taught her. Except Miley sucked at it. She still couldn't get both feet on the board without falling off. Lilly was almost positive she'd never been as bad, not even the first time she'd stepped on a board. "There wasn't anything else to do. And you just need to go faster. Like this."
She took the board from Miley and threw it down, stepped on and pushed off, got her other foot on smoothly and coasted a little way down the sidewalk. "And don't listen to Oliver when he says you have to get your back foot behind the bolts. You can always slide it back if you need to." She demonstrated. "See?"
Miley was watching her now. "Why didn't you tell Oliver you can skate?"
Lilly jumped off. "I can't skate." She grabbed the board before it could get too far away.
"You just did."
"I don't skate."
"Why not?"
Lilly turned the skateboard over in her hands. "Skaters aren't popular." Not if they were girls. She'd learned that the hard way.
"Being popular isn't everything."
"Easy for you to say."
Miley smiled a little. "Not really." She walked towards Lilly. "You should skate. You'd be good at it. A lot better than me. And you like it, I can tell."
She didn't like it. It was just nice to be able to do it right after watching Miley mess it up all afternoon. "I don't skate."
"Here." Miley gently took the board from her. "Let me try it again."
"You'll fall, and you don't have a helmet."
"I won't fall." She put the board down and stepped on, pushed off slowly a couple of times, and then – somehow – managed to get her other foot on the board. She was shaky, her back foot was squarely on the bolts, and her arms were stuck out from her sides for balance, but she stayed on until the skateboard rolled to a stop a few feet later.
Lilly ran to her. "You did it!" She half-laughed at the pleased, surprised grin spreading across Miley's face.
"I told you I could. You must be a better teacher than Oliver."
Lilly put a hand on her hip. "Please, I'm a better everything than Oliver," she said, and they both laughed.
"So...you wanna show me how to get off? Because I'm pretty sure if I move, I'm going to fall."
Lilly held her steady so she could take the step to the ground. "You are totally not cut out for this."
"Yeah, I already figured that one out. I think I'll just stick to dancing. You know, you could take the board home instead of me. If you wanted."
The other Lilly already had like three different skateboards there, but Lilly didn't tell her that. She kicked the board sideways with her toe. "I don't."
"Okay." Miley picked up the board and they walked for a few minutes until Miley had to split off to get back to her house. "I – I'll see you tomorrow. If we're, you know..."
"Yeah."
"Lilly?" Lilly waited. "Even if we aren't..."
It took a second, but then she got what Miley meant. "I'll see you tomorrow," she said.
———————————————
After she got back from the skatepark, Miley went straight upstairs to start her homework. They'd gotten a study guide for the history test in class today and she wanted to start filling it out so she would have time to ask Oliver or the teacher about anything she didn't understand. She was going to get a B on this test if it killed her. She'd gotten almost halfway through it when Robby Ray came upstairs.
"Dinner?" Miley guessed.
"It's in the oven," he said. "It'll be done in about twenty minutes. I set the timer. Don't let Jackson get it out, he'll forget the oven mitts and I'm not taking anyone to the emergency room tonight." He was dressed much nicer than the sweatpants and old shirt he'd been wearing when she got home.
"Where are you going?" she asked, unable to stop the trepidation that was creeping along the back of her neck. He wouldn't have meetings this late, would he?
"I've got a date."
The trepidation stopped creeping and started stomping. A barrage of questions spilled out of her mouth. "Who is she? Have you seen her before? How long have you known her? Is it serious?"
"Whoa, Mile." He frowned. "I thought we talked about this. You know I'd tell you if it was anything serious. It's just a first date, bud."
"Oh," Miley said, feeling both relieved and stupid. She'd gotten lucky. What if it had been something serious? Something that Miley was supposed to have known about already? "How long will you be gone?"
He came and kissed her on the forehead. "I'll be back before you go to bed."
"What's her name?"
"Amy."
Not Candice. Thank god. Still... "And you'll tell me if you think it might get serious?"
"You know I would. You know I'm never going to get involved seriously with someone without discussing it with you and your brother first."
She didn't know that. She'd known her father was going out with Candice, but the first inkling she'd had that it was serious was the morning she came downstairs and found Candice in the kitchen with a diamond on her finger.
"I've gotta go," Robby Ray said. "Or I'll be late and that's not a good first impression. Don't forget to take dinner out."
The front door seemed to echo when it shut a few moments later. It didn't, she knew that, but she was up from the desk and out of the room anyway. She needed to find contracts, papers, even a calendar or planner, something that could tell her anything about the situation Hannah was in here. Maybe the desk in the guest room? She couldn't think where else to look.
She ransacked it but there was nothing. Old schoolwork of hers and Jackson's, pictures they'd drawn in kindergarten. Birthday and Christmas cards from their relatives. Report cards going back to elementary school – who kept stuff like this?
Maybe he didn't keep anything here at the house. Everything could be with the lawyers, or in safe deposit boxes at the bank. The bank. Money. She had an allowance here, was any of her money even in her name? What if –
A scream of pain from downstairs stopped her thought. Miley dropped Jackson's fifth grade report on ecosystems back into the bottom desk drawer. "Jackson?"
"Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!"
"What happened?"
"Owwwwwww!"
She slammed the drawer shut and raced downstairs to find Jackson hopping around the kitchen, waving one arm around wildly. The oven door was open, a casserole dish of manicotti pulled partway out, and not an oven mitt or hot pad in sight. "Jackson, what did you do!"
"I was hungry!"
She grabbed his arm, leaning away from him so he wouldn't hit her with it before she got a hold of him, and pulled him over to the sink, turning on the cold water and sticking his hand under it. "The timer hasn't even gone off yet!"
"There's ten minutes left, that's practically nothing. And I was hungry!"
"You're seventeen years old, you don't know how to use an oven mitt?" She'd thought Robby Ray was kidding.
"Bu...I...but..." He gestured back and forth from himself to the dish in the oven. "Manicotti!"
Miley pulled his hand from the water and peered at it. The tips of his first two fingers were an angry pink, but the rest of the skin seemed untouched. "It doesn't look that bad." She shoved his hand back under the water. "Keep it there." She found a hot pad, slid the pan back in the oven, and shut the door. "You're lucky you didn't drop it and have molten cheese and tomato sauce all over you. I swear, you need someone looking after you full-time." She stopped, her hands still resting on the handle of the oven door. Who was looking after her brother?
"I'm not the one who was banging around making a mess in the guest room. Dad's not going to be happy."
"I'll clean it up."
He inspected his hand, then put it back under the stream of water. "What were you even doing up there?"
"Nothing." She opened the oven again and took out the manicotti on autopilot. "Jackson? What do you think will happen if he marries this woman?"
"It's a first date, Miles."
"But what if...what if he marries her, and then they're gone all the time, what if – "
"That would never happen."
"You don't know that," she said softly.
"Yeah, I do." The tomato sauce bubbled into the silence. "Miley. I do. That would never happen. Even if they got married, Dad isn't going anywhere."
"How's your hand?"
He shut off the water. "It's fine. Miles – "
"I can't believe you did that. And you think you're going to get into college."
He twisted his face in a sneer and flicked his fingers at her; she squeezed her eyes shut against the water droplets flying into her face and stuck her tongue out at him.
"Can we eat now?" Jackson asked.
The timer went off. Miley mopped her face dry with her sleeve. "Yeah. We can eat now."
———————————————
It was Wednesday. Tomorrow would be a week. A week in the worst time in her life. There was a calendar insert in one of Lilly's binder's, and Lilly thought about marking off the days, but this one only went through December and it depressed her enough just thinking about that. She wouldn't be able to endure starting a new one in January and having to mark off the whole year. Not if it was going to be like this.
She needed to get that money. Fast. She needed to get out of here, put her life back to something she could live without having remember every day that she was here and wonder why.
Because she still couldn't figure it out.
Corelli had them turn to page 238 and start answering the questions there. Lilly tapped her pen against the book, not seeing the words on the page. She almost wished classes were more interesting, or at least that this was stuff she hadn't seen before. Not that she'd paid much attention the first time, but she remembered bits and pieces, enough that her mind wandered even when she tried to concentrate, to let the lectures and classwork serve as a distraction.
Why eighteen months? Something must have happened, and it must have happened to Hannah. It must have happened to Hannah after she'd been in Lilly's world that long. Not switching back, no, Lilly didn't think that was it. But going back, to the same time she'd left, to the time when Lilly here was fourteen...
She focused down on the textbook. Question one: How did the growth of the Roman Empire change the Mediterranean world?
"They're friends. And that's what friends do for each other, right?"
"Right."
Lilly wouldn't have done half the things in Oliver's stories for any of her friends. She didn't think Miley would have either. Maybe Lilly would have, once, for Oliver, a long time ago.
That's what friends do for each other.
What else did friends like that do?
———————————————
Miley's head was stuck in school the whole time she was trudging back to the house. It was getting easier. She understood more of what was being taught, mostly because she'd spent the last two night buried in Miley's schoolbooks. The history test was tomorrow, and she thought if she spent one more night buried she might be able to pull off that B.
For the first time, she didn't immediately notice the differences in the house as soon as she stepped inside. Robby Ray was in the kitchen, and she noticed that, but only in the back of her mind, and not as anything out of the ordinary. She was only thinking of the history test.
She had gotten as far as the stairs when he scooped his keys from the counter and said goodbye and she registered that he was leaving. Dressed nicely. Again. She stopped, suspicious. "Where are you going?" she blurted.
"What?"
"Are you going out with Amy again?"
"Wha – no. I just have a meeting with Juliana. I'll pick up something for dinner on the way home."
"What's the meeting about?"
He put the keys back down on the counter, crossed his arms over his chest. "You going to start quizzing me about all my meetings now?"
Miley slid her bookbag off, mirrored his stance. "Maybe."
He hadn't been expecting that, for her to push back. Familiar confusion squinted out at her from his eyes. "It's just a preliminary meeting about the new contract. You know this one's up after this album."
She thought about that confusion, about the questions it would eventually raise if she kept on like this. She thought about the history test. Then she thought about the meetings this weekend, Monday. She thought about his date yesterday. "I'm going with you."
"What?"
She'd let this go for too long. She'd told herself that this was a vacation, that it didn't matter if she left everything for Robby Ray to do because this wasn't her world. It wasn't her career on the line. But no. She wasn't going to let Miley find herself in the same position she had been in. Screw the history test. "I said, I'm going with you. Give me five minutes to put the wig on."
"Mile, what has gotten into you?"
"Five minutes," she said. "Don't leave without me."
"I...you don't need the wig. Juliana knows."
Sure she did. Because the best way to keep a secret was to make sure as many people as possible knew about it. Not that she didn't trust Juliana. Juliana had taught her a lot. Juliana knew everyone and she knew how to get things done, and when Miley hadn't, Juliana had told her. She'd made a lot of phone calls a fifteen-year-old couldn't make, not even a famous one. She'd helped Miley set up the meetings to find a new manager.
"Fine. Two minutes, then." She wanted to change. Her clothes were sweaty from walking home.
"You really want to go with me?"
"I am going with you."
"Are you sure? It's going to be pretty boring."
"I don't care."
"What about your homework? You have that test tomorrow."
She lied without hesitation. "I'm done studying. And I don't have any other homework."
He didn't look as if he believed her, but after a moment he nodded. "All right, if you really want to go. I'll wait for you in the car."
She flashed him the same smile she used on the paparazzi. "Be right down."
———————————————
"Come on, Lilly, let's go!" Ben yelled.
"I'm in the bathroom!" she screamed back.
"You're taking forever! We're late!"
"We'll be even later if you don't shut up and let me finish!" She was trying to put on make-up but she kept screwing it up because this make-up sucked. She tried mascara again. Her hand shook and the wand jerked up to hit the skin under her eyebrow.
Damn it.
She hurled the wand into the trashcan, knocked the tube off the counter into it, then, still furious, swept the rest of the make-up from the counter with the back of her arm. Most of it missed the trash, clattering onto the floor. It was all crap.
She turned on the water and scrubbed everything from her face, toweling it dry roughly. She hated this face. She hated this world.
When she finished here, she would have to go downstairs, get in the car with her brother, and go to see her father.
She picked up a thing of eyeshadow from the floor and started again, but just ended up jabbing herself in the eye. There was something wrong with this brush. It was too long or something.
"Lilly!" Ben again. "If you don't hurry up, I'm coming in after you!"
Fuck it, she thought. Fuck this face and this world and this life. All of it. She wiped at the smear of eyeshadow, reached for a towel. Locked eyes with herself in the mirror. And froze, her hand still halfway to her face. She couldn't even breathe.
There had always been that look in Hannah's eyes, those times Lilly had seen her around after, haunted and hopeless, like she needed someone to save her but she knew no one ever would, her eyes full that feeling Lilly could never name. But she knew it now. It was right there in her own eyes. Desperation.
She knew it, and in that moment she knew what Hannah had known. That there was no way out. That she wasn't going back.
Hannah had known it. Lilly didn't know how Hannah had known, but she had, she had been sure of it, and Lilly was too. They weren't going back. She couldn't make Hannah tell her the trick to it, switch back in a year and a half and pick up right where she'd left off. All of that was gone, everything she'd had, everything she'd worked for was gone for good. This place, this horrible fucking place was it. She was trapped here. Forever.
"Lilly!" Ben screamed.
She went out without putting on make-up, without looking in the mirror again. "I'm coming," she called down to him. "I'm coming already." She didn't have a choice. There was nowhere else to go.
———————————————
The building was familiar. She'd been here a million times, and apparently lawyers' offices didn't feel the need to redecorate between universes. Juliana's assistant was the same woman, too, and Miley even thought she'd seen her wearing that outfit before. All of that had to be a sign that coming to this meeting had been a good idea.
"Miley," Juliana said, rising from behind her desk. "How wonderful to see you. I wasn't expecting you, it's been so long."
So long. Right. They'd had lunch last week. And what was with the polite act?
"She just got it into her head she wanted to come along today," Robby Ray was saying.
"And I'm delighted she did."
The politeness was starting to creep Miley out. So much for similarities. "Well, it is my name on the contract," she said. "I figured I should know what's going to be in it."
Juliana gave her an openly speculating look. "Smart," she said. "Let's get started then."
That had been what Juliana had said to her right before Miley signed her first contract. It's your name on the thing. You should know what's in it. And then she'd sat Miley down and made her go over it. Not all of it, not then, but the major parts, and she'd explained what each of them meant, how they would affect her. And when Miley's dad asked if that was really necessary, since Miley was only thirteen, Juliana had asked her, "How long do you plan to keep doing this?"
And Miley said, "The rest of my life."
And Juliana said, "Then it's necessary."
Had Juliana done the same thing for Miley here? Would Miley have given the same answer she had?
She took notes while Juliana went over what she would try to go for in the new contract, better notes than the ones she'd been taking in school the past few days. She jotted down all the high points: advance, royalties, length. She would leave them for Miley, she decided. Your dad got you a new producer and locked you into a six-album contract while you were gone. Do you even care about any of this or are you just going to blindly do what your daddy tells you forever?
"Any questions?" Juliana asked almost an hour later, her eyes flickering over Miley before focusing on Robby Ray.
"I don't think s—"
"Is controlled comp tied to sales or the album number?" Miley interrupted him.
Her question was met with a shocked silence. Yes, all right, Miley thought irritably. She was tired of all the surprise and confusion. If she could find out she'd been transported to an alternate universe and still manage to function, it seemed like they could handle an unexpected question about a recording contract.
"You been studying up on this stuff, Mile?" Robby Ray asked. She shrugged. "Because I'm not even sure what you're talkin' about..."
"It's, uh...," Juliana said, then licked her lips and sat forward slightly, all of her attention on Miley now. "It's tied to sales."
Miley nodded. "For each album individually or cumulative?"
A small smile edged Juliana's lips. "Right now it's individual, but that's only because I wasn't aware this was an issue. No one let me know you were interested in including some of your own work for the next albums."
Because of course the other Miley never had before. What was the other girl doing? Even before her father left, Miley had written some of Hannah's songs. Establishing herself as a songwriter – that was just good business. She hoped Miley hadn't given the same answer if Juliana had asked, that she wasn't sure about doing this the rest of her life, because otherwise she was wasting a hell of a lot of time.
"Can we get it off the later albums?" she asked. "Maybe if the first one breaks double platinum?"
"I can try," Juliana said. "You know, if you're thinking of writing enough of the album that you're worried about controlled comp, maybe I should go after them for a bigger advance on the grounds that they can market that. That should translate into more sales, at least for the first album."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Robby Ray broke in. "What is it exactly you two are talking about?"
"Controlled composition is a clause that reduces the compensation Miley would receive if she both writes and performs a song," Juliana explained. "It's lose-lose, but there are ways to manipulate it to make it less disadvantageous."
Lose-lose. Disadvantageous. When Juliana had explained controlled comp to her, she'd called it the "goddamn labels are cocksucking whores" clause. Of course, her father hadn't been in the room at the time. Or the country.
"So we're talking about Miley writing a portion of the songs for these albums?" he questioned.
"A large portion, if I'm not mistaken," Juliana said, tilting her head towards Miley, who nodded in turn. "Obviously, the more Miley writes, the bigger an impact the clause has on her profits."
Robby Ray's face was drawn. "Juliana, do you mind giving me a minute with my daughter?"
"Oh, uh...of course," Juliana said. She stood. "I could use a cup of coffee. Would either of you care for one?"
"Yes," Miley said. It had been a long day and it was only getting longer.
But Robby Ray overrode her with a glare and, "We're fine, thanks. Just give us a couple minutes." The door shut behind Juliana and it was a moment before Robby Ray finally spoke. "Miley, why didn't you talk to me about wanting to write some of Hannah's songs yourself? Why am I hearing about it for the first time in your lawyer's office?"
What was she supposed to say, that it hadn't occurred to her to consult him? That she was used to having a lot of control over her career and she wasn't going to give that up for long? That would go over well.
"Sorry," she said, trying to put some feeling into it. "I, um, I wasn't sure yet if I was serious about it."
"You were serious enough to find out all the information about the control – controlling – the whatever-it-was clause. I've never seen you show any interest in any of this before, and where the heck did you even learn about that stuff?"
"The internet?" she tried, because it wasn't like she could tell him it had been Juliana.
"Miley, you know if you really want to do this, I'll support you." Support. Miley leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest to keep from clenching her hands into fists. She didn't need his support. She could take care of herself. And she'd make sure that Miley could too.
"In fact," he kept on, "I think you tryin' your hand at writing is a wonderful idea, and if you want to get some of your songs out there then we'll work together to make that happen. But are you sure that now is really the time to be thinking about that? You've got so much going on right now, I'm a little worried about adding to that."
He hadn't been so worried when he took off on a honeymoon that stretched out into months and left her without half the material he was supposed to be writing for her last album.
"And, bud, I don't want you to think I'm doubting your ability at all, but you haven't – " He paused and his face got all pinched, like he didn't want to say this next part. "I haven't even gotten to hear anything you've done. Have you played anything for Lilly? Anyone? Are you sure you're ready to – "
Miley laughed, she couldn't help it. "I'll tell you what," she said. "We'll split writing for the next album fifty-fifty, and I'll guarantee you it sits at number one for at least five consecutive weeks and every one of my songs charts as a single in the top ten, or I'll never write another one."
It wasn't until she stopped talking that she remembered she wouldn't be here for the next album. Oh well. It was past time for someone to give Miley a push to step up and learn to do things for herself. She'd figure it out, just like Miley had, and one day she would need to know all of this. Just like Miley had.
Robby Ray wasn't saying anything, and the way he was looking at her, intense and like he'd never seen her before, made her sure for a few seconds that when he did open his mouth he was going to ask who she was and what she'd done with his daughter. But she didn't care. She was tired of holding back, trying not to say anything wrong, pretending as best she could to be this other girl. It was an overwhelming relief to have said something plainly, as herself.
Did the other Miley feel like that all the time when she played dress-up as Hannah, like she had to hide who she was? Miley didn't see how she could stand it.
"You're real sure of yourself, aren't you, bud?" Robby Ray asked, not taking his eyes off of her. She only looked back at him. Who else could she be sure of?
The door to the office opened before he could ask anything else. "Do you need more time?" Juliana inquired from the doorway.
"No," Robby Ray said slowly. "I think we're all right."
"Shall I try renegotiating the clause?" she asked. Shall. Miley had never heard that word come out of Juliana's mouth in her life.
"Apparently so," Robby Ray answered.
Miley stood, sliding the chair out and banging it back under the table once she was out of the way. "Let's go," she said, wanting this over. It hadn't gone the way she'd thought it would. Nothing here ever did. She turned to Juliana while Robby Ray was getting up. "Call me and let me know what the label says," she instructed. Juliana looked to Robby Ray and Miley almost snarled at her. Whose lawyer did Juliana think she was? What would she do if Miley came to her alone?
"You heard her," Robby Ray said. "And it seems like she'd understand more than I would."
Back in the car, they didn't speak for a good fifteen minutes. Robby Ray kept almost starting, opening his mouth a bit or glancing in her direction, but the words never made it past his lips. Miley rested her head against the seat and shut her eyes for a while, pretending again, this time that she couldn't feel the concern emanating from him.
"Look," she said finally, when the tension got so thick there was no hope she could ignore it anymore. "I'll play you something tonight. You can decide if I'm ready or not."
That didn't seem to appease him at all and she wondered what more he could possibly want.
"What's going on, Miley?" he asked. "Did something happen?"
Yeah, something, she thought. Go ahead and guess. See if you can get it. "Like what?"
"You tell me," he said. She closed her eyes again. They drove through three songs on the radio before he cleared his throat and said, "I was thinking Chinese, what do you want? We're getting close, we should call in the order."
What Chinese food to get was so far down on her list of things to care about right now. "It doesn't matter to me," she said, and reached for her purse to get her phone. "I'll call Jackson and see what he wants."
Robby Ray made a noise. "Are you sure...You know you can tell me anything. I'm right here for you. You'd tell me if something happened, right?"
Miley thought she might hate him a little bit, this man who was right here, who loved his daughter more than her father did. "Of course I would," she told him, smiling sweetly, lying easily.
———————————————
Her father's apartment was all the way out in Westlake.
I don't care, Lilly thought, repeating the words in her head like a mantra as they got closer. I don't care, I don't care. Why should she? She'd done just fine without her father for the last year. And this wasn't even really her father.
She didn't care.
Ben pulled into the complex parking lot and parked in front of one of the tall, bland buildings. He got out, slamming his door and grabbing his bookbag out of the backseat. Then he paused, still bent over, his head stuck into the car. "Are you coming or what?"
Lilly hadn't moved. She wiped damp palms on her pants. "I'm coming in a second! Why don't you mind your own damn business?"
"What the hell is wrong with you, Lilly? Lately you've been such a – "
"Shut up, Ben! Just leave me the hell alone."
"Fine! Sorry for caring. It won't happen again." She didn't care. She didn't care about any of this.
He slammed the back door shut too and stomped off towards the building. Crap. She didn't know which apartment was her father's. She jumped out of the car and went after him, not catching up to him but not letting him out of her sight either. She followed him into the building and through the lobby, sliding between the doors of the elevator just before they shut. They didn't talk on the way up and she lagged behind him when he got off on the sixth floor.
Ben still had his keys out, and he used one to unlock one of the apartment doors. He looked back over his shoulder as he went through it, scoffed when he saw her standing frozen a few feet back, let the door swing shut in her face.
She didn't go in right away. The door was stained, polished wood, just like all the other doors in the hall. There was a brass door knocker on it right under the peephole, slightly tarnished. So were the brass numbers reading 603 set to the right of the door.
Everything until now had been at least slightly familiar. Same room; different decorations. Same school; different friends. She didn't like this world. She didn't like anything about it. But she could understand it, she could trace the differences back to some point in her own life and see how she could have gotten here if she'd done things differently. If she'd kept up with skateboarding when Ben tried to teach her. If she hadn't become friends with Amber and Ashley. If this, if that, there was always something she could go back to and see where this life had branched off from her own.
But not for this. She didn't understand this. This was completely different, and to go inside, to see her father in this place, would make this world more separate from her own, make it even farther away.
She couldn't stand out here all night. Lilly put her hand on the doorknob.
The last time she'd seen her father...
The last time she'd seen her father had been outside her townhouse. He'd come one night to try to talk to her, but she'd had people over, important ones. She'd had movie stars in her living room, and there was her dad banging on the front door in a rumpled suit, face all red and sweaty. Lilly had been mortified. She was trying to impress these people, she couldn't have her father coming around, they were movie stars for god's sake.
She made Brian get rid of him and sent a lawyer to her mother's office the next day and he hadn't come again. She hadn't missed him. She hadn't. Not really. And she thought he probably hadn't missed her either. Probably neither of her parents had. After all, they hadn't come again.
The doorknob left her hand as the door was opened from the inside. "Dad wants to know if you're coming in or if you're going to stand out here all night," Ben demanded sullenly.
Lilly sneered at him. They hadn't really gotten along since she'd started paying more attention to fashion than sports. "Maybe I'd come inside if you weren't in the way."
"Whatever." He retreated back into the apartment. At least he left the door open this time.
She stepped gingerly over the threshold. The entry opened directly into the living room, where a faded, sagging blue couch Lilly remembered from her grandparents' basement sat across from a small TV stand with a TV on top. A floor lamp stood in one corner and there was another lamp on a short table by one end of the couch. That was the only furniture in the room. The walls were blank, uninterrupted white and he didn't have curtains, just blinds. Her dad had never been one to decorate. He'd always left that up to Heather. She shut her eyes so she wouldn't have to picture her father living in this place.
"There you are, Lilly," her dad said, stepping out from what she thought must be the kitchen. "Dinner will be ready in just a few minutes."
He looked just the same. Just exactly the same, here among everything that was different. "Dad," she said. Choked.
He frowned. "Are you okay, honey?"
Mutely, she shook her head. He asked what was wrong but she just kept shaking her head, afraid to try and talk, and then he was there in front of her, pulling her into a hug, and he smelled the same. He smelled just like he should, like shaving cream and clothes starch, but her parents were divorced and they were standing in her father's sad, bare apartment and suddenly Lilly was crying.
Her father's arms tightened around her. It felt like it always had, every time she'd cried as a kid and he'd comforted her. She pressed her face to his shoulder and let the stupid, pointless tears fall onto his rumpled, button-down shirt. "What's wrong, Lilly?" he murmured against the top of her head. "Just tell me what's wrong, baby."
What was wrong was that she didn't know where her father was, if he was in an apartment like this with nothing on the walls. What was wrong was that she was nothing here, no one. What was wrong was that she'd lost her whole life, everything, and could never get it back.
"Everything's wrong." She couldn't stop crying, she was crying so hard she didn't think he could understand her. "Everything's wrong," she said. "I missed you."
———————————————
Dinner was mostly quiet. Jackson tried, he did, and Miley and Robby Ray tried to respond to him, but they were both preoccupied, and once he left for work the house filled up with silence. Miley left half her moo shu and sesame chicken cooling on her plate and went upstairs to study for the history test.
But she couldn't.
She shouldn't have done that. Oliver would freak out if he knew, with good reason. Miley was going to be screwed when she got back. She didn't know if the girl had ever even attempted writing a song, and Miley had just committed her to writing half her next album. But Miley couldn't find it in herself to be sympathetic. That was life; you got thrown in the deep end and that was how you learned to swim. And if the other Miley couldn't, well. Her daddy would probably be there to bail her out. Which was more than Miley'd had.
She got up from the desk and went downstairs. Robby Ray was on the couch watching TV. Miley grabbed Lulu and carried it over to stand in front of Robby Ray. Was she ready. She'd show him.
"Miley," Robby Ray said. "You don't have to – "
"I said I would," she said, and launched right into Let's Get Crazy. It would have been better with the rest of the instrumentation and the back-up vocals, of course, but she didn't just sing it, she performed it. Satisfaction welled up as she watched his face change from wariness to surprise to interest in spite of himself. By the time she hit the chorus one of his fingers was tapping out the beat against his knee. She didn't think he noticed it, but she did, and poured the rush of vindication right back into her performance.
She let the last notes linger on the guitar strings, casting off her calculated energy much more quickly and regarding Robby Ray soberly, waiting for his reaction.
There was a long, pregnant pause before he spoke. "Well, you're certainly ready," he said, and was she seeing things, or did he seem more tired than he had a couple minutes ago, his face more lined? A trick of the light, she decided. "That was terrific. And it'll definitely sell."
Let's Get Crazy had been the first single off her latest album. It had stayed in the top ten for almost two months and been downloaded over a million times. She knew it was a good song. But she'd never heard him say it before. Somehow it meant more coming from him than it had from the rest of the world put together. "Thanks."
"You got more like that?"
She grinned. "Oh, yeah. A lot more."
It hadn't been a trick of the light. "Do you...maybe you'd rather I took a step back and let you handle everything for the next one."
Miley sucked in a breath, looked down at the ugly, unfamiliar pattern of the rug beneath her feet. That hadn't been what she meant at all. "No. I said fifty-fifty, right?" She breathed in again, looked up at him. "Besides, I love singing your songs." I miss it, she thought. She'd never told her father that. She wondered if he'd write her another one if she did. She wondered if she really wanted to find out.
Robby Ray's whole mood lightened. "Yeah? I'm glad to hear that, because you know I love writin' them. Come here and sit with me a minute." She complied, leaning the guitar against the couch next to them. He put an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him. "I know you're already a superstar, bud, but mark my words, you're gonna go even farther in this business, and I can't wait to see it." Miley swallowed. "You wanna play me something else?"
"All right." She took up the guitar again and sang a song she'd written about her father, about the day she'd realized that no matter what he said, he wouldn't always be there.
"You put that on the album you're going to have the entire country in tears," he said when she finished.
"That's not going on the album," she told him. Not the one that was almost finished, not the one after that. Not on any of them. In her world or this one. "Daddy, do you...do you think it's inevitable that people leave? I mean, you get older, things happen...is that just how it is? People leave, they choose something or someone else, even if you don't want them to?"
He put his arm back around her shoulders, pulled her in for a hug. "Oh, Mile," he said, and kissed the top of her head. "It's not always like that. And I don't think you need to worry. Who could ever be foolish enough to leave you?"
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Happy Thanksgiving and/or Thursday! I will try not to suck so hard with getting the next chapter up.