December 2007

Though I didn't get to know Miley well at the time, their break-up the following month hit me hard. It was as if someone had taken the hopes of every fifteen year old girl and shattered them to pieces. Their relationship was the envy of every teenage girl, and the fact that it was over showed us all that nothing lasts forever, no matter how resilient we think something is. I had put their relationship on a pedestal, and the concept of it being over was inconceivable. They had spent their time together in Canada that summer being so in love and happy to have time together. My dreams of a relationship just like theirs with my very own Prince Charming had disintegrated, and it tore me apart to know that two people who were destined to be together had been ripped apart.

He called me at one in the morning on the night of the break-up, and the sadness in his voice broke my heart.

"I ended it," he whispered down the line.

"What are you talking about?" I asked. Of course I knew what he was referring to just by the tone of his voice, but I had needed some kind of confirmation that it was real; that the star couple really were over.

"I ended it with Miley." His voice cracked as he spoke. "We were fighting and everything was falling apart, so I ended it."

I could hear him trying to hold back tears, and it hurt to know that, as a friend, I wasn't able to give him a pat on the back and tell him that everything was going to be okay. I couldn't tell him that everything was going to fix itself with Miley, mainly because I wasn't sure that it would. Sure, I could let him know that he could talk to me whenever, but I wasn't going to be able to repair his relationship with Miley like it was some kind of broken vase that could be glued back together. Until he either got over her or got back together with her, he wasn't going to be happy, and the fact that there was nothing I could do to cheer him up even slightly was like a knife twisting in my heart.

"What happened?"

"It was just another fight that spiraled out of control," he replied, his voice hoarse and tired. "We were shouting and yelling at each other outside her bus and she said that if I had such an issue with the way she acted then maybe we weren't good together, so I told her that she was right and walked away." He sounded like a little kid as he let out a small noise of despair. "I left her alone in the rain, Demi. I just left her standing there."

There wasn't much I could say to make it better. Heck, I didn't know what I could say. He was pouring his heart out to me about how things had ended with Miley, and because of my lack of knowledge on her personality, I couldn't even give him the slightest pointer on how to make it up to her.

With nothing else to offer him, I let him talk. I let him tell me all the things he loved most about her, and I let him tell me about how perfect their relationship had been before they fell apart. I let him talk about what he would miss most about her, and I listened while he worried about how he was going to be able to cope with finishing the tour while they were over. Obviously he was still in love with her, and even then, a part of me knew that he always would be. It was almost impossible to break the kind of bond he had with Miley, and he would never stop looking at her with that lovestruck, awed expression.

"I love her, Demi," he murmured. "I'm in love with her. I'm just not sure that I can do this with her anymore."

His world was falling apart, and there was nothing I could do to help him. I couldn't morph myself into Miley, and I couldn't make it better. All I could do was listen to him while he worked everything out in his head.

I suggested he write a song about it – after all, that's what he does best when he needs to let his emotions out. I suggested that maybe he should give it a few days and then talk to her about it. I suggested that he stop the bus, get on hers and spend the night working through whatever issues they had. But Nick was stubborn (who am I kidding, he still is), and he didn't want to have to admit that he had been wrong to walk away. He wasn't ready to tell her that she meant more to him than anyone else could ever know. Perhaps it was their stubbornness that tore them apart, but perhaps it was what they needed to wake them up to the reality of their situation.

To me, as I think about their relationship now, things could have been different. That night was the pivotal point in their relationship. What happened that night was crucial in defining what would happen for them in the future, and they had the chance to either turn it into something positive or let it pull them to pieces. They had both let one another slip out of their grasp, even though they loved each other beyond measure. For all I know, had Nick followed my suggestions that night, things could have been different for them. They could have avoided the months they spent hating each other and having song wars. They could have prevented the years they spent trying to make each other jealous with various other relationships. The stares of heartache across red carpets and crowded rooms all could have been avoided if one of them had been mature enough to admit they were wrong.

He loved her and she loved him. Part of me thinks that they should still be together now. But their relationship was killing them. The fighting and the arguments were toxic and poisonous and draining, and neither of them could have coped with it for much longer. However, a relationship shouldn't be defined by its downfall. It should be defined by the highlights; the things that made them happy. To me, Nick and Miley are like this shining star in the massive atmosphere of relationships. I don't view them as the couple who went from spending every second they could together to purposely avoiding events to avoid each other. I see them as the couple who spent a lot of good times together; a couple whose relationship ran its course, just as a lot of them do.

He whispered down the phone that night about how much he loved her, and it truly hurt me to hear that. It hurt me because I knew that it was ultimately best for everybody if they just went their separate ways and tried to move on with their lives. But that didn't stop me rooting for them.