Miranda's World Chapter 3, a lizzie mcguire fanfic

Disclaimer: I own the rights to none of the characters in this story, even the characters that I created. If Disney wants to film this story and show it every year at Christmas, they have my permission.

Author's note:

Sorry for the delay in getting Chapter 3 up. We've had many things going on behind the scenes, but the pace should pick up a little, now.

I can't begin to express how grateful I feel toward Slightly Obsessed, for all the help she's provided on this story, and everything surrounding it. Mmm-whaa!

Slightly Obsessed: Hard to believe that as lighthearted as this seems at the moment, you are probably going to bring it somewhere really dark.

Dr. Strange: Moi?

I sat at my desk, in front of my laptop, that next morning, Saturday. My eyes were locked on the tiny digital clock in the bottom right corner of the screen.

9:56 AM

I hadn't been able to get that bizarre post on Miranda's blog out of my mind. Who posts a comment on a girl's public website, professing your love for her, and then not letting anyone know who you were? Of course, it could be entirely innocent, some sophomore or freshman, as Miranda had suggested, with a crush on a newly-blossoming superstar singer. Perhaps someone in our class, or even a senior, who's had his eye on her for a year, or more. Miranda would certainly find that romantic.

9:57 AM

Or it could be something more…sinister. There were plenty of candidates, plenty of suspects to go around. The first one that popped to mind was Ryan, dark journey's former drummer, who had played Miranda liked an instrument, before dumping her. He and his girlfriends had been playing several cruel tricks on Miranda in the last couple of weeks, even posting her cell on an adult web site, forcing her to change her number. She was just starting to forget about Ryan, and didn't need any more of their taunting.

Then there were any number of people whom we didn't really know, but posted, some regularly, on the blog, like that guy at Mt. Carmel, over in San Diego. And that creep who said he'd be in line for Miranda? Was I remembering right? Where was he from? I couldn't remember. And now my headache was back.

9:58 AM

And who's to say it had to be a guy, especially if this was someone toying with her? It could just as easily have been one of the cheerleaders. God knows, they had a reason to hate us. And, hell, since it was the Internet, it could even be Kate, stretching out her claws from a thousand miles away.

9:59 AM

I had to read that entry for myself; study it, and Miranda's whole blog. The problem was, I hadn't visited the site for over a month, once the motherboard on my old laptop got fried. Fortunately, it happened about two weeks before my seventeenth birthday, and my parents got me a new one. But I had lost a shitload of links in my Favorites, and didn't really want to admit to Miranda that I hadn't been to her blog since. And now, I had forgotten the address.

I knew she was using a directory on a web site that her uncle's company owned, and I thought I remembered the name, something like timeline dot com, but that was coming up blank.

10:00 AM

So now I found myself parked in front of my laptop, patiently waiting for ten o'clock, when I could safely assume that Lizzie would be awake on a Saturday morning.

I flipped open my cell and used the speed dial to call Lizzie. After about five rings, she answered, and I knew I had misjudged. She had been asleep.

"Lizzie?" I said. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"No, it's okay," she replied groggily, and I could picture her brushing her hair out of her eyes. "What's up?"

"Listen, um, do you know the address for Miranda's blog?"

"Sure. Why?" she asked, and followed it with a long yawn.

"I just wanted to see if her secret admirer had posted anything else."

"Really? Hunh. I thought it was you."

"Is that right?" I flirted back with her. "That's odd, because I've just been assuming it was you."

"Don't think so, Gordo," she whispered, and I could hear the smile in her voice. "You're the lesbian in our trio, remember?"

I let her chuckle at her own remark, and then prompted her with, "Timeline? Right?"

"Um, let's see," Lizzie whispered, then yawned again. "Uh, no. It's chronologyproject, one word."

"Com or org?" I prodded.

"Com. And then, one of those slash thingies, and then, uh, mirandasworld, of course. One word, no apostrophe." I typed the address in my web browser, as she recited it to me.

"Yeah, that's it," I said quietly, more to myself than to Lizzie. I watched Miranda's blog pop up on my screen. "Thanks." When she didn't reply, I continued, "Going to watch them practice this afternoon?"

"Yeah, sure. If you'll pick me up?"

"A little before one." We hung up, and I studied the comments on Miranda's blog. Miranda had posted a reply since last night.

It said simply:

Who are you? How do you know me? mirandasworld

Her post had been made that morning, and there had been no replies to it. I read through everything on her site, and the only thing I learned was just how vicious some of those people, particularly Ryan and Sandra, had been to Miranda, since my last visit.

I picked up Lizzie shortly before practice was scheduled to start. She came out to the car wearing a light blue tank top and a peasant skirt that came down to just above her knees, and boots that came up to just below her knees. Magically, the skirt seemed to both cling to her thighs and flow around them at the same time. There was a lot of magic about Lizzie. You learned that.

"Good morning, Mister Gordon," she said, and crinkled up her nose at me in that sexy way that she knew nothing about.

"Good morning, Miss McGuire," I returned, as I nudged the car into reverse and backed out of her driveway. I was leaving our neighborhood when Lizzie snapped open her purse, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

That was a bad sign. It was the signal that today was going to be one of the not-so-good days.

You see, Lizzie had some…bad experiences the previous summer. And she was seeing a counselor that no one but Miranda and I knew about. But it was difficult to get Lizzie to talk about all that stuff, so she had this tendency to internalize all the fear and anger, instead of dealing with it. And that led to days, every couple of months, where those black emotions would sort of boil over and she'd end up taking it out on the people she thought could understand, like me, and Miranda.

And usually, a cigarette was the first sign that she was having a difficult time, and that we should maybe batten down the hatches. When Lizzie vented, she didn't do it violently, or explosively. Instead, it was quiet, bitter. She could say things to us that cut, and then bled, and didn't stop hurting for a couple of days. But after she said them, she'd start crying, and apologize, and blame the prescription that her counselor had given her.

She only smoked rarely, maybe one cigarette a month, both because of the health concerns, and because she didn't want her parents to smell the smoke on her. But they were always the precursor for a bad day ahead.

She flicked her lighter to ignite the cigarette, took a slow, luxurious drag, then dropped her head back against the seat and closed her eyes as she exhaled. "Just to calm my nerves."

She always said that! I shook my head and rubbed my temple, but didn't say anything, and continued the drive to Candy's.

When we got there, the band was already warming up, and several of the members seemed quietly energized to learn that Miranda had found a potential drummer. Candy, though, had her concerns.

"Ethan?" Candy was asking Miranda. Candy was a senior at North Hillridge, the only NHH band member, other than Miranda. She had curly blonde hair, and her wardrobe considered of jeans of forty different colors, all of them tight, and low slung. "Ethan's not a drummer." She looked at me as we entered, waved and smiled flirtatiously, then asked me, "Is he?"

"Apparently, he is," I shrugged, and Lizzie and I made our way over to a battered old couch, lining one wall of the Southern's garage. "At least, if a set of Rolands says anything."

At hearing the name Rolands, Austin and Brody both stopped tuning their instruments and looked at each other. "Well," Trey, the bassist, said, while his amp warmed up. "Well, well, well. What's a Rolands doing, in our little band?"

"Guys, he—" Miranda started, but was interrupted by Candy.

"It's Ethan Craft," she explained. "His father is richer than, well, God."

"So, wait a minute," Bethany broke in, excitedly. Lizzie and I were just sitting next to each other on the couch, taking it all in. "So this guy has the most magnificent set in the San Diego metro, plus, he's got a Daddy Warbucks?"

"Guys, look," Miranda tried again, more forcefully this time. "Ethan is…. Don't get your hopes up. None of us had any clue he was a drummer. If I know one thing about Ethan, it's that he…kind of…goes through stages. He gets excited about something, and his dad buys it for him, and a month later, he's moved on to something else. He says he's had this set for years, but still…"

Her voice was drowned out by a loud knock on the doorframe of the garage. Standing in the open garage door was a tall lanky boy, with white facepaint, and painted on teardrop oozing from the side of each eye.

"Ethan?" Lizzie breathed next to me.

"Hey, Lizzie," he said to her in a low voice.

"Ethan?" Miranda said, incredulously. "What are you doing?"

It was immediately apparent what had happened. Ethan had taken her off-hand comment about dark journey being "counter-culture" to heart, and had dressed the part for his audition. That was just something she had blurted out, to dissuade Ethan, and now, she was going to pay for it. Trey was never going to let her live this one down.

"I'm here for practice." And then he sauntered, all part of his performance, through the garage, to take his place behind the old set of drums that Candy had dragged up from her basement. The other members of the band watched him tighten the cymbals, their eyes wide at the spectacle Ethan presented in make-up that was almost Kabuki. Lizzie and I grinned slyly at each other, now that Miranda's little ploy had backfired. At the back of the stage, Trey was clearly biting his lip, but I couldn't wait to get home and read what he was going to say on the blog.

"Well, uh," Miranda said, then sighed and took her place on stage, and picked up one of the electric guitars. "Do you know Night Like This?"

Ethan's only reply was, "Let's rock," and then he pounded out the prolog to the Cure song, and the others quickly joined in, with Brody singing lead.

And I was…surprised. Ethan was actually…not bad. I mean, not E Street Band fabulous, or anything, but…not bad. More importantly, dark journey was surprised.

"That was…good, Ethan," Candy breathed quietly, and Austin took a couple of steps across the platform to give Ethan a high five.

"Smackin', man," he congratulated Ethan.

"Thanks, dude," Ethan replied with a smile, his head bobbing. Then he seemed to remember his persona, and dropped the smile and gave Austin a somber expression. "I mean, uh, thanks."

"Ethan, I never knew you could play like that," Miranda told him.

"Me?" Ethan pointed a drumstick at himself. "I didn't know I played like that, either. I just play like I play."

"What the--?" Trey started to say in confusion, but then he caught sight of me in the background, waving at him, then shaking my head, signaling to him, no, man, don't go there.

Miranda took a deep breath, then said, "Well, how about one more, guys? Ethan, do you know Two Girls?"

"One of my favorites," he assured her, and they belted out another one. This time, he shined just a little bit better, and you could tell it was a song he was very familiar with.

As they were wrapping up their second song, I started yawning, realizing just how little sleep I had gotten last night. I knew that Candy usually kept a pot of coffee on the kitchen cabinet for these practices, so I stood up and told Lizzie, "I'm getting some coffee. You want some?" having to raise my voice to be heard.

She looked up at me for a moment, then shook her head and returned her attention to the music.

I entered the kitchen directly from the garage, and shut the door behind me, instantly muffling the music. It occurred to me that, although most of the band's Saturday practices were here at Candy's house, I had never met her parents, nor seen any evidence of them. Candy lived the life of a…free spirit. Sometimes, I even found myself wondering if she had parents.

I found the coffeemaker in its usual location, but it was empty. As I began opening cabinets, the door to the garage opened behind me, and I turned to see Lizzie stepping into the kitchen, and then shutting the door. "Changed my mind," she said.

"We're out of luck," I warned her, checking the next cabinet, with no success. "I'm going to have to make some."

"That's okay," she sighed and hopped up on the counter next to the refrigerator, crossing her feet at the ankles. "I like watching you."

I had peeked in two more cabinets before I reached Lizzie, sitting between the sink and the fridge. She was gently swinging her feet back and forth, the heels of her boots tapping the cabinet doors under her. I gently put a hand on her knees to stop her, so I could step in front of her.

"Oh. Sorry," she told me, then swished her lips back and forth just once, like Samantha Stephens in Bewitched.

I reached up to grasp the cabinet door handle just behind and to the right of her head. "I…um…" I couldn't open the door without bumping her head.

"Oops," she said, and ducked her head, giving me just the clearance I needed.

I carefully opened the cabinet and peered inside. Wouldn't you know it? The coffee was on the bottom shelf, near the back. I don't how to put this—I've kinda avoided the subject so far, but—I'm kind of…short. I had no way of reaching that coffee can, even standing on tiptoe, other than to stand between Lizzie's legs, and even then, the stretch would bring my face close enough to…well, touch her. And, yeah, we were close friends and all, since diapers, but this was close enough to be uncomfortable. She didn't seem uncomfortable in the least, but that was only because she didn't recognize the electricity of our position, our situation.

She looked at me from head-ducking position. "Um, Gordo?"

"Oh! Uh…" I exhaled the breath I had been holding. "Coffee's back there." I pointed. "Can you, uh…"

"Oh! Sure!" She twisted at the waist to see behind her, then raised her left arm up, across her body, stretching up and out to reach the coffee in the back.

And that action of stretching up and behind her, caused her breasts to lift up from behind her tank top, and offer themselves to me. My eyes saucered, and I could feel my blood flowing as the bottom hem of her top rode up the front of her belly, revealing just the thinnest strip of bare midriff. From the garage, the band continued their latest rendition, but the only instruments that made their way through the exterior wall were the pounding of the drums, and the deep throaty thrumming of the bass, and the scent of Lizzie's Obsession filled my brain. How fortunate I was that she had no idea what she was doing to me, at that moment.

Also how fortunate I was that my eyes returned to her face, just as she turned back to me, in triumphant possession of the coffee.

"Now, Maestro," she said, handing me the can. "Work your magic."

I poured the coffee in the filter and then added water to the machine, and settled back to wait, my forearms perched on the counter, on the other side of the sink from Lizzie, making sure to hide the front of my jeans by leaning against the cabinets.

"So, um," Lizzie said after a moment of silence. "How are you and Vanessa doing?"

Vanessa was a sophomore that I had been dating, for about the last three weeks. I had finally found a girlfriend who was secure enough to allow me to continue to have two other girls as my best friends, and I was determined to hold on to this one. We were going out that night. "Pretty good," I informed Lizzie. "Pretty good."

"Pretty good," she repeated, and seemed to be mulling it over. "How long you guys been seeing each other? Six weeks?"

"Um, three, you know, exclusively."

"But you went out with her, before that."

"Yeah. Sure."

"So six weeks," she prodded.

I shrugged. "I guess."

The deep beat from the garage had ceased. There was silence between us for a few moments, and then Lizzie said, "Have you fucked her?"

Here it is, I thought, that biting side of Lizzie that I cautioned you about earlier. I turned to her. "What?"

She shrugged. "It's just a question. Doesn't scare you, does it? The question, I mean. We're best friends. Best friends talk about this stuff, right?"

The timer on the coffeemaker went off, just as the band started up another song. I pulled the carafe out and poured a cup. "I don't," I told the coffee.

"Oh," she said quietly. "Sorry." But the thing of it is, I wasn't sure she was sorry, at all.

I handed her the cup I had already poured, and looked deeply into her eyes. "Sorry, I…I don't know where they keep the creamer."

She looked deeper into my eyes as she took the cup from me and said, "Don't want any."

I turned to pour myself a cup, and she slid off the counter while my back was turned and sat at the kitchen table, her back to wall.

I piled in about twice as much sugar as I normally take into my coffee, then took one sip. Bitter.

"Gordo," Lizzie called to me from the table. "I need to tell you something." I raised my eyebrows questioningly, but said nothing. "I, um, last month, I received an offer for a summer study program, at a fashion design school."

"Last month?" I asked, my voice subdued. "When were you going to tell me?"

"I'm telling you now. I've been…thinking about it. My parents are ready to pay for it, it's a tremendous opportunity, and it's only offered to eight or nine students every year."

"And….?" I pressed, wondering where the other shoe was.

"I'm thinking about accepting," she said.

"Thinking about it?" I repeated. "What's to think about? You'll never get another opportunity like that."

She studied the side of the refrigerator and took a sip of her coffee and then said, "The school is in Paris, Gordo. It's called Mod'Art International."

Oh.

I didn't know what I was thinking. Some fashion design program at UCLA, I guess, where Miranda and I could drive up to the big city, every other weekend, and the three of us could hang out, and sightsee. Gonna be a little more difficult to drive to Paris, twice a month.

"Oh." For a full sixty seconds, she wasn't looking at me. "For three months?"

"Yeah," she replied, then looked up at me across the kitchen when she said, "Maybe longer."

And the implications of what she was telling me were just then hitting me. "So, you're not coming back? For our senior year?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, I won't know, until the summer program is over. But I could be invited to stay, with a scholarship. So…yeah. Maybe." I thought about that. "But I don't even know if I want to do this," she continued. "There are…things here…that I don't want to leave." She smiled sweetly, self-consciously. "I want to assemble with the Avengers forever, you know?" She searched my eyes. "What do I do?"

So many thoughts were exploding in my mind then. Three months, without Lizzie. That was bad enough, although no less than I had done to her, and Miranda, the year before. But then, beyond that, the possibility that I might not see her for a year, or more, other than the Holidays. I wasn't ready for that, was I? Lizzie, who had been a part of my life—a major part, almost the center of my life—for my entire life, now abruptly taken from me, from us. And when she returned—if she returned—she would be forever changed, I knew.

And yet, what a glorious opportunity. This could be her chance, her moment to shine. How could anyone here stand in her way, and live with themselves, afterward? If I encouraged her to forego the offer, and stay with me, and Miranda, she would resent me, hate me forever. I knew this day would come, when I would have to let Lizzie go. It just came a little too early for me.

"I think you should go," I told her, and she'll never know how much it hurt to tell her that, even though her head tilted to the side when she heard me say it, as if she had…expected…some other response. And she looked down, into her coffee. "It's your chance of a lifetime, Lizzie. I know what you can do, but I want you to show everyone else. I know you'll take the world by storm. And I don't think you should let this little town stand in your way."

She stood up, and as she turned her face away from me, and took another sip of coffee, her hair fell in front of her face, hiding her from me. She walked to the garage door, taking the coffee with her. "You really think that?" she said, still not facing me.

I rubbed my jaw and chin, realizing I had forgotten to shave that morning. "Yes," I said, and then stopped, before I could say anything else. She started to turn the doorknob, and I said, quietly, "No." But she heard me and turned to look up at me, and I could see a glistening film in her eyes.

"What?"

"No," I repeated. "Vanessa and I…haven't…made love." Lizzie's thoughts turned inward. "I just wanted my best friend to know that."

She nodded, and opened the door, and stepped through, into the garage, leaving me alone, in the kitchen. I turned back to face the sink, and heard the door close behind me, and I tossed my remaining coffee in the sink, and watched it swirl down the drain.