Missing Pieces

Why Miranda really wasn't around a lot toward the end andan abrupt halt in someone's life.

Disclaimer: I don't own Lizzie McGuire, short and simple.

Lizzie sat on her couch seven years from her trip to Rome.She was 21 and living in her own apartment with Gordo. They had been dating for a year and decided to live in an apartment. Tears started streaming down Lizzie's cheek. She buried her face into a pillow and sobbed and Gordo went over to comfort her. He put his arms around her and squeezed her in a big hug. She pulled away from him. "Just leave me alone," she said as the tears flooded out of her eyes. "I blame myself!"

"Lizzie, honey, come on, it wasn't your fault!" Gordo called after her as she slammed her bedroom door. He sighed, "It was mine."

Lizzie's POV:

In case you haven't figured out, my best friend Miranda died last night. I just found out today. To seriously tell you the truth, I kind of knew it would happen. She was always missing from the picture, leaving Gordo and I to go to social events alone together. I suspected something was wrong once, and I asked her. She pushed me aside, denying my confrontation. I suspected that she was taking a drug or two. Truth is, she did. I should've stopped her, I know, but how could I? Every time I tried to help she would deny it!

I gave up eventually, and that's when I went off to college. Miranda didn't want to go to college; she called it a waste of time and money. She already knew that she was going to play music around the world. Gordo and I went to the same college, leaving Miranda alone a lot, trying to be with her as much as we could. Miranda started to develop new friends as we were gone. Her friends would always wear horrible punk clothing with things that should be censored on them. I knew she was falling in with the wrong crowd, I tried to help, I did try, I swear. But again, she denied, and I was left in the cold.

Then one time, I was serious. I drove to her apartment and burst into her living room to see Miranda alone, crying on her couch. I didn't care how she felt; I needed someone to yell at. So I took it out on her. I shouted it out, "Miranda, I know what you're doing! You need to get off that junk and come back to being my wholesome friend!" She denied, once again, and said, "Lizzie, nobody in this world is wholesome anymore." She said it with such a grave voice that I knew she had to go to rehab. So I made her.

Six months later, she was released, claiming she was relieved. She walked around with a smile on her face, left her friends and doing the old things we used to do together, the three of us.

Then one day, on her 20th birthday we were shopping and she ran into one of her old punk friends. I told her I had to go to the bathroom and when I returned the friend was gone and Miranda seemed different. Then when I accused her of being on drugs again she shouted and screamed at me, and then she said she didn't want to see me anymore, ever. I- I- I didn't think she was serious, but I never did see her after that. I respected her privacy and I thought she would get over it, but she didn't.

Then last night, she took one too many. Her boyfriend, Roy, found her pale and cold on the couch the next morning, while he was returning from a weekend trip. When he called this morning, my heart shattered. I couldn't think of life without Miranda, and I couldn't see Gordo's face anymore without thinking of her. I don't think Gordo ever knew about her addiction until I told him about my fight with her just before she died. Roy wants me to go over there today, but I don't think I can go without an attempt of killing myself.

Gordo's POV:

So here we are, at Miranda and Roy's apartment. We rang the doorbell and Roy answered, his eyes red and puffy from crying. "Come in," he said with all of the braveness in his heart. As soon as Lizzie saw what he was holding she started to sob and the tears ran down her face like a river. It wasn't a glistening river though; it was a corrupted river, one with the same evilness of a dictator. The tears came to my eyes too, when I realized the picture Roy was holding was a picture of Lizzie, Miranda, and me making funny faces and having a good time.

Roy welcomed us in more and we sat on the couch. Lizzie leaned over and said something really softly to me, "This is the same couch Miranda was found dead on."

I jerked myself up from the couch and threw one of the pillows across the room. I shouted to no one in particular, "No! Why her? God, I hate myself!"

Lizzie came next to me; picked up the pillow I threw only two feet, and said, "You didn't even know."

I looked at her, "You knew?"

"Yeah," Lizzie sighed. "I confronted her a few times, she denied it. I should've been tougher, forceful. I thought she had been alright after returning from rehab."

The soft saline from her eyes came down like rain as she mumbled some things I couldn't understand and I just took her in my arms. She pulled away again.

I looked around the living room. All the picture frames were down. I walked over to the fireplace and turned one up. It was one of Lizzie and Miranda, as kids, licking their popsicles. I pushed it down again, accidentally breaking the glass. I picked up the one next to it. It was a picture of mine and Lizzie's first kiss, photo courtesy of Kate who was spying on us all along when we went to Rome in middle school.

I left that one up and picked up another one, which was a picture of the three of us as babies, in the bathtub. The tears burst from my eyes as I studied that picture. Miranda's face was covered with bubbly soap but her eyes shone dark brown from the camera flash. Lizzie, too, was covered in soap, but her white-blonde hair and blue eyes lightened the photo and shone against mine and Miranda's dark features. Then I studied myself. I looked over me, my bright toothless smile and my curly hair even curlier from the soapy water. I wanted to be there again, I wished I could go back in time and be there instead of looking back on it. "Can I keep this?" I asked Roy. He nodded solemnly, and I shoved the colorful glass frame with the picture in it in a plastic bag.

I went back to looking at the pictures when Lizzie shoved something in my face. She was bawling, so I decided to take a look at it. "My God," I said in disbelief. The picture was taken just before Miranda's death. Miranda stood in a dark black sweatshirt and tight black jeans with her group of punk friends on a street somewhere as the streetlight shone in the background.

"She led a double life," Roy interrupted my thoughts. "I knew about both of them, but you didn't. During the day she was a successful secretary in an executive office. But at night she turned into a punk monster. I tried to stop her, I didn't think she would do anything to get her killed, but I guess I was wrong." He blew his nose into the tissue he held. I took the picture in my hands and threw it against the nearest wall, alerting both Roy and Lizzie as the glass shattered and fell to the stained tan carpet. Lizzie stared at me with a puzzled look, but I just went back to looking at pictures.

Just behind the couch we found a box of photos of Miranda. We started to go through them when we realized they were all pictures of her gang life. I ripped them, every one of them. When I got to the bottom of the box, Lizzie ordered me to stop. She picked it up from the bottom of the plastic container and held it in her hands. Lizzie's tears came again when she realized it was a picture of herself. She cradled it close in her hands and hugged it close to her chest. "She still cared about me," she said in a whisper.

"Lizzie," Roy said with a lot of sadness in his voice, "I want you to have all of her make-up and girl stuff. I can't bear to look at it anymore."

"I can't use it," Lizzie refused. "But I'll take it."

Roy nodded and went into the bedroom. He came out with all of Miranda's make-up, which turned out to be mostly dark colors.

"I knew that she was changing," I said to myself. "Why didn't I stop her?" Lizzie patted me on the back. A few minutes later and we were driving home in my beat-up car. When we reached our apartment we didn't get out of the car.

"God, why are you enjoying this?" Lizzie said as she looked up at the roof of my car. "Do You like to torture people, God?"

"Lizzie, He's not torturing us, it was meant to be," I said solemnly.

Lizzie's POV:

I woke up the next day in my bed without changing my clothes or anything. My black mascara was streaked down my pale face and my blonde hair was frizzy and sticking up in weird places. Just when I thought it all was a dream I saw a photo on my nightstand. It was a photo of Gordo, Miranda, and me in the bathtub as babies, with bubbles foaming all over us. Gordo must've captured it from Miranda's apartment the day before. I cried myself back to sleep.

I woke up at 3'o'clock in the afternoon to the sound of my alarm clock. Why is it going off nowI asked myself. I then realized that it was a weekday and I had already missed work. Why didn't Gordo wake me up? I walked sleepily into the living room and was dismayed at what I saw.

Okay, so I normally don't do a lot of first person because it gets too confusing, but here it is, my first person story. Tell me if you like it that way because I might consider it for other stories. I know, it's a bit dramatic, but when an idea pops in my head I go for it! I hope it made tears come to your eyes at least because in Lizzie's first POV I was going to start bawling. You know it's true, Miranda wasn't around a lot at the ending of the series, so I made something of it. Review because I really need to know if you like this story. If I don't get 5 reviews then I'm not continuing, SO REVIEW!