At dinner that night, Miley was trying not to bring her friends down by becoming teary-eyed. Lilly was watching Oliver with concerned eyes. And Oliver looked distraught; he hadn't touched his food, and wouldn't look at anyone.

Afterwards they walked outside along a shaded path. Oliver was sullen and stony-faced. Lilly tried talking to him but he shook his head at her. She thought quickly and then whipped her phone out. "Hello?" she said to herself. "No, I can barely hear you." The other two stopped to wait for her but she waved them on, stepping aside to pretend to take her call.

Miley and Oliver walked in silence for a spell. Then she took his hand and laced their fingers together. "You okay?" She peered at him curiously. He looked up at her. "You've been quiet all day."

"I'm going to miss you so much," he said solemnly, looking into her eyes.

"Oh, Oliver, me too." She stopped and turned him to face her. "I can't imagine a day without you. But you'll come and visit me, won't you? And I will."

He nodded, feeling hopeless, but saying nothing because he didn't want to burden her with his problems. She pulled him into a hug and he rested his head alongside hers.

As he held her in his arms, he was drawn back in memory to the night of Prom, hours after he had found out his world was ending. She had fallen asleep on his shoulder on the way home, and he had held her. And as he looked down at her sleeping in his arms, he felt the strangest sensation, that she was slowly slipping away from him, and there was nothing that he could do to prevent it.

♥♥♥

The next day at graduation was the hardest yet for Oliver. He endured the hopeless feeling that he could not make Miley stay, and the chastising of everyone around him telling him to smile for his graduation pictures for Pete's sake. The whole day passed by him in a surreal blur.

He went straight home afterwards and fell asleep. If Lilly hadn't called and woken him up he probably would have slept right through movie night.

The girls had picked some chick flick, which didn't bother him because he couldn't concentrate on anything beyond his own misery anyway.

Halfway through whatever movie it was, the two leads came together and declared their love for one another. Oliver wanted to scoff loudly and bitterly, but just then Miley, beside him, cooed at the sweetness and cozied up to his shoulder. "Don't you wish real life was like that?"

He sat stone-still, feeling his heart race. "The perfect love story? Yeah."

Later on in the movie there was a loud and dramatic scene in which the male lead was leaving, and his female costar was tearfully pleading for him to stay. Miley burst out, " Why can't he just stay? Why isn't her love enough for him?"

Oliver thought his ears had caught on fire. His heart was stinging with a thousand repressed "I love you"s.

Miley was still leaning against him. He pushed her off gently and got up. "I have to go," he said abruptly, stumbling in the dark to the door.

"Right now?" Miley asked, sounding concerned. She got up on her knees and peered over the back of the couch at him. In the background the woman wailed, "Stay! Stay! I love you!"

"Yeah," Oliver said, and left.

The two girls sat in silence for a few moments. "We didn't get to say goodbye," Miley said finally, her voice very small and quiet.

Lilly paused the movie. "Listen," she said. "I think this whole situation is really hard for him. He's pretty attached to you."

"I know, he's such a good friend. I was really dreading breaking the news to him, you know. But he was so accepting of it. I guess I didn't want to upset him anymore than necessary by telling him how scared I am to move back, and how much I really don't want to, and how much I'm going to miss you two. Leaving you guys…it's really hard."

"I know." Lilly leaned forward to hug her best friend, and they both began to cry silently. They cried because they would miss each other, and because Tennessee was so far away. And Lilly cried also because her heart was breaking for Oliver.

They sat in silence in the dark. Finally one of them started the movie again.