The woman behind the desk in the main office of the school smiled as Miley handed in the note the dentist had printed out for her and told her to sign in. She quickly scribbled her name on the sign-in sheet, jotted down the time after glancing up at the clock, and took the pass that the secretary handed her when she was finished.
"Go straight to class!" the secretary called after her as she left the office.
Miley smiled to herself. Normally, she would have gone straight to her theatre class, but she hadn't seen Lilly at all that morning and had barely talked to her, not counting the few texts they had exchanged while Miley was in the dentist's office and Lilly was sitting in her creative writing class. She would make a quick stop at Lilly's locker, drop something off, and go to her class afterwards.
"Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty," Miley murmured to herself, counting off the lockers and stopping in front of Lilly's. She twisted the combination lock, stopping on the right numbers and clicking it open. Opening Lilly's locker, she smiled when she saw that the blonde had taped some pictures of them on the door of her locker. Footsteps in the hallway reminded her of her task and she slipped a piece of paper out of her pocket, set it on top of Lilly's books where it could easily be seen, and quickly closed and locked the locker.
She started down the hall, towards the footsteps, but instantly froze when she saw who was walking towards her. Her eyes swept over the spotless shoes, fashionably torn designer jeans, blue and white polo shirt, to the face of Oliver Oaken, whom she hadn't seen in months, other than occasionally on TV. Stopping immediately, she clenched her fists in anger as he looked down at the piece of paper he held in his hands and hiked his book bag higher up on his back. Their eyes met as Oliver looked up from the paper and he stopped walking.
"Miley?" he asked hesitantly, an unsure look crossing slowly over his face.
Fury filled Miley as she saw the uncertainty and hope in his eyes and it was all she could do not to run towards him, tackle him to the ground, and start punching him in the face. He seemed to sense her inner struggle and took a cautious step backwards.
"Look, I know I was a jerk…" he started.
"Wrong thing to say," Miley snarled, taking two angry steps forward before halting abruptly. "I don't even know why you're here, considering that the last time we talked, I told you that I was going to kick your butt all the way to China if I ever saw you again. I meant it, Oliver, and I still do. You hurt Lilly, and when you hurt Lilly, you get me angry."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he squeaked as Miley took a few more menacing steps forward. He tried to hide behind the paper he was holding and, for a moment, Miley caught a glimpse of the old Oliver she used to joke around with. The boy she had schemed with and hid in garbage cans and behind potted plants with to see how Lilly's dates were going before he and Lilly got together. But as Lilly crossed her mind, she was brought back to reality.
"No, you aren't," Miley growled. "But I'm going to make you sorry."
"Please, just hear me out first," he begged.
She hesitated, uncertainty flashing through her mind. "Fine," she said grudgingly. "But you had better make it fast, because I still want to pummel your face into the ground and I have to get to class. I don't want to be any later than I already am just because you're giving a lengthy speech."
"Okay, I'll be quick," he promised, a relieved expression dominating his features. "I know I was a jerk to Lilly, and I have no right to be here right now. None whatsoever. I deserve everything that you want to do to me, and probably more, for breaking Lilly's heart like I did. But I've realized the mistake I made in letting her go. She is the most… I don't even know how to explain it, how to explain her. She's breathtaking and intelligent and gorgeous and witty and funny and friendly and a good listener and I just don't know how I let her go like I did."
"And that's the problem," Miley growled, taking another menacing step forward. "You let her go. She trusted you with the most vulnerable part of herself, and you just dropped it because someone gave you a chance that you never thought you would have again. And who knows? Maybe you wouldn't have that chance again. But if you were lucky enough to get a girl like Lilly, you should have never let her go."
"I know, and…."
"No, I don't think you do," Miley interrupted, crossing her arms over her chest. "Do you know what it was like coming back from America's Top Talent and seeing Lilly sit on my porch crying because she thought that she lost her boyfriend? Do you know what it's like to see your best friend get dumped by the guy that she gave her heart to? Do you know what it's like to see your best friend so broken that you don't know what to do to cheer her up?"
Oliver was silent.
"Yeah, I didn't think so," she sneered. "Look, I don't know if you're just here for a short amount of time or to finish out your senior year of high school, but I don't really care at this point. I'm going to walk away from this and spare myself the time it would take to hurt you as bad as you hurt Lilly because I know she wouldn't want me to do that. But if you even look at her, I am going to make sure that you get a whole new definition of the word 'pain.' Am I understood?"
Nodding fiercely in agreement, Oliver took a step back away from Miley. "Yes, ma'am," he murmured, clutching his sheet of paper to his chest.
"Good," she muttered. "And don't think that I won't know if you do bother her." She turned on her heel and stalked away from Oliver, her fists clenched tightly on her side as she struggled not to turn around again and punch the idiotic boy in the face. The bell rang and she ran to the bathroom, knowing that if anyone touched her at that moment she would probably explode and punch something. Or someone.
Punching the wall in the bathroom, Miley snarled as she felt a pain rip through her hand, realizing that it was the same wrist she had broken only months earlier. Cradling the hand against her body, she slowly became conscious of the fact that there was bright red blood staining her skin. She slid down the wall, closing her eyes as tears started to cry softly to herself.
"Miley?"
The brunette looked up to see Lilly standing in the bathroom doorway, a surprised and concerned expression on her face. A moment later, the blonde was kneeling next to her, pulling her hand away from where she was cradling it against her chest and examining it carefully. Lilly softly brushed her fingers over the scrape on her knuckles and Miley hissed through her teeth.
"What happened?" Lilly asked softly.
"Nothing, I'm fine," Miley managed through her tears, roughly wiping at her face with her sleeve.
"Don't lie to me," Lilly warned, her eyes narrowing.
Miley hesitated before looking away from Lilly. "He's back," she murmured.
"Who? Jake?"
"No, Oliver. Oliver's back."
All Miley could hear was the ringing in her ears and the sound of students outside the bathroom door rushing to class before their teachers marked them as late. Lilly's clothes rustled as she stood up slowly and her footsteps echoed in the nearly empty bathroom as she walked away from Miley to the door. There was a moment of silence before Miley heard the lock slide into place on the bathroom door. Miley looked up to see Lilly facing the door, her hand on the doorknob.
"I'm scared, Lilly," Miley whispered.
"Of what?" the blonde asked, turning quickly.
"That he wants you back," Miley murmured, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs. "I'm scared that suddenly everything is going to suddenly become clear to you and you're going to realize that Oliver was the one for you after all, even if he did leave you for his career. And that I'm going to have to stand by for the rest of my life as I watch you and Oliver…."
"No," Lilly interrupted, hurrying forward and getting down on her knees in front of Miley. "Nothing, and I mean nothing, could ever get me to go back to Oliver. Especially when I have you, Miley."
"But he's famous," Miley muttered. "And I gave up Hannah…."
"Miley, just because he's famous doesn't mean that I love him," Lilly whispered, shaking her head. "And I'm certainly not dating you because you were Hannah Montana. I didn't become friends with you because of that, either. Miley…."
Lilly sighed, running her hands through her hair as she looked up at the ceiling desperately, as if trying to find the answer to an unspoken question written on the ceiling tiles. "How do I explain this?" she asked herself, looking back at Miley, straight into her eyes. "Miley, you are… the most amazing person I have ever met. Sometimes I wonder how I ever managed to get you as a best friend, and now my girlfriend. You… you're so smart and funny, even though sometimes you don't see it…."
"No, Lilly…" Miley whispered.
"And, I mean, you have the most marvelous laugh I've ever heard in my life," Lilly continued. "Whenever I hear it, no matter what mood I'm in, I can't help but be happy because it just digs inside of my soul and cheers me up. And I love the way you sit on the beach, watching me surf because the first time I tried to teach you, you fell off the board and almost drowned. Or the way you watch me when I skateboard because you got scared when I got that huge scratch on my leg, even though it turned into a really awesome scar.
"When I sleep over at your house, sometimes I wake up before you do because I'm so used to going surfing early, and I just look at you, sleeping so peacefully, and wish that I could watch you forever. But there are those times when you have nightmares, and I just want to wake you up, wrap you in my arms, and tell you that's it's okay because I can't stand it when you're being hurt."
"Lilly, please," Miley begged.
"And you're too gorgeous for words," Lilly breathed, taking Miley's face between her hands and rubbing their noses together. "Sometimes I just look at you and wish that I could look even a tad bit like you. And there are so many other things I could say, but I would be going on for years. Most of all, I love you because you aren't afraid to be who you are. Miley, I love you because you're you, and you don't try to change that."
Miley gasped, her eyes tearing up when she realized what Lilly said. The blonde just gave her a small smile and kissed her gently before pulling Miley into her arms. The brunette snuggled into Lilly's arms and rested her head on her shoulder, breathing in her scent as she buried her face in the blonde's neck. "I love you, too," she murmured.
"Sometimes I can't wrap my head around how lucky I am," Lilly whispered, rubbing Miley's back comfortingly. "Because sometimes you just do things that astound me. And I could never, ever live without you."
They were both quiet for a long time, just holding each other. Finally, Lilly pulled away and stood up, smiling down at Miley as she extended her hand to help her up. Hoisting the brunette to her feet, Lilly wrapped an arm around her waist and gently wiped her tears away with the edge of her sleeve. "You okay, now?" she whispered.
"Yeah, thanks," Miley whispered, nodding her head and smiling slightly.
"Then we should get to lunch because I'm extremely hungry and if I don't eat now, my stomach is going to growl so loudly in my next class that my teacher will probably throw me out of the room because I'm disrupting his lesson," Lilly joked, getting a laugh out of Miley. The blonde dropped her hand from around Miley's waist and laced their fingers together. "I love you, Miley, and that is never going to change."
"I love you, too, Lilly," Miley whispered, squeezing Lilly's hand gently.
Lilly unlocked the bathroom door and pulled Miley out behind her, pulling her in for a quick kiss before regretfully letting go of her hand and walking down the hallway side-by-side.
The name-calling started with a simple note in Lilly's locker. Miley always walked Lilly to her locker at the end of the day before they went to one of their houses to do homework. But this time, instead of there being just books in the blonde's locker, there was a note laid on top of her books, much like Miley's, except this one was scrawled in Sharpie on white computer paper.
"What's that?" Miley asked as Lilly picked up the paper and unfolded it, her face draining of all color as she read it. The blonde slowly handed the note to Miley and the brunette murmured it to herself.
"Take your girlfriend back to where you came from."
Miley looked up at Lilly, her eyes wide with realization. Someone knew. Someone knew. And it was impossible that someone could have found out because they had been so careful. They rarely went out in public and acted like a couple, never held hands outside their houses, never kissed with someone else in the room or with the windows open, never gave any hint to anyone that they could be together.
That is, until today, only a few hours before.
"Lilly," Miley whispered, dropping the note to the floor and taking a step forward. The blonde only shook her head and took a step back, tears starting to fall rapidly down her face. "Please, Lilly, this… it's all a joke. We'll figure it out."
"No," Lilly whispered, continuing to shake her head as a strangled sob escaped her. Then the blonde turned on her heel and ran down the hall, not bothering to try to avoid other students as she knocked aside the people who were too slow to get out of her way. Once Lilly had disappeared, everyone focused their attention on Miley, who was still standing in front of Lilly's locker, the revealing note at her feet, and a yearning expression on her face as she stared after the blonde.
"What are you looking at?" Miley snapped at the crowd of people, and everyone quickly went back to what they were doing before. The brunette went to Lilly's locker, pulling out the books that she knew the blonde would need. When she was finished, she shut and locked the locker and bent down to pick up the note that had destroyed their world of security.
Miley stared at that door, biting her lip uncertainly as she contemplated what she should do. The thin piece of wood fixed with a shiny metal piece seemed to taunt her, calling out her name and urging her to reach out and touch it, run her hands along its smooth surface and try to harm it. All she wanted to do was reduce that door to splinters, but she held herself back, closing her eyes as she inhaled slowly through her nose and exhaled slowly out her mouth.
Mrs. Truscott had simply pointed up the stairs when she had opened the door and seen Miley standing on the porch. She saw the pain in the older woman's eyes and knew that Lilly had to have been at least crying when she walked in the front door. Miley's heart ached when she thought of Lilly all alone with no one there to hold her.
So she reached out for the cold metal handle and grasped it tightly, pausing a moment as she clutched the cold doorknob in her sweaty fingers before she slowly turned it. Normally, when the door would have been closed, she would have knocked, but she knew in this instance it was better to catch Lilly by surprise than warn her that she was coming. If Lilly was upset enough, she would try to put a wall up before she talked to Miley so that whatever decision she had made up in her mind would be her final decision.
Lilly was sitting cross-legged on her bed, hands clutched together and resting where her legs crossed each other. The blonde didn't even look up as Miley opened the door and stepped in, when she dropped Lilly's books on the floor, or even when she sat down on the bed behind her. Her face was tilted downwards, her long, blonde hair shielding her face so Miley couldn't see it.
Slowly, Miley reached out her hand and set it gently on Lilly's back, longing to say something but not knowing what would help. She felt Lilly shiver underneath her touch and started to retract her hand, but the blonde quickly turned around and threw herself at the brunette, wrapping her arms tightly around Miley's waist as she buried her face in her chest. Miley felt Lilly start to shake as the sound of Lilly's sobs reached her ears.
"Shhh, it's going to be okay," Miley whispered, rocking Lilly back and forth. "Everything is going to be fine; I promise." She murmured promises and words of comfort in Lilly's ear, hoping that it would be enough to assure Lilly that she was going to do everything within her power to fix the whole situation. At that point, Miley would have flown to the moon and brought it back if it meant that Lilly would feel better.
"Is that even possible?" Lilly mumbled through her dying sobs.
"I don't know," Miley answered quietly, burying her left hand in Lilly's hair and kissing her on the top of the head before resting her chin where she had kissed her. "But if it would make you happy, I would find a way to do it."
At first, Lilly didn't answer. Then she slowly pulled away from Miley, slowly lifting her head and looking into Miley's eyes. "I don't know what I'm going to do," the blonde whispered weakly, tears still leaking down her face, still red and raw from crying. "This… it wasn't supposed to happen this way. We were supposed to have complete control of the whole situation and it was supposed to happen so that everyone, except for maybe Amber, would be happy for us."
The brunette looked down at Lilly, gently wiping away her tears with her thumbs. "My mom used to tell me something when I was little," she whispered, smiling slightly at the blonde in her arms. "Something would go wrong and I would run to her with a skinned knee or a wounded ego, and she would say, 'Miles, I can't always be here for you to help you back up. But one thing I can do is tell you how to deal with stuff like this. Sometimes things will happen that we don't like and we'll cry or we'll stomp our foot and demand that it happens some other way.'"
Miley rested her forehead against Lilly's as she took a deep breath and continued. "Then she would say, 'There will always be skinned knees and hurt feelings, but what we do now won't change what happened in the past. What we do now can affect what will happen in the future. How we react to unexpected situations tells a lot about a person. So stay strong, admit when you're wrong, don't get offended when someone says you aren't right when you really are, and when an especially tough situation comes around, keep your head held high, hold those you love closest to you, and don't be afraid to be who you are.'
"And as much as I would like to cry and stomp my foot about what's happening, Lilly, I know that won't help," Miley whispered. "There are times to cry, there are times to recuperate, and then there are times to stand up to the world and tell it that you are who you are and that you can't be changed. I don't know what your decision is and I'll go with whatever you want to do, but know that I can't fix this situation. I can't change the past, but I can try to make our future a bit better."
Lilly leaned into Miley. "I love you so much," the blonde whispered. "And I don't want to hide this, but I didn't exactly want the whole school knowing right now, either. But as long as I'm with you, I'll be okay. Just… don't leave me alone."
"I won't."
To be honest, there isn't a really good explanation for my long absence. I'm not even going to try. I'll update as soon as I can. Thank for the reviews from karleen3863, AlvinFan07, ChronoCrescentFlames, zzCharmedzz1, dcjp, Azula's Flame 1415, Breyton2009, and Sammyby16. You guys are awesome.
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