A/N: ok, I updated, I'm not really happy with my update... but I did. :) Hopefully you guys will forgive me for a crappy chapter... but I swear I will have a point as the story progresses. I just somehow added another twist. The first part is just Miley's current life... I thought I would throw that in, I guess this chapter in a way is a chapter filler... but ok...

I have huge news... Me and Michelle has create a new project, we are currently working on fun and lighthearted Niley masterpiece... plus, we came up with this idea to get writers and readers involved in the HM fandom, hopefully we can get more people to join in. We have challenges for other writers to write, and prizes you can win, so please submit your entries. There is a link to this new project called the Tiffany and Michelle show... details can be found on that page, so subscribe! Links to that story is found on that page also... it's called My Best Friend Miley

Chapter 7

She Was Never You

Miley stood at the counter wrapped up her thoughts when the sound of the front door chimed open. Glancing up she smiled as she watched the figure slowly inched through the door, hands full of bags dangling on matching wrist, Miley greeted the figure.

"Need a hand?"

The figure smiled before shaking her head, "I got it, how has it been today?"

Miley smiled, "A little slow, hopefully business will pick up later this afternoon, it's the weekend after all."

Nodding, the girl slowly made her way down the long hallway disappearing through the break room, before she made her way back over to the front counter. WIth a swift movement, she gathered her tousled blonde hair to the back of her head, tying her hair back with a hair tie she made her way over to the register. With fast moving fingers, she typed the keys clocking into her shift, before she turned to meet Miley's watching eye, "What did you need me to do boss?"

Laughing lightly, Miley turned her attention to the pile of cardboard boxes pushed against the far wall, "We got some new shipment of t-shirts that I need to be tagged and then put up. I was looking through the new shipment of lip glosses I ordered. They smell absolutely amazing, you should check them out."

"I'll get right on that Boss." the girl turned on her heel and headed over to the pile of boxes, with a pen and pile of price-tags in hand.

Miley turn her attention back to the papers she had in front of her. The little black words a blurred as her mind raced with a million thoughts. She kept replaying the night before, the major reunion between her and Nick. She wasn't sure how she felt, knowing that she pushed that world away for such a long time, only to have it standing on her doorstep. In her case, on the back deck of her home.

--

"Please don't go." His voice called out. He sounded broken and lost, and she knew that she couldn't walk away. No matter how far she wished she could run, and escape what she had turn her back on. She heard the desperation.

Turning on her heel, her eyes locked with the brown one staring back at her, the world stood still. She could remember the moments when she had once felt lost, stuck in between the carefully drawn line she had teetered on. The hardest part was when she fell, and lost her way. All she wanted was the helping hand, and in that moment, she wanted to extend her hand and grasp it in the callous one he had dug into his pocket.

Before she could even fathom everything that had happen, the minutes passed, and soon the hours drifted into the night. Somewhere between the lost and confusion, they found themselves sitting side by side. Their bodies close between each other, the proximity was almost non existent. She felt the comfortable silences swept across them, as they took in each others calmness. No words were spoken, as they watched the crashing waves.

Lost in the trance of calm and serenity, the world outside them didn't exist.

It was Nick who broke the silence, his question daunting, as it clung onto the air.

"What did you leave all those years ago?"

Miley thought back to the time when she thought she had it all, it happen so fast, and as fast it as it came, it was gone in a blink of an eye. She could remember all the highs and lows, the moments when she felt like she was on top of the world, and the moments when she finally hit rock bottom. Feeling so alone, as they turned their backs on her, nothing but a cold shoulder. The pain itself was still raw deep within her, no matter how many times she pushed those memories far away back into the depths of her mind, whenever they resurfaced, they were like open wounds, out for the world to see.

Her voice was steady, the words she longed to have heard finally spoken, "Because I couldn't allow myself to drown any longer, things had change. The people I had surrounded myself with, the world I entered, and most of all, myself. My dreams were so far out of my reach by the end that I knew that no matter how hard I fought back, they would only bring me farther down under. And I needed to get out. By then you were already out of my life, everything just lost it's meaning..."

She turned slowly her eyes casted onto the slump body seated next to her on the wet sand, her finger tips running lines through each grain of sand watching as it fell beneath the gaps of her fingers. Her voice was soft before she asked the only question that mattered, "Was she everything you wanted?"

He didn't need her to elaborate, he knew exactly who she was talking about. The dark headed brunette rain through his mind immediately.

Nick turned and met her watching eyes before he downcast them onto the sand, the words were just above a whispered, strained and forced, "She was never you..."

a/n: reviews are appreciated!