July 2008
Selena and Nick became official in the summer of 2008. I knew why he had suddenly decided that Selena was good enough to be his proper girlfriend. There were rumours flying around within the circle of people we knew that Miley had been seeing her co-star in the Hannah Montana movie, Lucas, and I knew that it had driven Nick crazy to just think about her with somebody else. The thing was, he wouldn't admit it. He refused to confess that she still had an effect on him, because that would have shown that he still cared, and caring for Miley meant reliving the heartbreak he had gone through that previous winter.
So he moved on with Selena, and I couldn't blame him for that. It had been more than six months since he and Miley had finished things, and it was time for him to work past the things that were holding him back from finding somebody else. He had spent too much time avoiding commitment and moping around over his ex-girlfriend. While I was rooting for them, I knew it was time for him to move on.
I observed Miley that summer. I saw her at premieres and award shows, and I watched her as she glanced across crowded rooms at Nick. I could see that she wanted to go over and talk to him, but something was holding her back, and I knew that whatever it was was exactly what was holding Nick back. It made me sad, but there was nothing I could do. It wasn't my place to get involved. It was down to them to pluck up the courage to approach one another, not me.
"Nick thinks that I should get highlights. What do you think?" Selena asked one day, twirling a strand of her dark hair around her index finger.
I didn't know what to say. For a start, Selena was beautiful just the way she was. She was possibly the most stunning person I knew, even before she grew up. She didn't need to change herself to make her boyfriend happy, and I think that, deep down, Selena knew that too.
"I guess that would be nice," I replied hesitantly.
"He thinks I'd look sexier with highlights. Can you believe that?" she giggled.
I smiled and nodded. "That's great, Sel."
But it wasn't great. Her life had come to revolve around Nick, and to me, that was pretty sad. Selena prided herself on being independent. She took satisfaction in being able to live without a boyfriend when most of her friends were dying to find one. But when she found Nick, her life revolved around making him happy and being what he wanted her to be, which was pretty ridiculous, seeing as all he wanted her to be was Miley.
But I could see it - I could see that he was still hung up on Miley, and it absolutely killed me, because I could see that he was trying to transform Selena, the innocent bystander who had done nothing to deserve that kind of treatment, into Miley, someone who was the complete opposite of Selena. He wanted her to have lighter hair. He wanted her to sing to him. He wanted to take her out for ice cream. He wanted his mother to fall in love with her. I knew that Nick didn't mean to hurt Selena, but she had gotten caught in the middle of Nick and Miley's crumpled love affair, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop the inevitable trainwreck from happening.
I knew just by watching Nick and Selena that things weren't the same with them as they were when he was with Miley. She didn't put the same smile on his face as Miley did, and he didn't laugh as much around as he did around Miley. He didn't touch her as much as Nick touched Miley – in fact, with Miley, he would have gone out of his way just to stand next to her, never mind touch her. Selena wasn't Miley, and he would never love Selena as much as he loved Miley.
Joe and Kevin didn't even talk about Miley anymore, which was one step further than not talking to her. It was like all memories with Miley in them from the previous two years had been erased from everyone's minds; like they didn't want to even remember her. That almost made me sadder than the fact that Nick was using Selena as a rebound. Miley had once been their best friend. She had been like their little sister, and they had suddenly decided that, because things hadn't worked out between her and Nick, they couldn't be associated with her either. To me, things were getting more and more unreasonable as time passed with the situation.
Now, I think back to the summer of 2008, and I think about how I should have done something. I could have told the boys that their treatment of Miley was unfair and that they should have buried the hatchet with her long before they made that advance the following year. I should have warned Selena that her relationship with Nick would only leave her with absurd expectations, rivers of tears and a broken heart. I should have told Nick that Selena was worth so much more than he was willing to give her. She loved him with all her heart, but to him, she wasn't anywhere near as important as Miley had been. Things that summer were a disaster. It was like a snowball rolling down a hill, gaining more and more momentum and becoming more and more uncontrollable, and I had done absolutely nothing to stop it from crashing down around us all.
That summer, I should have made an effort with Miley. I should have called her and said, "Look, I'm sorry about how my friends are treating you." But I didn't. I let her suffer. I knew the pain she was going through from mutual friends, and I let that pain continue. I let them ignore her and treat her like crap when I could have changed it. I could have made stopped it all from happening.
That was the summer that everything started to accelerate out of control. Nick still loved Miley, and I had thought that Miley still loved Nick. But then the autumn came, and everything changed once again.