FOUNTAIN VALLEY - Natasha Dannov, a 2007 Fountain Valley High graduate, loved many things.

She  loved her parents, Hal and Isabelle Dannov. She loved her French and  Russian heritage, singing, vintage fashion and the Old World feel of  Chicago.

She loved her friend Marian Teri Kahale like a sister.

Samantha Strom, a friend to both, said they were the prettiest girls she had ever seen.

"They  were always looking for fun, making spur of the moment decisions. I  wanted to be just like them. Everyone did," Strom said.

Dannov  loved the word "love" so much that she planned to get a tattoo of  "l'amour" the Monday after her 18th birthday, said her mother, a French  teacher at Golden West College.

Dannov never got her tattoo.

In  the early morning hours of Nov. 18, she was thrown from a Ford Explorer  that her best friend Kahale was driving. While driving the wrong way on  the I-5, Kahale lost control of the vehicle. The Explorer flipped over  several times before coming to rest on its wheels, according to a  California Highway Patrol report.

Dannov, who had been celebrating her Nov. 17 birthday with Kahale, was pronounced dead at the scene.

"L'amour"  is now etched onto her gravestone at Good Shepherd Cemetery in  Huntington Beach, and it was spelled out in daisies on her grave site  May 18, the six-month anniversary of her death, when her friends and  family gathered to remember her.

Kahale was absent from the memorial that day, but that doesn't mean she isn't grieving, friends said.

Kahale "loved Natasha more than any one of Natasha's friends did or ever will," Strom said.

In May, Kahale appeared in court for what was set to be a hearing on whether the case was ready to go to trial.

Instead,  she pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, all the  while holding her body rigid in an attempt to hold back the tears. The  tears came anyway.

Kahale is set to appear in a San Diego County courthouse next Friday for sentencing.

For  Kahale, "Natasha was her world," said their friend Stacy Ly in an  e-mail. People "should stop and realize that none of this can be easy  for her," Ly said.

"Marian will never be the same and will never have a whole heart again. It will always be half missing," Strom said.

MISSING PIECES

Dannov's friends and family find themselves in the same predicament, facing the void left by her death.

But rather than immerse themselves in grief, they have tried to make some sense of her death in their own ways.

Dannov's parents still search for answers surrounding the death of their only daughter.

A family friend developed a pledge to try to keep teens and young adults from driving under the influence.

Her friends still post to her MySpace page on an almost daily basis. And some even got the same tattoo Dannov would have gotten.

Hal Dannov said he believes Kahale's actions are just one piece of a series of events that led to his daughter's death.

The young women had celebrated Dannov's birthday at Knott's Berry Farm earlier in the day, he said.

While at the theme park or sometime before, Hal Dannov said, they took the drug ecstasy.

Around 10 p.m. they attended a party in South Orange County where both drank alcohol, Isabelle Dannov said.

They  left the party with Kahale driving her Ford Explorer and Natasha Dannov  lying in the back seat without a seat belt, Hal Dannov said.

Kahale  was driving south on the northbound side of the I-5 in north San Diego  County when she lost control of the vehicle, Isabelle Dannov said.

The California Highway Patrol investigated at the scene of the accident.

But Hal and Isabelle Dannov have expressed concern that the events leading up to the crash were not investigated.

It's  unclear where the party took place, they said. It's also unclear where  the alcohol at the party was obtained, where the ecstasy was obtained,  where the adults who owned the house were, and why Kahale was allowed  to drive away from the party in the state she was in, they said.

Chryseis Starros, deputy district attorney for San Diego County, said officials there plan no further investigation.

"It's just a very tragic case," Starros said after Kahale's hearing in May. "I hope for justice for the families."

Hal Dannov said he wants an investigation, whether it's by the District Attorney's Office or a private investigator.

He  said he would like to seek justice on his family's behalf by conducting  an investigation himself, but Parkinson's disease makes it difficult  for him to do so.

The Dannovs have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Kahale.

Some of Natasha Dannov's and Kahale's friends have been critical of the suit.

"I  think people will understand better of what my father is trying to do  in time," Michael Dannov, the dead teenager's brother, said. He would  not elaborate.

The Dannovs said they hope to find the answers to perhaps save the lives of other teenagers and young adults.

"I think Natasha would like to see her friends being saved," Hal Dannov said.

"I'll  always be grieving for her. … If there's something that we can do  that's positive, it makes the process more understandable."

'SAVE A NATASHA'

One  positive movement that has come out of the fatal accident is the "Save  A Natasha" pledge, which was started by Isabelle Dannov's friend Marie  Mulroy.

"In the first few days in the shock of losing Natasha  there was the idea that her death was not going to be completely  useless," Mulroy said.

Those who sign the pledge promise to take away the car keys of anyone who shouldn't drive because they are under the influence.

"Love in that moment is having the strength to be unpopular," Mulroy said.

So far, several dozens of Natasha Dannov's friends and Isabelle Dannov's college students have signed it.

"Every  time I get into a fight, having to take someone's key or tell them that  they aren't going to drive, I do it for Natasha," Strom said in an  e-mail. "I do it to save her in hope of telling her one day when I get  to heaven that her death did have reason."

"If we achieve something, there'd be a party that didn't happen, an accident that didn't happen," Isabelle Dannov said.

She also said she hopes Kahale, whom she described as a troubled teen, gets the message.

And in the months since Dannov's death, Strom said, Kahale has changed for the better.

"Marian  had problems, and because of Natasha she fixed them," Strom said. "For  Marian to turn things around and to face what she did, that is  remarkable."

And despite the events of last November and the months since, Ly said she still loves both the girls.

"I  will always love Natasha and Marian. …They were like sisters in every  aspect of the word," Ly said. "A great loss has happened, and I think  time will help, but love is a great healer."

"So all we can really do now is  love one another, because that is what I believe Natasha would want."