This is for the za angels write off, Dee's category: It's August 25th. The day Troy and Gabriella have been dreading all year. It's the day Gabriella is leaving for college on the east coast. Written from Troy's POV.
hahah I got the inspiration to write this at 3 am in the morning lol, i really do pick the strangest times to write. Thanks to Krispall for all your help, even if you did refer to this as a 'rambly hot mess' :P
I own nothing. The song is The first time ever i saw your face, sung by many different people lol.
The first time ever I saw your face, I thought the sun rose in your eyes.
I've never really been one to look into the future. I'm more of the 'live for the moment' sort. Yet as we stood, on the brink of parting, I couldn't help but envisage the heartache that would ensue for every moment I am without her.
This week, all of my understanding of physics (which wasn't and awful lot to begin with) has completely vacated me. I mean, how is it possible for one week to pass by at triple the speed of the rest of my life? As far as I was aware a week was always a week and a week always lasted for seven days. That's 168 hours. 10080 minutes. 604800 seconds. And that's about as far as I can work it out without frying my brain.
But this wasn't just any week. It was the week that life as I knew it was about to end, that life with her had to end. For her sake, and to my demise.
I don't even notice that it has started raining nor do I care that now is not the best time for me to be sitting outside. I am too consumed with other thoughts to notice. I don't hear the thunderous roar of the clouds above me, nor do hear the searing reaction of the bright white lightning race through the sky. But I know it can hear me and that it is acting on my behalf.
I cant let her leave for New York with baggage left behind, who am I to hold her back from everything she has always wanted to be? Even if answering that leaves me with another quest:
What will I be without her?
And the moon and stars were the gifts you gave, To the dark and the endless sky, my love.
I find it almost impossible to explain to myself why I have to go through with this. Why does it have to end?
But even though I know we will both feel the pain of a promised eternity forgotten, I don't want to be the one to hold her back, to ask her to think of me when she needs to think of herself. Gabi has given me so much, I owe her at least that, her 'start of something new'.
"Troy!! Get inside, your soaked!"
I hear my mom's voice hollering through the open doorway of our house, but it doesn't really bring me from my thoughts. However, I do decide I better get inside all the same. Gabi never really liked thunderstorms and in our time together I had developed a certain distaste for them, as I would for anything that she was uncomfortable with.
Still, in this instance I am thankful that the heavy rain water dripping down my face disguises the tear rolling down my cheek. Although my general demeanour probably already gives that much away.
I am just dreading tomorrow when it will all be over.
And the first time ever I kissed your mouth, I felt the earth move through my hands.
Morning rolls through my curtains all too soon, slapping me across the face with its incessant day light and as I open them to a clear, beautiful day I cant help but think; Oh how ironic.
Yet the wonder of it all pulls me back to the times where we didn't have to care. The times when she wasn't leaving for NYU and I wasn't staying here, when we were just together. But then I remember the phrase ' ignorance is bliss' and it's then I see that she was always leaving and I was always staying, we just chose not to realise that the paths of our futures didn't cross ways.
Knowing I have to pick Gabi up early, for our moment of solace and our private goodbyes I dress quickly, putting as much thought into what I'm wearing as Chad puts into homework. The thought of looking anything remotely like Chad's homework would usually distress me to no end, but right now I couldn't care less.
Walking towards my truck everyone and everything seems to be smiling at me, I force a wry smile back but it takes all of my will power to do so. Even The neighbours cat is smiling at me! Damn cat, what have you got to be so happy about?
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird, that was there at my command.
I go to knock the front door of the Montez house, but then it hits me that this is possibly the last time I could be here and I know that I have too do this our way, for us and for the memories.
Climbing up the tree that stretched out onto her balcony I rue the day I decided to start using the door, I had somewhat lost my tree climbing touch, but I get to the top eventually, practically crashing straight into her glazed swing doors. I guess there is no need for knocking then.
They open before me, she was obviously hearing the commotion outside and she laughs tentatively at my position. A smile forms on my face at hearing her laugh, even in the gravest situations I swear it could bring hope to thousands. And then I remember what I am here for. To break her heart.
"Gabi…I…I want to talk to you, about something."
"Well maybe you should remove yourself from my balcony floor then, your cluttering the place up." She smiles brightly, but I can see behind that mask and I know that she's scared.
Looking into her chocolate brown eyes I'm melted and I find myself, not for the first time, without the ability to speak. She's gorgeous and she's mine.
She was mine.
Why must she make this so hard for me?
This is it, I need to do this now or else I might never do it at all. But when I feel her lips on mine I know that my intentions might not be met for some time. Her kiss draws me in and for a moment I forget all about what I came here to do and I feel selfish, because this is what I want and this is exactly what she doesn't need.
Still, I kiss back, with every ounce of passion I have in me, because at least then I can show her that I still love her, I don't think I could ever possibly put into words exactly what she means to me.
Time is flying again and everything around us melts into nothingness. Right in this perfect moment my only aspiration is to be with her and hers is to be with me...
"What was it you wanted to talk about?" She asks, curled up beside me on the bed.
By now my fingers are effortlessly combing through her midnight hair, I'm intoxicated by the strawberry smell of it and I can almost feel her heartbeat against mine as it pounds in her chest. Altogether I find myself in the exact wrong moment to wholly appreciate everything she was. She was all I ever wanted, and all I couldn't have.
"Nothing, it's not important." The words escape from me before I can control what I am saying as my brain tells me not to ruin the moment, to remember it always and to treasure it for infinity.
And I find myself deciding to be selfish for just a bit longer.
And the first time ever I lay with you, I felt your heart so close to mine.
The drive to the airport was silent, I sat in the back of the car with Gabi, while her mom drove and mine accompanied her up front. I could feel her shaking beside me but I couldn't even look her in the eye to comfort her, because I knew if I did I would never be able to give her up.
When we finally pulled up to the airport I didn't know whether to feel relief or sadness, I think I have thought so much about this that I have confused myself beyond repair. But here we were and she is hugging me and I am holding her in my arms and I just can't imagine not being able to do that anymore. I feel sick to the stomach, isolated in my own mind and my heart was ripping in two, I just hoped that it would hold up until she was gone.
"Gabi." I say her name over and over again, whispering in her ear, telling her that I love her and she's saying the same to me.
How do I tell the love of my life to move on? Tell her not to wait for me and that she deserves better, she deserves for all of her dreams to come true? Probably just like that but the words come out far different from what they sound in my head.
"I can't do this anymore…I can't be with you anymore." Is all I can say.
I can feel her eyes on me, glossy and tear laden and I can see her shake her head in disbelief and yet I still stare off into the distance, trying to avoid contact with her gaze, all the while breathing heavily to ensure that my own tears don't fall.
"You don't mean it Troy…you don't mean it!"
My heart wants to tell her I don't mean it, but my mind is already made up.
"Just go."
And don't ever look back.
With that sentiment I'm gone from view as they call her plane to board, trying my best to make sure that I don't look back either, left only with the ghost of a good thing, lost forever.
And I know our joy would fill the earth…
I manage to catch my breath for a moment, just long enough to realise I am physically shaking and I'm sure that much would be obvious to the world. This was it. I had just let my life slip away, but I had to do it. It was all for her. Everything I done was for her.
Maybe, someday, fate will align our stars again, it happened once before already. But I know the world is a big place, and miracles are few and far between. I can only pray that we sit in favour with whoever holds power over such rarities.
And then I realise that I am quite possibly the most stupid person ever to grace planet earth with their presence and I find my brain yelling for me to run and not think. Thinking appears to be far to much of an occupational hazard for me.
"Gabi!"
She keeps on walking, no running. I don't know if she's running towards her future or away from her past but I cant help but see that its all my doing. I really ought to come with a giant biohazard sign stuck to my forehead, 'Keep clear: Will destroy your love life at any moment.'
"Gabi…please!" I shout, not even caring that the airport staff are shooting each other looks saying 'get the tranquiliser gun: there's an escaped gorilla on the loose' nor do I care that my choked words make it sound as though I painfully dying. Because it's true. And that's for both of the above.
She stops and my heart stands still. I swear that girl has given me more heart attacks than the collective rota at Albuquerque House for Senior Citizens.
Her face was wet with salty tears, leaving her delicate skin raw and blotchy. Her perfect chocolate brown eyes were tinged with red and they way she looked at me through them told me I'd hurt her.
Fuck. That's the last thing I wanted to do.
The hairs on my arms were standing up on end, my breathing was shallow and I found myself without the ability to either move or speak.
"What Troy? What do you want?"
Say something damn it! Say something you fool, or else you will lose her forever.
"I didn't mean it."
I was openly crying now, desperate to know that I hadn't just broken everything, to know that she understood why I said what I did and to know…
Before I could finish she was in my arms again and I was kissing her once more. No more words were needed, because she knew me too well not to know my intentions.
"Your all I ever wanted Troy…you're my everything."
…And last till the end of time, my love.