Unproper Grammar: Written because I like to take perfectly innocent characters and eff them up beyond repair.

I own nothing but the plot.

Ce Matin La

(That Morning)

His head was pounding; a slow, dull ache and interrupted his thoughts. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. It went, a deafening sacatto that only he could hear.

His eyelids felt weak and droopy and heavy. When he closed them, they burned and when he opened them, they watered.

His tongue had a tasteless, and yet stale film on it. He swallowed some of the guck and pressed a sweaty palm to his warm forehead.

What had he done?

The whole night was full of flashes. Flashes and blurs mixed together to make one huge, jumbled mess of recollections. There was foam and liquid spilling from the edge of a red plastic cup. There was laughing and jeering from Chad's mouth. There was long blonde hair and red lips that taunted him.

There was the scrape of manicured fingernails on his skin. The smell of expensive perfume in his nose. The taste of sweet lipstick on his mouth.

He shuddered.

Sitting up too quickly, he felt a wave of nausea and dizziness come over him, and he fell back down into the bed. He looked to the side and squeezed his eyes shut.

It was empty. Thank god.

But just because something wasn't there, didn't mean that it didn't exsist.

She had been there, in his bed, beside him. Whispering in his ear and tugging on his hair and running her fingers down his chest.

Only she wasn't who she was supposed to be.

Rolling over, he saw the photograph set in a silver frame on his nighttable. Their smiling faces looking down on him. Her dark eyes and hair, perfect teeth and rosy cheeks. Her soft curves that he knew by heart and her warm skin. He shuddered.

How could he let this happen? How could he do this? Why did he do this? He had broken something, something so wonderful and amazing, all for this? Granted, he hadn't been thinking clearly--

Or maybe he had. He can't even tell.

All he knows is that he doesn't know himself anymore. He is not himself. He is not Troy Bolton, captain of the basketball team, lead male in the winter musicale and boyfriend of Gabriella Montez.

Gabriella...

He's not.

Because Troy Bolton didn't go and crash parties. Troy Bolton didn't get wasted beyond reason. Troy Bolton didn't cheat on his girlfriend. Troy Bolton didn't sleep with the one girl he hates more than anything in the world, the one girl who has made he and Gabriella's lives hell for the last year.

He doesn't know who he is. All he knows is that he hates himself.

And when Gabriella's name appears on the caller-ID an hour later, he can't bring himself to answer it.

She wouldn't want to talk to him anyways. She was looking for Troy.