They say love is forever. More than just a word that is easily said. They say love is more than a feeling of care and sacrifice. It is a promise, that when you start falling, someone out there would catch you right on time, before you break. It is when every touch makes you feel safer than you already are because you just know that they are going to hold you forever. When your shattered pieces can be rearranged by silence because nothing else matters at that moment except having one another. Being in love is when the sun will never set. But is it the truth?
No. Not to her.
She has never experienced any of it, and she's not planning to.
She believes, she knows, that it hurts. The actual pain is incurable. Love is just keeping hope alive, till the moment you find out that you are left with nothing at the end of the tunnel. The rapid beating of the heart is just classified as sexual attraction and nothing more. It is when everything that's said are just broken promises to keep the other person going, only to be left alone when satisfaction ends. It is when every second chances are blown away because they had let the other fall to oblivion. When the cuts are left to bleed and never to be healed.
Being in love, is just a made up feeling for physical satisfaction.
As an only child, 17 year old Gabriella Montez has always been preserved. She kept her life to herself. Not ever does she want people to find out anything about her. That however, was never easy, being the most noticeable teenager throughout the whole East High. Within her academic years, she was always known as the girl with 'brains and beauty'. As the one who always ended up ranking first in all her subjects, she would understand where half of the label came from, but the beauty? That, she did not acknowledge. To her opinion, she looked like every other brunette with long ebony curls and coffee brown orbs. The intelligence was just an added bonus. There was nothing special in Gabriella Anne Montez. And thats what she tells herself everyday.
Each week was a continuous pattern for her that was memorized easily.
On the weekdays, Gabriella would walk to school with her backpack draped on her shoulder, only to be stopped halfway by her best friend who refused to let her walk just a few miles to school - even though she was sure her best friends motives were to discuss about the scholastic decathlon team that they have been participating in for almost two years now.
Yes, Taylor Mckessie wasn't your typical student. Her dark skin and short hair - which cuts right above the shoulders - were not hard to miss once you walk through the halls of East High. She was one of the few - along with Gabriella herself - who would bring textbooks and fiction novels around so that they could read in the library every recess. Throughout the whole school, Taylor and Gabriella were the only ones who actually enjoyed doing homework and would prefer working on projects individually, except if the other potential partner were one another. But when it was time to relax, she would rather spend hours researching about some facts - in relation with the topic - that are going to be studied a few weeks prior to the actual class discussion whereas Gabriella would spend her weekend reading 500 paged novels, regardless of the genre. It's true that her best friend was one of the few who actually worked hard to ace her classes, and who would be disappointed in getting a grade lower than 90 while she, herself, would just have to read the textbook once and is still able to maintain an average of 95 in all of her classes because of the photographical memory in which she possessed. They were both so different in many aspects, yet both girls couldn't have it any other way.
Her class schedules have never changed for two years since she started attending East High. She would always have two or three classes with Taylor each day, including physical education, which occurred once a week, was her most dreaded subject. Both Taylor and herself had warmed up to the idea that they could only maintain an average of 80 on that particular subject, and that was without slacking off.
At twelve o'clock, both girls would have lunch, along with the entire student body. They would sit at the furthest end of the cafeteria along with their friend who joined the drama club as a composer, Kelsi Neilson. The three would chit-chat about random topics while they finish up and head back to their respective classes.
Every Saturday and Sunday, the three girls would hang-out at different locations, which was mostly at each others houses, if they do not have plans. Gabriella would call it somewhat of a 'girls night' because that was the only day that she could really spend time with her friends without homework. They would gossip about the events that happened in school, or discuss the 'inner school activities' as Taylor would've called it.
Once the week finished, the routine would repeat itself.
Gabriella Montez lived a simple and scheduled life. She has been living in this pattern for a few years, after she moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico because of the job offer that her mother accepted without her consent.
No one would've guessed it, by the way she is living, but she has unresolved issues as well. Just like any other teenager, she has her hidden secrets. It was just more complicated than others. Nothing differentiates her, other than the fact that her problems were bigger than others. It has destroyed her inside and no one, as far as she knew, could ever come close in fixing it.
By her looks, everyone would've guessed that she lived a flawless life, with the ideal family and the perfect boyfriend that every girl had dreamed of. But none of those were true if you knew who she actually was. Every part of her existence was a mistake that wasn't suppose to happen. Her parents had her at a very young age. Her mother, Maria Montez, was sixteen when she found out she was pregnant and had told Jose Montez, her biological father, about it the week after she knew. Having her resulted the pair to drop out of school and leaving their planned future. When Gabriella was born, Jose Montez ended up working three jobs to support his family after both his and Maria's parents stopped giving the teenagers financial support as they were against the idea of the couple having their own baby. This went on for four years, until both Jose and Maria can't handle the pressure and decided to take it out on each other. They did not part ways - and Gabriella thought this was because of her - but they would frequently have an intense argument that would sometimes lead to violence.
The sound of shattering glass was heard throughout the household in the middle of the night. Three year old Gabriella Montez awaken from her slumber in an instant. She clutched her stuffed bear that she had received for her birthday, got out of bed and creaked the door open to investigate the unpleasant echoes that could be heard along the second floor halls. Even though she was three, it took no hesitation that the screams were coming from the kitchen downstairs.
Walking down the hall, she reached the stairwell and sat down on the steps. She had a clear view of her parents who were occupied in the kitchen along with the pieces of broken glass were scattered around the wooden floor. She clutched her teddy in fear every time something was thrown violently by both individuals. The sight of the madness was unbearable for a young toddler.
"What do you expect me to do!" The booming voice of her father was heard.
"You're just gonna give up on her like that Jose?!" Her mother replied, with disbelief.
The now nineteen year old father took a step forward, "Don't you dare say I don't care about her! I've been working my fucking ass off for this family just so that we can live like normal people with a roof above our heads!"
"Nothing has been normal since I ended up pregnant with your child!" Her mother hissed with tears glistening her brown orbs.
"You think I want this? I had a future! Everything was planned out! I was gonna get a well-paid job until I have money to buy a ring so that I could propose to you after college, did you know that?! You would be a lawyer, I would be a business-man and we would start our own family together after! But you ended up pregnant even before I got the job offer that would earn me the money to buy you the ring." The last sentence her father said was a faint whisper, but she could hear the disappointment in his tone.
Hearing her father's brief speech, she could see that her mother was speechless. Tears were streaming down her cheeks uncontrollably as she placed both hands on her mouth to suppress the whimpers. Her mother dropped down to the ground, on her knees, and sobbed while shaking violently.
She watched from the banister as her father went over to the woman who was bawling on the ground and held her close tightly into his embrace in a soothing manner while whispering softly into her ear - in which Gabriella knew that the words said would calm her mother down -. The image was too much for Gabriella herself to handle. Seeing both her parents in this state was too emotional, and knowing that she was the one who caused the argument, made it even worse.
So when she has heard enough, she went back to bed, failing to hear the last sentence that her father spoke out after he gave a soft kiss to the woman he was holding.
"We'll get through this, I promise."