Chapter 1: My Babies

A/N: Hey everyone. I'm so excited you clicked on this story to read. As you may have noticed, my sister and I haven't edited our homepage but we'll get to that as soon as possible. This is my very first story and I hope you guys enjoy it! (Be warned, most of my stories involve lots of family, so you'll be seeing a lot of kids) I've been working on this for almost a year because so many ideas have been flowing out from day one.

Enjoy- **Pasión de ZV**

Disclaimer: I do not own High School Musical nor its characters.

Raquél

"… Why do you always have to act this way? You're so irresponsible!"

"I'm not irresponsible. I don't believe this; I just came home and you're treatin' me this way?!" "You act like this is my fault, this is your fault!"

Ugh… it never ends. Those two are down each other's throats again, and I have to suffer by listening to the hateful words they keep throwing back at each other.

"It ain't my fault you gotta be such a bitch all the time!" SMACK! "You are such a damn jerk. Get out of my house now!" Ouch; even I felt that.

'What the hell are you talkin' about, girl? This is my house; I'll leave when I want to."

"GET OUT!" my mother screamed.

That's when I heard a heavy object hit the ground then the front door slam. I set my homework down just as Mama entered the room looking flustered and angry.

She always managed to look beautiful, though. I looked just like her. I had her long, curly brown hair, her dazzling green eyes, and her high cheek bones. The only permanent reminder of my father, unfortunately, that I inherited was his dark skin color. All my siblings and I look this way.

I sighed. "What did he do now?"

"He thinks he can just waltz in here and tell me what he wants me to do for him. And do you know the first thing he wants from me?! Sex! I would've figured that since he spent 18 months in jail. Mi dios, él es tal puerco (my god, he is such a pig)! I cannot believe him!"

During her rant, I thought of my little sisters. Everytime Mama and Papa get in a fight, they always burst into my room distraught and frightened. Now, our family has to get back into the swing of things.

My dad was in jail for 18 months because of assault charges. He used to be in a gang and they were rivals with another gang in the area. His friend was sent to the hospital in critical condition from a drive by shooting. Papa found the guy that was responsible for the shooting and beat him up really bad, also sending the man into the hospital. For a few weeks, the police were busy searching for him, but they couldn't find him because he hid at his parent's house. It was very scary when one night, a bunch of police cars were surrounding our building. They burst through the door and tackled my dad to the ground.

My mom was two weeks pregnant with my brother at the time. So, he wasn't there for the birth of his only son. But, when he found out the sex of the baby, he insisted that the baby should be named after him.

My father's name is Andre James Richmond, and my mom's name is Gabriella Janélle Richmond (which should have been changed back to Montez a long time ago).

But the one other thing I hate about my father is that he's a sex addict. How do you think I ended up with 5 siblings?! And my mom always gives in to him! First they fight, then somehow, it leads to sex.

Anyway, Papa isn't what you would exactly call "father-of-the-year." Sometimes Mama gets so frustrated, she comes into my room frustrated and starts to rant about what a terrible husband he is. She would be better off independent. She works at a law firm and makes a lot of money.

My dad used to; he has to find a new job, which is proving to be difficult because no one wants a former "thug" working for them. I got up from my spot on the bed and hugged her tightly.

"Mom, just calm down. He'll be out of here soon." She took a deep breath and kissed my forehead. "You're right", she sighed stressfully.

"Come on, we should go check up on the kids", I said, walking out the door and pulling Mama with me.

Gabriella

When Raquél and I walked into the living room, we spotted my two younger daughters crying. My daughters, Chaya and Aquilína had overheard the argument.

In fact, they were in the room while Dre and I were yelling at each other. They burst into tears when I slapped him.

"Oh, I'm sorry, babies", I crooned, pulling them into my arms. They clung to my arms, crying into my shoulder.

"Did Mama scare you?" My heart broke as they nodded, then continued to cry. "Don't worry, I won't do it again", I reassured, smoothing their hair.

"Raquél, can you wake up Jazmyn and A'sharía?" She nodded then walked into one of the rooms next to mine. All my children were the spitting image of me. Except they all had their father's dark skin.

I went to my son's room and found him standing in his crib, holding onto the railings and sucking on his pacifier. When he saw me, he squealed happily and held his arms up.

"Hey Dre!" I cooed, planting a kiss on his lips. I picked André out of his crib and laid him across the changing table. I quickly cleaned him, put on a new diaper and carried him to the kitchen.

Raquél sat in front of A'sharía, who refused to eat her oatmeal. She remained in her chair whining loudly. "Come on, Ría… eat!" Raquél groaned in frustration.

I laughed a little. "Do you wanna trade?" I asked, holding up her brother. "Thank you", she sighed.

I passed André to her and took the spoon from her hands. A'sharía wasn't cooperating, and kept spitting out her food. I sighed to myself while using her bib to wipe her face.

Lately, I've been overly stressed because Dre just got out of jail recently. He definitely is not the man he used to be. Over the past couple of years, we had gotten so sick of each other.

But usually, all arguments would lead to make up sex, which made me feel even worse. Things would always resort to that. How do you think I ended up with six kids?

Maybe I should tell you.

This all started when I was a teenager. It was during my 7th grade year in middle school when I first met Dre. He was the new kid in my homeroom class and I instantly fell for him.

I especially remember when the teacher was introducing him to the class. "Children, this is Andre Richmond. And his family just transferred here all the way from Jamaica."

She turned to Andre and smiled politely. "We are very honored to have you in our class, Andre", she enunciated as if he were 5 years old. He rolled his eyes, attitude clearly in his personality, then he walked through the aisles towards his seat.

He smiled at me as he passed, his brown eyes sparkling; making me blush. No one had really paid any mind to him. They made fun of him because of his strong accent, plus they thought he had gotten held back because he was almost three years older.

As soon as class was over, I, being my kind self, walked up to him and asked him to sit with me at lunch. He happily obliged and I showed him around the school as we strolled to lunch.

I thought his accent was cute, and the way certain words flowed from those lips of his. We started dating in 7th grade and soon moved onto high school together.

As he got older, his boyish looks changed dramatically, turning into that of a man's. His jaw grew more structured, he grew taller and his voice matured, becoming smoother and deeper.

Whenever he would call me "baby girl", I would go weak in the knees. Also, his thin arms, legs and abdomen became powerfully built.

I was also surprised with the changes that were happening to my body. I had a growth spurt, my breasts were starting to develop, and my braces were finally removed (thank god) after 9th grade.

I gained a unique sense of style, and I was starting to draw the attention of every boy in school. They all thought I had a certain sex appeal, which made me extremely uncomfortable.

I stuck by Dre's side and he stuck by mine. Then, two days before my 14th birthday, that's when I thought about taking our relationship a step further…

One day, when his parents left us alone in his house, we began a make out session that soon turned heated then we ran off to his bedroom. That afternoon, we both lost our virginities to each other.

After that experience, I really felt like a woman. Obviously, when you're a teenager, you think you're invincible to everything… including pregnancy, which we hadn't thought about.

We didn't use common sense, more specifically, protection. In only a couple weeks, I was pregnant at the age of fourteen.

At first, I thought that my life was over and Dre would leave me. But once again, he stuck to my side. At school, rumor got out that "Geeky Gabi" was "preggers." At that point, life was not looking up for Dre and I.

Unfortunately, I had to drop out of school and receive home tutoring until I turned 16. Everyone we knew abandoned us, and when our parents found out, the infuriated and disappointed looks on their faces said it all. My father even tried to choke Dre.

Nine months later on a rainy September, when I gave birth to Raquél, I had to make the decision whether to keep her or put her up for adoption. Of course, Dre and I kept the baby; also I immediately gained my maternal instincts.

Our parents were amazed at how hard we worked as young parents. Once I turned 15, I couldn't have my Quinceañera because of the expenses and things we needed for the baby. Growing up in a Puerto Rican family, it was tradition to have a Quince Años ceremony when a girl turns 15. It's kind of like a "sweet sixteen", but for Hispanic girls.

Dre and I were also a young married couple. At Dre's high school graduation, he proposed to me in front of the entire student body and faculty. As I held four year old Raquél in my arms, I ran onstage, and engulfed him in a huge hug. We married soon after my second year of college.

Some years after the wedding when Raquél was 8 years old, I found out that I was pregnant again, this time with Aquilína. That's when Dre's job got transferred from Albuquerque, New Mexico to New York City.

I never admitted it, but I was extremely terrified. I had never flown on a plane, I didn't know anyone there and I hated cold weather. I finished college at ITT Technical Institute in Albany, when I was only 18; and attended law school for two years.

After Aquilína was born, I was under a lot of stress. I was only 22 with a child, a newborn baby and a tough job at a law firm. At often times, I would always coax Dre into having sex with me to get my mind off of the stress.

But that didn't help, of course. He got so addicted to sex, only one year later I got pregnant with Chaya. I quickly grew tired of it, disgusted by his raunchy sexual appetite.

He stopped for a while when he found out his aunt Mary had died from lung cancer. We were all mourning after the loss, but Dre took the news the worst.

He was so devastated and angry; he would just come straight home, lock himself in his room and ignore me whenever I asked him to come out. When the grief passed, I thought he was back to normal… but he became worse.

Soon, he demanded more sex everyday, which for me, was starting to get very scary. He used rough sex on me, sometimes hurting me. I never told him because I knew he wouldn't care anyway.

Soon, he realized what he was doing wasn't helping the both of us, and he stopped altogether. Then everything went back to normal…sort of.

He had a friend named Ricky, who was in a local gang. They were in a gang war with another gang who lived in the Bronx. I was afraid he'd join, and he did.

Usually, when he was out late at night, I would worry. I didn't know where he was or what he was doing. Then when Dre got arrested, I was pregnant with my last child, André Jr. He missed all 7 months of my pregnancy and he got to meet his only son when he was 10 months old.

Since little André is almost a year now, I'm hoping he would stay out of trouble long enough to be there for his son's 1st birthday; also for Raquél's Quinceañera, which is in a little over a year.

She doesn't really show much appreciation her father as much as the younger kids, because she's old enough to understand that her father isn't always supportive of the family. Being the oldest of six children is hard, as I can imagine. Many times when Dre would be home, they would fight and yell at each other for hours on end. She would always get in the last word before storming off to her room and locking herself in.

And my younger kids, the poor things, are always in the room when a fight breaks out. I really didn't want them to grow up with an irresponsible father in their lives. So I filed for a divorce.

But when it was time to sign the papers, he simply refused, so I kicked him out of the house. He was so headstrong and stubborn, I was about to file a restraining order against him.

I should have.