I was thirteen the first time I knew I was gay.

There was this guy who used to work at the club house, and I used to fancy him so much, even Shar used to tease me. He was a lot older. About 19 or 20 years old, but that didn't mater. He was so amazing.

His name was Brent.

For the three months he worked there, we got on pretty good. It was a bit odd, having him under our employ, him being told what to do by my parents, but he didn't mind. He just got on with his job.

We would talk, laugh, annoy my sister together. He told me that he was gay, and that gave me the courage to tell him about me. He didn't know I loved him, I mean, how could I tell him…

I was so much in love with him that I couldn't stand it.

I haven't seen him since my fourteenth birthday.

That day, after the party that Sharpay insisted we have, while everyone was leaving, Brent gives me a small box, wrapped in the most beautiful paper I've seen. It was nothing like the balloons or 'happy birthday' paper like on so many of my other presents, this was covered in a golden holo-foil paper that shone in the sunlight, that when held at certain angles, you could see a bird, moving across the paper.

It seemed such a shame to ruin that image. But the item inside the box was even more beautiful than the wrapping paper.

It was a golden chain, with a circle-shaped pendant dangling from it. The image on the front of the pendant was that of a bird, of its head and left wing, with its right wing only just visible under it's head.

It was the image of a falcon, he told me. He said that the bird reminded him of me, of how I soar into the hearts of those around me, and how I seem to soar as I am dancing.

I gave him a hug, and as I held on to him, his big arms wrapped around me, I saw my father's disapproving eye. He didn't like me getting friendly with the staff. Especially with male ones, now that he knew I liked guys.

We talked for another few minutes before he had to get back to work. As he tried to leave, I hugged him again, and he whispered something into my ear. Before he could pull away, I gave him a soft kiss.

I know it was a stupid thing to do, especially with my parents hanging around, but what he whispered was so touching. He didn't seem to mind, he just smiled at me softly and walked away, looking back at me as he went.

When we came back to the club house the next day, he was gone. When I asked my father what had happened to him, he said that Brent had come to see him first thing that morning and handed in his resignation. I swore at my father, accusing him of making Brent leave, blaming him that he must have said something to cause him to go.

My father just said that he had already accepted it, and had already found someone to take over the shift full time.

It took almost a month for me to start talking to my father again.

So why am I bringing this up now, 3 years later?

Well, there's a new guy in school who started a few days ago, and I swear he is a dead ringer for Brent. He has the same facial expressions, same messy style of hair, even the same smile.

His name's Troy Bolton. He just moved here from a place I have never heard of before.

I know it can't be him. I mean, this new guy is the same age as me. Brent would be about 22 now, and I'm sure he's making something better of his life than he could have had working as a pool boy for a rich jerk. (It's no secret that I dislike my father. I still blame him for making Brent leave.)

So since the new guy Troy is in a few of my classes, I'm being friendly enough to him, even if he does remind me of a guy I used to have the hots for 3 years ago. He's nice enough, and I'm sure you can guess that I think he's kinda hot too.

Ryan put the diary back under his mattress, and lay down on the bed, putting his hands behind his head.

He closed his eyes. He moved his right hand to his neck, feeling for the pendant that constantly dangled from the gold chain. He ran a finger over the falcon, feeling the cool metal.

Since the day he was given it, he had never taken it off. It was a memory: every time he touched it, felt it move under his clothes, or saw it in the mirror each morning as he stepped out the shower, he thought of Brent.

He wasn't looking forward to school tomorrow. Drama teacher Miss Darbus had, in her infinite wisdom, decided to assign an awful piece of homework for her drama class to write, star and direct in their own ten minute piece, pairing each person up with another in the class.

Miss Darbus, for reasons only known to herself, decided to split up the usual pairing of Ryan and Sharpay, and paired Sharpay up with Gabriella Montez. Sharpay wasn't happy with the arrangement, letting her voice be known on the subject. Gabriella too wasn't very keen on working with the female Evans.

Their verbal fights were well known through out the school, ever since Gabriella had dared try out for the lead role in the winter musical a year ago.

As Ryan said to Sharpay the night before, perhaps Miss Darbus was trying to bring an end to their rivalry. Sharpay however couldn't care less if Miss Darbus was trying to play referee, and Sharpay had already thought up a perfect idea for their sketch. One where Sharpay could easily lord it over Gabriella without being told off for it.

Ryan, without Sharpay as a partner, was partnered with the new boy Troy. Not that Ryan minded. He could get along with anyone, unlike his sister who would bully people into doing her mindless work.

The next day, during drama class, Miss Darbus allowed the class to split up to enable them more freedom to create without being interrupted by others working on their sketches. Some were sent to the cafeteria, some were sent to library, and some remained in the drama classroom.

Ryan and Troy had been in the two groups sent to the cafeteria.

Over the hour, they talked, Ryan asking questions about where Troy had lived before he moved to Albuquerque (a small town in California called Sunnyville), why he had moved here (his father got a job as a lawyer at the town's court house), and other small things.

After trying to forget about the idea, he asked Troy if they had met before, saying that Troy reminded him of someone he once knew.

Troy said that it was doubtful, as he had never been in this town before.

Getting back to work on their drama piece, Troy had suggested a science-fiction element that he thought would be interesting – that he play a time traveller who landed in the year 2007, and Ryan play a native of that time.

Ryan loved the idea, and just as they began to work on the script, the bell went for the end of class. Troy suggested that they could continue after school, and meet back here.

Ryan agreed.

Offering Troy a lift home after school, Troy politely declined, saying that he wasn't going straight home. Ryan thought nothing of it, but when he offered again to Troy for the fifth time after they would work on their assignment for a week, he began to wonder.

Troy had been acting a bit weird, asking questions about things that everyone else knew, like when in home economics class, he didn't know what a microwave was.

And he always seemed to be fiddling with his watch. He would always be pressing the buttons and watching the screen with focused eyes, and on one occasion Ryan could have swore he saw Troy talking to it.

So when Troy politely refused a lift home for the seventh time in a row, Ryan had enough. He wanted to know what was up with Troy.

He followed Troy in his car, keeping at far enough distance that Troy didn't see him.

He stopped as Troy stepped up to a cash machine, and he saw him looking around slightly before putting his arm against the left side of the unit, as if leaning for support. He wasn't sure, but he hadn't seen Troy put a card into the slot before he started pressing the buttons. A few seconds later, Troy took the money out the slot and carried on walking.

Ryan continued following him until Troy turned down an alley. Ryan got out the car and carried on from far behind, keeping out of sight in case Troy should turn around.

Troy stopped in front of a garage. He pressed a button on his watch, and the door opened, revealing inside a large, weird shaped object. It was almost as tall as Troy, with him overshadowing it by several inches. To Ryan, it resembled a 3d version of a dodecahedron, a 12-sided object. It seemed to be made of a metal structure and glass panels, with two panels at the front completely see-through, and the others surrounding it being frosted.

Ryan saw Troy pressing another button on his watch, and the front panel split in two, creating two gull-wing doors, except they opened outwards rather than upwards. Then the garage door started to close, and Ryan couldn't see anymore.

The next day at school, when they were sitting in the library again working on finishing their script, Ryan asked Troy if he could borrow a few dollars since he forgot his wallet. Troy said that he didn't have any money on him, or he'd be happy to lend Ryan some.

So Ryan came back by asking why doesn't he just use his watch at the cash machine again and get some.

This made Troy tense slightly, but he tried to put Ryan off. Ryan says that he followed him yesterday, saw what he did with the cash machine, and saw him with the metal structure in a garage.

Troy froze, he went white, and for a second Ryan thought that he was gonna faint. But suddenly, a voice spoke, asking Troy if he was alright, as whatever the voice was detected a sudden rise in temperature and heart rate.

There was no one else in the room with them. As Ryan was looking around, Troy had covered his wrist. More importantly, he had covered his watch.

The voice spoke again, and this time Ryan could clearly hear it muffled. He looked at the hand covering the watch, then looked up to meet Troy's eyes staring straight at him.

When Ryan asked if Troy has a talking watch, Troy laughed. He almost sounded maniacally at one point, before he almost sounded like he was beginning to cry.

The watch beeped now, and for a third time asked Troy if he was ok.

"I'm fine Padil." Troy uncovered the watch. "Deactivate biometric mode."

The watch beeped twice, then the screen went dark. Ryan was just sitting there dumbstruck.

"If I tell you, will you promise to keep it a secret?"

Ryan only nodded. He was still slightly unnerved by the whole thing. Troy unclasped the watch from him arm, and handed it softly to Ryan. It felt warm in Ryan's touch.

"It's called a PADIL," Troy said, "it's short for personal artefact display interface lykenator."

Ryan moved it about in his hands.

"It's not from around here."

This time Ryan laughed. "Yeah I know, you just moved here with it."

When Troy replied, "That's not what I mean.", Ryan felt worried.

"So what do you mean?" Ryan was almost too afraid to ask.

Troy looked into Ryan's eyes, both of them determined not to blink.

"It's not from this time."

Ryan couldn't stand it any longer, he had to blink.

"It's from the future?" he asked.

Troy nodded.

Ryan looked at the device in his hands, before he passed it back over to Troy.

As Troy took it, Ryan asked, "Are you from the future?"

And this time when Troy nodded, Ryan fainted.

The first thing Ryan saw when he opened his eyes was Troy's arm and watch going in circles around his head. No, not his watch. What did he call it, a Padil? He swiped at Troy's arm, forcing him to stop.

He tried to stand, but his body betrayed him, and he fell back in his seat.

"Careful," Troy said softly as he started swirling his arm in front of Ryan's face again. "you just had a momentary loss of consciousness. Padil says you might not be fully recovered for another nought point two hours."

Ryan batted again at Troy's arm.

"I don't believe you."

"Padil doesn't lie. It checked its facts against its medical dictionary…"

Ryan interrupted him.

"I don't mean about that. I mean about you being from the future." This time, when Ryan tried to stand, he did, and successfully moved away from the table. "Whatever you say it is, that thing is clearly just a watch with a computerised voice in it to tell the time. Lots of things have stuff like that."

"Then why did you ask if it was from the future?"

This stumped Ryan. He couldn't come up with an answer.

"If you don't believe me, that's up to you." Troy continued. "You asked me for the truth, and I gave it to you."

Ryan turned back to face Troy.

"If you are from the future, where's your time machine?"

Troy never broke eye contact. "You've already seen it." Ryan looked down to Troy's arm, at the device strapped there. "Not Padil."

Ryan let out the breath he hadn't realised he was holding.

"That thing. At the garage."

Troy nodded. "That weird metal thing as you call it. That's my time machine." He looked at Ryan's confused face. "Would you like to see it?"

Ryan just sat there, frozen. He had two options. One, he could run away from Troy and try never to see or speak to him again, so that his madness didn't rub off onto Ryan. Or two, take Troy up on his offer. If Troy was making it up, he would be found out when the time machine would fail to travel in time.

Either way, it would mean that Ryan would never speak to Troy again anyway.

It took ten minutes to get from the school to the garage by car.

The entire drive there was made in silence. Troy kept glancing at Ryan as he retraced the path he drove yesterday. Troy had given up trying to get Ryan to say something, Ryan just kept his eyes firmly on the road.

Ryan stopped at the top of the side street as he had done yesterday. He was about to switch off the engine as Troy spoke again.

"If you follow the road to the next opening, you can get in that way."

Ryan never responded, just touched the pedal and continued forward.

It was another few minutes until Troy had got the garage door open. Ryan stood several steps behind him, his car keys still in his hand.

The metal machine was the first thing he saw. He froze as Troy put his arm to the front of it, and almost felt faint when it lit up from the inside.

Troy noticed him standing there, stiff.

"You don't have to do this you know." He waited for any response from Ryan. Nothing. "You can get in your car, drive away." Still nothing. "I wouldn't bother you again."

That knocked Ryan out his trance. When he thought about it, he didn't mind being bothered by Troy. Apart from the whole saying he's a time traveller part, he was actually a nice guy.

Ryan slowly stepped forward until he was at Troy's side.

Troy smiled at him slightly. "Don't freak out, okay."

He barely gave Ryan a chance to answer, before he softly took Ryan's right hand by the wrist, and pressed it up against the top panel.

Ryan jerked back instantly. The glass panel was warm, it vibrated slightly, but more than that, it felt alive.

"Are you ok?" Troy sounded deeply concerned.

Ryan reached out on his own accord, his hand hovering close to the panel he just touched.

"Ryan you don't have to."

Flesh touched glass, and Ryan felt the heat of the machine rise through him.

"It feels kinda cool." Ryan said as he took his hand away.

Troy frowned. "It shouldn't be at a low temperature. The time machine has a constant working temperature of forty two degrees." He put his own hand against it. "See, it's still at a warm temperature."

"I don't mean cool as in cold," he said smiling. "I mean it's cool, neat, interesting."

Troy seemed to understand, and smiled back. "So you believe me now?"

Ryan's mouth lost the smile, but he still sounded slightly happy, which was a vast improvement

"Let's just say you're story is getting more believable."

"You wanna see inside?"

The doors opened when Troy told them to, and suddenly the inside of the machine became brighter. Troy bent down slightly as he turned and sat on the single black panel that was carved into the inside of the metal structure.

He patted the silver panel next to him, silently asking Ryan to sit next to him. Ryan looked back with a worried look on his face.

Troy laughed softly. "It's not gonna hurt you."

As Ryan sat down, a green prism rose up from the floor and rested on its stand.

"Did you invent this?" Ryan asked as he was still looking around above him.

Troy suddenly started laughing, and he looked at Ryan and realised he wasn't.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh." He tapped a few places on the prism in front of him. There were no buttons that Ryan could see. But as Troy stopped, a screen appeared in front of them. Not connected to anything in any way, just floating there in front of them.

"It's a holographic projection." Troy said, as a picture of what seemed to be a young coloured man appeared on screen. "This is Chadwell Danforth. He started building this two years ago, and he finished it three months ago." He looked over at Ryan quickly and added, "My time, of course."

"Did you know him?"

Troy went back to the prism in front of him, and pressed in a few more places. A new picture overlay the old one.

"That's me and Chad two months ago." The image showed Troy and the same man with five other people, all celebrating with drinks in their hands. "That's from the first successful time jump."

"How old is he?"

The image disappeared, and the original picture popped back up, this time with statistics at the side. Name, age, height, weight, and other details.

"Same as me." Troy noticed Ryan looking at him with a strange look on his face. "Yeah, I know he's young, but the guy's a genius." Ryan went back to watching the screen. "I worked with him for six months. Can't say I ever imagined actually travelling in time but."

He tapped the prism and the screen faded away.

"You weren't supposed to travel back in time?" Troy shook his head. "So what happened?"

Just as Troy was about to reply, Ryan's mobile phone rang.

"Sorry." He mumbled as he stood away from the seat and brought his mobile out his pocket and answered.

"I gave someone a lift home." Pause. "Well I didn't know that." Another silence. "Tell dad I'll be there soon." This time, the silence went on for almost thirty seconds. "Alright, Shar. I'm on my way now."

He put the mobile away and he looked at Troy.

"Sorry Troy. I have to go." Troy stood up from the machine. "I'm really sorry. Can we talk again tomorrow? There's so much I wanna ask."

Troy smiled. "Sure."

"Can I give you a lift to where you're staying?"

Part of the smile faded from Troy's face. "I'm already here." He twirled around and brought his arms out in a 'this is my place' move. "Can't afford anyone else."

"But what about the money you took from the cash machine?"

Troy shook his head. "I only took enough for food and clothes."

Ryan took a few steps closer to his car. He paused for a moment before opening the driver door.

"You can stay at my place." He said, turning back around. "If you like."

Ryan started to climb into the car.

"Your place?"

Ryan sat on the seat and put the keys in. "Can't have a guest from the future staying in a hell hole like this."

He watched as Troy smiled brightly, and entered the time machine. A few seconds later, he came out with clothes in his hands. He put them in his school bag, and pressed a button on his wrist device, and the doors to the time machine closed as smoothly as they opened.

He locked the garage door, and jumped in Ryan's car.

"Are you sure your parents wont mind?"

The engine revved as they drove off. "Sharpay has friends staying over all the time. Dad's hardly home these days and mom's out most evenings so they don't mind."

"Thanks Ryan."

Ryan looked over at Troy smiling, and he couldn't help but smile in return.

"It couldn't be comfortable sleeping in that place."

"It wasn't that bad. I had a fold-up bed. That was all I really needed."

"But what about washing and showering?" Ryan's face flushed. "Not that I was thinking about you showering that is."

The statement seemed to go over Troy's head. "I would go to school early and use the gymnasium ones."

"At least tonight you'll have a warm bed and some good food. Dad's home so we'll be having a proper meal full of 'nutrition'." Ryan stuck his tongue out in a 'yuck' expression.

Troy smiled a bit. "If your father is coming home perhaps I shouldn't come. I don't want to get in the way of your time with your father."

Ryan shook his head. "Okay, first off, we have to get you speaking like a normal teenager. You might talk like that from whatever time you come from, but here you need to fit in. Second, I'd rather have dinner with you than my dad any day."

Ryan thought for a moment. "That didn't sound right did it?"

Troy just looked confused.

"What I mean is me and dad don't exactly get on much anymore. He's not exactly proud to have a gay son. We've never really spoken much more than a few minutes at a time since he found out."

He glanced over at Troy to judge his reaction. But Troy was looking confused.

"You didn't know I was gay, did you?"

"Why would your father not be proud to have a happy child? Would he rather you be unhappy?"

"Gay doesn't mean happy anymore Troy." He kept one eye on the road, and one eye on Troy. "It means that I like guys." Still reading Troy's confusion, "You know? I don't go out with women, I only go out with men."

Troy didn't say anything. Ryan looked at him again. "Does that bother you?"

Troy shook his head. "In my time, people are allowed to see whoever they wish. We call it omnisexual." Ryan pulled the car into the driveway. "If we like someone, it doesn't matter if they are male, female or alien."

Ryan pulled the car to a stop and stared at Troy. "Do you really have aliens in the future?"

Troy just laughed as he got out the car.