Author's Note: Please Read first!
So this is somewhat of a surprise. I am starting this new story now that ITEOAV is over! I got this idea a while ago and have been toying with it a lot. So I decided to turn it into a story. I am using 'Zac' and 'Vanessa' as my main characters, but they are not famous. Just picture them as normal young-adults in California and they are not named Zac and Vanessa. I still wanna continue writing with them as characters but I want to name them what I picture in my mind for the story and in this one, troy/Gabriella and Zac/Vanessa just don't fit. I am using their backgrounds (where they are from/live and some family members) so I knew that Troy and Gabriella and that whole HSM thing would not work and to be honest I have outgrown that. But I will never outgrow Zac and Vanessa as a couple and stuff! So I will also be including characters like Ashley and other celeb friends of theirs, but again, no one is famous in this story (just clearing up some possible confusion). This is in Zac's POV! I really hope you enjoy this, cannot say how long it is gonna be! Not as long as ITEOAV but not as short as a 3 shot or anything. So here it is!
Vanessa/Gabriella's name: Scarlet
Zac/Troy's name: Any suggestions!
My eyes flicker open abruptly, to the usual sound of an EKG machine beeping rhythmically and a hum coming from the humidifier in the corner of this small hospital room. The sky outside is pitch black, there is no moon tonight and I figure it must be sometime after midnight. I never sleep through the night anymore.
I sit up in the small, uncomfortable chair that's been placed beside the gurney bed in the center of the room, I stretch my arms and get sore and achy feelings as a reply. My posture must be comparable to some type of hunchback animal by now, with the way I sleep in these chairs. I grip the tiny four-year old's hand on the bed next to my chair and let out a long breath. She's still asleep, that's good.
I can just make out her serene expression of sleep in the darkness. Her tiny lips pursed in content and her long lashes creating shadows down her cheeks. So very fragile in this state. she looks so small in the light blue hospital gown. I get that nagging feeling, where my throat closes up and my eyes sting and I have to grip something really hard to constrain myself. So I grab onto the arm of my chair and squeeze. My teeth gritting. This feeling comes to me in bouts.
My daughter's fate is one of the most unfair things in this world, I refuse to think of it as an actual fate, but I know it is.
Camry was born premature; she almost died a few hours after her birth from clogged airways. She was incredibly sick and was refusing proper standard treatments. For a while it was like that, we knew she was sick from being born so early but we didn't know what was happening to her. Just before she reached a year old we were given the diagnosis.
I remember that day, my wife, or ex-wife I guess, Scarlet and I brought Cam into the hospital a week after she'd been through a series of clinical testing. We were scared, our first child and our already deteriorating marriage were about to be put under major stress.
We sat in a boardroom type area, seated at a large conference table. Camry was with the nurses in a few rooms down the hall. The pediatric ward was huge. I gripped Scar's hand tightly and she stared blankly ahead. Her method of coping is to shut out everyone, everything, and any feeling that might remind her she is human. I hate it when she does this, I remember squeezing her hand tightly and saying something reassuring but I can't exactly remember what I said.
Just then, the doctors walked in, an aging man in dark navy scrubs and a mid-thirties woman, both peds surgeons, and very highly recognized in the medical world. I swear I can feel Scar's heart rate spike just by holding her hand, but then I realize it's mine. I take a deep breath and try not to imagine the tiny whimpering infant just a few doors down with needles and IVs poking into her perfect skin.
The doctors take their seats and start rattling off Cam's medical history and a bunch of things I don't think neither Scar nor I really comprehend. I'm about to let out the pent up air I've been holding in when the female doctor pushes a large manila file towards us with a look of desolation. My heart stops when I read the word written on it.
They start to go into the depths of what is happening to Cam and what's wrong but my thoughts never leave the single word that is written across that folder, or the word they uttered to us quickly with pitied looks.
Leukemia. Stage 4.
The rest of that day is a blur; Scar didn't talk for days after that. We spent every hour inside this hospital just like we do now.
It didn't always used to be this way. We used to be normal. Just a family trying to live each day to the next and make ends meet. Our lives are now filled with doctors, hospitals, X-Ray sheets, oxygen masks, appointments, scans, building hope that is crushed by the results of a metal scanner over the small body of my four year old daughter. Not normal at all.
Scar and I met in college, very young and naive. I fell in love with her before I'd had the chance to tell her my name, before she'd breathed hers in that gorgeous breezy voice of her's: Scarlet. Scarlet Blair. She was like taking a step into another world, someone I found myself lost in. I was, as my father would say, a goner.
I used to scoff at my family for saying we went "too fast". I never thought such a thing existed, when you knew you knew right? I was sure I did know. That I would always know, it was her—she was the one and always would be. But I found that I didn't have all the answers, that sometimes things happen that are irreparable, and maybe I really did not know.
It ended in disaster, eventually. We were tried just a little too much; we weren't ready for what life dealt into our hand of cards. By the time Camry was 2 years old we were unable to hold up the ceiling of our ever collapsing and battered marriage. Beaten by that certain turn of events we received that day in the hospital, with her eyes fixed off into space, a cold hand gripping mine that only grew colder.
I never wavered though. Even though I grew sick of the way she shut me out and pushed me away when I knew she needed me most, I couldn't ever erase my feelings. I couldn't ever get that picture of her out of my head that day I met her: She was late to class, but she wasn't in a whirling rush like most students, she strolled past me, her long dark hair brushing my cheek accidentally as she turned and locked eyes with me, then turned and continued on. It all happened as if in slow motion. The next day I searched for her on the campus, and then worked up the courage to talk to her. I was already gone by then. She was all I saw. That won't change.
I'm snapped out of my reverie as I hear a small intake of breath behind me, Scar. I turn toward her; she is stands in the doorway of Cam's room with her arms crossed, fully dressed. It must be about 3:30 in the morning now, I think. That's when she said she'd be here. I stand and push the chair away quietly and walk closer to her.
"Hey." I whisper with a small smile. She nods and walks into the dark room, leaning over the gurney slightly. She runs her fingers across Camry's face gently. Cam's hair is pulled back into a messy, wispy bun, making her features come alive. Her high cheekbones and thick lashes that make me think so much of Scarlet. I reach over and turn on the tiny bedside lamp so the room is a tad more visible in the night. Scar smiles weakly at me and sits in the chair I placed near the bed; she drops her bag down and takes her coat off. It's her shift now.
This, this is also normalcy in our lives. The 3am arrivals and switch-offs. Scar and I are on a completely different schedule than anyone I know, we stay here with Cam as much as we can when she needs to be admitted for a while. She's here for a couple days this week because of a surgery she recently had. Scar wouldn't leave this very room if I hadn't convinced her she needed a good night's sleep and that Camry would be fine with me for a while.
We do this a lot though, the single shifts. Sometimes I stay with them both but it's not as easy as it used to be. I can barely bear to be around Scar when she acts this way, her cold shoulder way of coping with all this. I lean down and kiss Cam on her little forehead and grip Scar's shoulder tightly. She doesn't move but looks up at me with a goodbye. I grab my coat and make my way out of the room for the night, the last thing I see is Scar laying her head on the bed, a few tears dusted on her cheeks.
The nagging feeling comes back and I ball my hands into tight fists.
I lay back on the large buttery leather recliner chair. The sun is streaking across the hardwood floors just slightly now, as I sip a big cup of black coffee. My mind is racing with worrisome thoughts, as it always done after a major surgery. Cam pulls through anything, I know that but I can't feel myself eased by that. My eyes glance quickly to my iPhone, sitting atop the small table next to my Mac Book Air to my left: No messages.
I groan and close my eyes, hoping Scar is okay. For a sort of divorced couple—we haven't legalized it quite yet—Scar and I talk a lot. A great deal is due to the fact that our four year old daughter is dying, but I think it's something more too. Just that connection we could probably never really sever. Our relationship can be really icy at times, cold and hard to predict, but at others it's easy and effortlessly good. Something I know other people don't understand. That's just Scar though, you're drawn to her. I don't know what will come of us. The funny thing is, if you can say that, we haven't even talked about divorce or papers or anything like that. We just knew when it got too hard to work out and decided it wasn't going to heal itself. There was so much pressure. We never planned anything remotely like this would ever happen to us.
I open my eyes sleepily. And glance at an old family photo, I had to be about seven in it. It's a portrait of my family. My mom, my two brothers and I stand tall smiling, and my father on the other side of us, cupping my shoulder with his regal smile.
My father used to own one of the largest movie production companies in L.A., Lakeshore Productions. His company has produced millions of films and documentaries, all widely-known. When he retired he passed most of it on to me, and the rest to my brothers. Leaving me quite wealthy, I took care of the business routinely, making most of the executive decisions and running the company like my father did. But I don't work full time, I'm lucky enough to be able to run it from home a lot of the time. This helps with many things, mainly the extensive medical bills we receive almost weekly. Trials and treatments of uninsured content. It's nice not to worry about that. It may very well be the one thing I can relax about. Not that it matters. I would sell my soul if that would ensure Camry's health and recovery.
Penn and Noah, my two brothers, take care of the rest. Penn basically lives inside the Lakeshore building. It's in his blood. He breathes, eats, and sleeps that company. The movie business comes naturally to him, all the cut-throat decisions and corporate board meetings it takes to make Lakeshore succeed is best-kept in his hands. Penn's the eldest, his position was decided naturally, he would take over when dad retired. I join him, too. Not with everything because my family situation, but with what I can do at the moment. I love that company and its reputation for producing box office hits is vital, the three of us would do anything to keep our dad's dream alive.
And I can't say being an heir to a multi-billion dollar company doesn't have its perks.
Our house, or shall I say my house, is gorgeous. I found it right before the market crashed, and had to have it. It lies directly on the beach of Santa Barbara. A large, tastefully modern abode, its floor to ceiling windows bring in just the right light around noon and are eerily beautiful in the dark hours. Cam's room is upstairs, to the left. A room painted a light pink, with flowers and butterflies artistically painted along its borders, toys and story books scatter the floor and a large glass door leads out to a breathtaking view on the balcony. I read her those scattered story books on the nights she is with me, tuck her into her princess themed bed, and open the sliding glass door so she can hear the ocean.
She told me once that it talks to her at night. She said she tells it when she is scared about her next surgery. I got that nagging feeling again and kissed her head.
Thinking of this, of course, makes the feeling real and I grip my coffee cup tighter and stand up. I walk to the huge glass doors on the porch, gazing out into the beautiful ocean vista. My body leans against the door frame and I sip the coffee slowly. I try to exhale and inhale in a steady pace. I'm getting anxious though, always anxious.
My mind flickers back to what's going on at the hospital. I immediately grab my keys and phone, heading out the garage, and jump into my Audi. I'm never able to stay away for long.
What do you guys think? Hope your okay with me renaming the characters but I couldn't really work with Troy and Gabriella and all that, I just like them as workable characters. Please tell me what you think! Hoping to get a trailer up soon on YouTube from a VERY talented editor! I will let you know more soon! Xoxo