April 17, 2008

As the ringing of the alarm clock ceased from the opposite side of the bed, Gabriella Montez-Bolton felt the bed shift underneath her. Their usual routine, of course, had started again: Troy would wake up to his alarm at 6 in the morning, whilst waking up Gabriella in the process, then he would shower, get dressed, and come back into their bedroom to kiss Gabriella on the forehead before he would leave again to head off to work until 5 o'clock that afternoon. However, this morning was different.

Troy woke up to his alarm, showered and dressed, but when he came back into the bedroom Gabriella was surprised to see Troy get down onto his knees right next to where she was sleeping on the bed and gently start to stroke her hair. "Gabriella," Troy spoke softly, "If you don't want me to go to work today I won't. I'll stay here with you."

Gabriella twisted her body around so that she was now facing Troy gazing into his cerulean blue eyes. Troy could clearly see the difference between her normal appearance and the state she was in now. Her normally chocolate brown eyes were now red and swollen having the shade of a dull brown color, and there were tear tracks all down her face.

"No, Troy, you have to go. This is the millionth time that this has happened. I'll be fine," Gabriella replied shakily.

Although seeing Gabriella in this much pain and hearing the quiver in her voice pained Troy, he knew she was right and he had leave her alone to go to work for the day. "Ok Brie, I'll go, but promise you'll call me if you need me and I'll be back in a heartbeat" Troy said while kissing her forehead once again.

As Troy slowly backed out of the room, all he could think of was how much pain Gabriella had been in over the past few months. Since they were married a year and a half ago, Troy and Gabriella had been trying for a baby, but around six months ago, the couple had found out that it was close to impossible for Gabriella to conceive a child so they had started giving Gabriella treatments to help her fulfill the wish that herself and Troy had been trying so hard for. However, six months had gone by since Gabriella had started the treatments and they still had no luck.

Troy could see how drained Gabriella was becoming from going into their bathroom every month and getting her hopes up to see the pregnancy test show a positive sign. Every month Gabriella would come slowly out of the bathroom with the test in her hand, and fall into Troy's arms with sobs racking her body. Every month Gabriella would cry that she wasn't a good enough wife because she couldn't give Troy what she knew they both wanted so badly. And every month Troy would hold Gabriella, stroking her hair and whispering in her ear trying to calm her until he could make her tears subside and convince her that they would try again in the month to come. However, last night Gabriella had been drastically different than she had ever been before. She was inconsolable.

As Gabriella came out of the bathroom, she collapsed into Troy's arms with sobs once again racking her body, but after two long hours had gone by, it seemed that Gabriella's cries were only getting increasing louder instead of subsiding. Troy had been forced to lie in bed with her in his arms, trying his hardest to get her to sleep. Troy thought it was around 4 in the morning when Gabriella had finally drifted off to sleep, still in tears. During the course of the night when Gabriella seemed to be finally drifting off to sleep, Troy couldn't help to think if they would soon have to give up on the treatments and resort to another method that both Troy and Gabriella hadn't yet discussed and weren't sure if they could handle. He just couldn't take seeing Gabriella go through this much emotional pain any longer.

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It was now around 4:30 in the afternoon, and all day Gabriella had been trying to busy herself with housework or returning phone calls so that she wouldn't have to face the internal battle that was going on inside of her head. She knew that as soon as Troy got home he would want to discuss what had happened last night, and she wasn't sure if she could handle that right now. All her life she had dreamt of growing up and having the perfect family. So far she basically had everything that she had dreamt of: the perfect guy, a big house in the suburbs, and all of her childhood friends living right down the road, but she was still missing one thing, a child.

As Gabriella leaned against the smooth granite counter of her kitchen cabinets staring out the window, she heard a door quietly open and close. Before Gabriella could turn around, she felt two strong arms encircle her waist and a head resting on her shoulder. She turned her head to the side and received a kiss on the cheek.

"You okay? You seemed really entranced with something out the window" Troy said while detaching himself from Gabriella and gulping down a drink of water that he retrieved from the fridge.

"Yea I'm fine, just thinking about something" Gabriella sighed while she started walking towards the table situated in the center of their stainless steel kitchen.

"Would it by any chance have anything to do with what happen last night?" Troy asked as he went to join Gabriella at the table. Although Gabriella had told him just seconds ago that she was fine, they both knew that she really was not, and Troy could see through this façade that Gabriella was putting up just by the look on her face.

"Maybe, I just…. I don't want to talk about it right now Troy" Gabriella said while fiddling with her hands that were delicately intertwined in her lap.

"Brie, you know we need to talk about this. I can't deal with seeing you like this every month. We made a deal that we would only keep doing these treatments if we both thought that you could handle them. I'm sorry Brie, I know this is hard for you, but we're going to have to look into adoption" Troy exclaimed with his heart breaking as he saw tears start leaking out of Gabriella's eyes as he said they had to stop the treatments.

"I know we have to" Gabriella said through her tears, "It's just so hard to accept the fact that I can't be the one that will give this to you." At this comment, Troy's head snapped up and he immediately grabbed one of Gabriella's hands, gently stroking his thumb across her smooth olive skin.

"Brie, you know I'll love our child just as much as if we actually had her. Nothing's going to change that. They'll still be ours even if we haven't had them since they were first born" Troy gently said to Gabriella, whilst looking into her eyes.

"But how will we know which one to adopt! There are so many kids out there that want to be a part of a family so bad! How are we ever going to know which one is right for us?" Gabriella exclaimed while reaching across the table to grab a tissue to blow her nose into from all of the crying. Troy wiped Gabriella's tears away with the pad of his thumb.

"We'll just know Gabs, we'll just know"

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