A/N: Darn it. It just wouldn't go away. Here's a sort-of part two. And oh, for the sake of story, lets just say that Jason corrected Chad on Kelsi's name after they did the high-five thing in the movie, kay? Yep, enjoy! – nadz
Not mine.
The hallways of East High were empty and silent, all the students having vanished to Chad Danforth's house for the after-party. Even the janitors had left, Mr Matsui having given them the night off to celebrate the championship too. Everybody was in a good mood, off partying or celebrating somewhere and no one expected there to be anybody else left in the school.
Especially not Kelsi Nielson who was last seen leaving the gym hand-in-hand with Jason Cross.
But there she was, standing alone in the middle of the now-empty room, holding a basketball that she had found laying on the floor, half hidden amongst the red and white balloons all around her. She looked around, noting how dark and silent it was, before sighing and setting herself for a free throw, trying to see if she could get it to go in again like earlier.
The ball rose through the air and dropped like a bomb nowhere near the hoop.
"Nope. I still suck," she whispered to herself, sitting down in the floor.
After they had all left the gym, Jason had left with the other basketball players to shower and change before hitting the party, but he had done so after making her promise that she would wait for him. Kelsi blushed as she remembered how earnest he was, how cute his brown eyes looked making her promise.
She had been with the other girls at first, standing slightly apart from them and making only small talk with Gabriella and Taylor. Sharpay had been there too, but she still looked too scary for Kelsi to dare approach her. One by one all the boys had appeared and the girls went with them, eventually leaving her alone outside.
Kelsi figured that she was better off waiting inside the school than standing alone outside at night, vulnerable to any random attack. Which would explain why she was now in the gym attempting free throws that she knew she would never get in, and waiting for a boy that she never thought she would even be talking to, let alone going to the party with.
Sure she knew Jaosn Cross, who didn't? Starting forward on the Wildcats' team, cute in a non-obvious not-like-Troy kind of way, nice in a slightly dorky way that suited her just fine and absolutely not that type of boy for her.
"Oh, who are you kidding, Kels? You like him," she muttered, picking up a white balloon and poking it with her nail.
But who didn't?
He was one of the four, meaning that a quarter of the girls in school had a crush on him, the other three-quarters already currently engaged with Troy Bolton, Chad Danforth and Zeke Baylor. She had always prided herself on not being part of the quarter of giggling idiot girls, but here she was waiting for him, willing to go to a party that she would never have otherwise even considered going, making silly promises, making successful free throws that would usually have just swished through the air, smiling, giggling, blushing and having conversations with herself.
"Disgusting."
But he was nice to her, he always had been. While Chad had always insisted on calling her 'small person', Jason would be the one to call her Kelsi, surprising her that one time he had said it as she realized that he knew her name. She would see him sometimes on his way from practice as he passed her house, head bopping to some music or other. Sometimes, she would catch him looking over, and then he would smile and wave to her.
They didn't share a class and hardly had a mutual friend, unless Sharpay or Ryan counted as a sort-of mutual classmate. But still, she would catch him looking at her during lunch sometimes, staring at her with a frown on his face when she fiddled with her hat, pulling it even lower across her face, hiding her blushing cheeks.
But he never smiled or waved at her in school though. And after that one time, he never spoke to her again. She wished that he did, she'd hoped that he would too many times to count.
Slowly, Jason Cross had wormed his way into Kelsi Nielson's heart, growing on her bit by bit with all his odd quirks and nice smile, till she couldn't help but admit, as she sat on the cold floor that one January night, that she liked him.
In that way.