Dream Of Me
She shows up in East High on a Wednesday, the sun is high and hot and his skin turns red in the brightness.
Gabby's hand sweats into his and he leans back as far as he can on the bench and stares into sky till all he can see is red.
And when his eyes adjust there she is, her face shining and sure, her hands tucking a wayward piece of hair behind her ear. And he grins at her like they've been friends forever. She lifts her fingers in a wave and glides along.
And when he sleeps that night, his body hot and sticky sweat on clean sheets, he sees her red and wild and feels free.
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There's a dream, one in red and blue and spots in lights, she's standing over him, her face lost in the glow. He doesn't know her, but he needs her.
Her fingers slide into his and he can feel her heartbeat echoing his.
"It's okay." She says. And he believes her.
Believes her more than the glare and the burn and the way the world is spinning even though he is as still as he can be.
He kisses her. His lips cool and hers burning. She tastes like salt and and water and bitter dying flowers.
He loves her more than anything.
But she's always gone before he can tell her.
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He sees her around the school, floating like a ghost in and out of hallways. He grins as she comes out of Mr. Monroe's class, her hair in a flip and a careless smile on her face.
He askes about her but no one seems to know.
"What are you talking about?"
"The girl. The new one, with the smile."
Chad looks at him with his eyebrow quirked. "There's no new girl. Just the same old ones. Speaking of, aren't you still dating Gabby?" He says her name like a lemon.
"Yes, I'm still with Gabby. But that doesn't mean I can't be nice to the new kids. And she's here, I saw her that day, remember it was so hot they actually canceled practice."
"We were the only ones here." Chad passes him the ball and shakes his head. "Maybe you're seeing things."
He thinks of her far away smile and her lost eyes.
Of her kiss in dreams.
Maybe, he thinks, it's all in my head.
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There's brightness in his eyes and he can hear the beat of something lost and far away, her arms are around his waist and he can't think of anything but kissing her.
"Don't worry. Please. Everything's okay." She's a whisper on his lips and the warmth under his fingers.
"I can't find you." She grins up at him.
"Look harder."
She kisses the tip of his nose and spins in his arms.
He can see men in the distance and a strangeness in their eyes.
"Wait! I don't know you. Who are you?"
She fades in his hands and when he wakes up.
He's shaking in his sheets.
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He follows her on the third week, into an empty classroom.
"Where are you?"
She laughs and he turns and she's there and gone.
"Link?"
He shakes his head but she grins and reaches out to him. "I'm not him."
She nods and touches her lips, all shadows and emptiness, on his.
"Of course you are. Come back home."
He stumbles backward and hits the ground.
She startles backward. "I'm not him."
She runs.
He sits and trembles and touches the place on his lips that burns with her touch.
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He sleeps still and rough, his body stuck in tangled sheets and he forgets to breath.
She's there again, her mouth pressed to his. And he doesn't want to let her go.
"Don't leave me."
He shakes his head and tells her never.
"But you have to."
When he trails his hands over her wet cheeks he can see another him reflected in her eyes.
"I have to." He says.
She nods and cries and he doesn't let her go.
"Come back to me?"
He laughs. "Where else would I go?"
He kisses her, the green backdrop around them and he wishes it could never end.
But when he wakes, she gone and the moon is high and bare and cold.
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In the morning he wanders the halls, peering into classrooms and pressing close to the walls.
"Troy?"
He sees Sharpay standing behind him, her hands clasped hard and her eyes downcast. She looks strange and out of place.
"Hmmm."
"Are you okay?"
"What?"
She closes the gap between them, he can smell her expensive perfeme and her feel the whisps of her hair on his arm, it makes his head spin crazily.
"Something's wrong."
"Yes."
"Can you tell me?"
He shakes his head, thinks about the lines in the mirror and the starched suit in his dream. About a song and dance and something far away. He thinks of a kiss in a dream and the burn it left behind.
"I think I'm going insane."
She grabs his hand and takes him to a classroom.
"Why?"
He laughs till tears are streaming from his eyes and he's nearly throwing up.
"Troy?"
"Why does anyone go mad?"
She stays with him the rest of the afternoon, as the sun dies behind a hill and far off land.
When she leaves, her hand still pressed hard in his, she tells him that she won't tell anyone.
When she's gone, the other girl appears, wandering in through a door and she's got a bright smile and fearless eyes.
"Link?"
He nods and goes to her. "Yes?"
"I missed you."
"I miss you too."
She presses her lips to his and it's bare and gone. He cries as she grins.
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He dreams about some place green. About heat that boils him and takes him and he's so afraid but he can't see through the sheen and the darkness and the tall surrounding forest.
He can hear the screams and the dying and the bones burning to dust.
'Link." It's a scream and a fire and the stench of dead boys.
There's another boy there to, dark skinned and eyes that look old.
"Don't die Crackerboy. Trace would never forgive me if I didn't bring you home."
"Trace?" He sees her face then. Hair down and spinning black and white.
But the world is burning and he remembers, like a poem, words about cities that burn and die and live on forever. He grins and can taste the red and iron.
"Everything's okay."
"LINK!" It's red on black and darkness in the fire.
He laughs and fades.
And when he wakes he doesn't move at all.
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She comes to him in the gym, her hair falling in her eyes and she looks so sad and lost.
"Why didn't you write?"
"I don't know."
She leans like a breeze on his skin.
"Do you not love me?"
"I'll always love you." The taste of her on his lips, rancid fruit and dying boys.
"Did you forget about me?"
"How could I ever forget you?" She pushes her hand on to his face and it's cold in his bones. But he doesn't move away.
"I'm going to look for you. I'm going to find you."
"No. Don't come. I couldn't stand it if you got hurt."
"What's it like?"
"Like..." He sees that other world, death and heat and fire so bright his eyes water. The screams and the thin song of never going home and never waking up.
She kisses him instead. "Don't be afraid Link. I'll make sure you and Seaweed and Brad and all of you are okay."
She fades in his hands and Gabby is standing behind him.
"What's going on with you!?"
"Hmmm."
She spins him around. And backs away quickly. "Are you on something?"
"Of course not!"
"You're distant and strange. You wander around this school like you're crazy. Something is wrong with you."
"I'm seeing a ghost."
She slaps him. "If you don't want to tell me the truth, fine. But don't insult my intellegence. Don't lie to me!"
He walks past her. Another face in his eyes. "The truth is I don't love you and I don't want to be with you."
She gasps. "This is about Sharpay."
"No. I don't think of Sharpay that way."
"Then that girl that you were telling Chad about?"
He looks back at her.
"He told-"
"Of course from my friend to yours."
"She was just looking out for me."
"That girls isn't real."
"So you're just becoming a jerk because..."
"I've always been that way."
He doesn't look back at her as he walks away.
He finds himself in the library. Hunched over books and staring into a computer screen.
'Tracy and Link. Seaweed."
The search yields 123,548,123 results and he sobs on his arm.
"Troy?"
"What."
"I thought you might need a friend."
When he looks up her blonde hair is tied back and her eyes are brown instead of blue.
"What's wrong with you?"
She looks away. "I don't know. I can't remember. But I just know I have to help you."
He nods and scoots over for her.
The read and look and they both gasp at the picture of Lincoln Abraham Larkin.
When she turns to him, she cups his face. "You're alive."
He shakes.
He falls.
He dies and is reborn.
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There's a song and a beat and his arms are full of something amazing.
He grins and she laughs and he's kissing her like the world is never going to end. It's all slow ease and a smile.
"I love you."
"So soon."
"I knew it the day you looked at me and told me it was the right thing."
She tucks her head under his chin and everything is right.
But she trembles and when he looks at her, her eyes are shaking with tears and he's holding her close. He can see the fatuigues reflecting in her eyes.
"It's only for a little while."
"What will I do if you die?"
He kisses her hard, so she'll never forget the taste of this.
And then he's gone and she's searching for him. Her face slipping and the world dying and her green nurse uniform tattered and torn and the then there's fire and burning.
When he wakes he's as old as sin.
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He stands in a classroom every night waiting for her. She comes to him on the seventh night.
"Tracy?"
She grins.
"Link."
He wishes he could feel her arms in his. Instead it's air and wind.
"I've been looking for you forever."
"I know, Doll."
"I've missed you."
"I missed you too."
She smiles blindingly up at him.
"So it's okay now."
He nods. "It's good now. But you've got to go."
She shakes her head. "What about you?"
"I've got to stay here."
She looks at him lost. "But..."
"It's me and you, Trace-Girl. We'll always find each other. Always. I'll wait."
She nods and kisses him and it feels warm on his cheek and smells of forgotten days.
She gone and he's free.
But he's still grounded.
Unable to fly or come alive.
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And when he dreams, it's a silly thing with no more ghosts or memories and no kisses from girls he can't forget.
And when he wakes he can barely recall the last four months.
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He goes to college in the fall.
Somewhere far away, with green trees and long miles of grass fading into seas.
He grins and let's go and goes blindly on.
Someone bumps his shoulder and nearly tumbles.
"Sorry!" She blushes and helps him pick up his books. "I'm such a dork sometimes."
"It's okay." He grins and it falls for a minute when he sees her wide brown eyes.
"Troy Bolton."
"Ed James." She puts out her hand and it's warm in his. And he can almost recall a lost dream.
Ed?"
"My first name is Edna. My Mom calls me Ed." She grins at him again. And he fights the urge to kiss her.
She doesn't.
Her lips are like a distant breeze and he smiles against it.
He can see the sorry on her lips but kisses it away.
"I think Ed, that this, is exactly how it's mean to be."
She laughs and he grins and the world spins on.