It was their senior year of high school that Ryan started declining.

At first it was little, unnoticeable things. He started showing up late for class. He stopped wearing his little matchy-matchy hats, straw colored hair pushed hastily out of his face. His shirts were often wrinkled, untucked and drab. The more drastic changes came later. He ignored the school plays, and stopped showing up to drama class altogether. Conversations with Sharpay were short and terse, as if he had little patience for her anymore. His already pale skin started to look sunken and shadowed, and he had taken to chewing his nails until they bled.

Sharpay sat with Troy, Gabriella and Chad at lunch, chewing her lip anxiously. "I just wish he would talk to me," she choked. Despite appearances she was devoted to her twin, and his new downturn had started to show on her as well. "When I ask him what's wrong he snaps at me, and he doesn't even say good morning or goodnight or anything anymore."

Troy sighed deeply. Very much the team captain, he worried whenever one of his friends was troubled. "Do you think it's girl trouble? Or…boy trouble?" he asked slowly.

Sharpay shook her head. "He would talk to me about stuff like that." She sighed deeply. "Whatever I say right now does NOT leave this table, promise?" Three heads nodded in unison. "Ryan's already come out to mother and daddy and I. He's comfortable with it, he just isn't ready to tell the school."

"What on earth could it be then?" Gaby frowned. "He's not doing poorly in classes, you say everything at home is fine, it's not over a boy…"

"Maybe it's just nothing?" Chad offered, flicking a curl out of his face. "I mean, that happens. People just get depressed, for no apparent reason."

"But what do we do about it?" Gaby asked softly. "Tell someone?"

"No," Sharpay said quickly. "When I talked to my parents about it, it just made Ry angrier when he found out. I don't want to do anything to push him over the edge."

"So what, then?" Troy asked tentatively. "We wait?"

"I guess we wait," Sharpay agreed, sinking into her seat and hugging her sweater (one of Ryan's, actually) to her chest.

Ryan chose that moment to walk past, not so much as glancing at his friends.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Sharpay stood in the doorway of Ryan's bedroom, tears in her eyes. "Please Ryan, talk to me!" she begged. "Please? Whatever's wrong, I can help you, I KNOW I can…"

Ryan turned, eyes fierce. "Oh yeah, Shar? You think you can just wave your pretty little hand and make all of life's problems go away? Maybe we can sing a song, or go shopping. Gee, then I'd feel great." He ignored the stricken look on his sister's face, slamming the door shut.

There was no 'problem.' He wasn't failing any classes; he hadn't been rejected by a cute boy. But in the past months Ryan Evans had begun to see the world at face value. The injustices, the prejudices, the evil. Half of the time he could barely drag himself out of bed, knowing that the coming day would be just like each one past. It was all the same, and it all sucked pretty hard.

So Ryan started to think. Ryan started to think dark, sad thoughts, about how it would all be so much better if he weren't a part of it anymore. How life would go back to normal and Sharpay would move on, and his parents wouldn't have to deal with his sadness, and negativity, and depression. He'd never have to see the sympathetic, pathetic faces anymore; Troy, Gabriella, Taylor, and all the rest who thought they had him so figured out.

Hands shaking, mind buzzing, Ryan sat on the edge of the bed. He had never thought this far into it before, but now that he had he couldn't stop. His mom had a bottle of Valium in the medicine cabinet, a decent amount of pills left. He could swallow them, his body floating as he fell asleep for good. He could turn the car on, sit in the garage and slowly slip away, to where he never had to worry about it anymore. He thought about slitting his wrists, but he hated the idea of spending eternity with such hideous gashes on his arms.

Ryan lay back on his bed, breath coming in shallow pants. He was nervous, but it all seemed to make so much more sense then living did.