DISCLAIMER: I own nothing, unfortunately. Not yet anyway ;) anyway, on with the story...
The room was spinning and an 18 year old Gabriella Montez found herself unable to focus on any solid object; There was no lamp on the night stand, no bed, no window, just a hazy mess of confused of colours which were so bright she was almost blinded. A strong yet indescribable scent resided in her nostrils and a sudden heat wave hit her despite the fact that it was a freezing New Mexico winter night. Beads of sweat were now gathered all over her petite body and a lazy smile grew on her face as she stumbled through the room, lit only by the moon, before the heaviness of her eyelids finally forced them to snap shut.
The sound of her mother busy in the kitchen awoke her from her lifeless position, sprawled out on the floor as she screwed up her eyes to block out the intense December sun, currently arching over the trees in the distance. Her back ached from they way she had been laying and she found herself having to grab hold of the dressing table to steady her legs as she picked herself up.
"Fuck!" she mumbled along with other obscenities as her ankle bent over under the pressure of her weight and she doubled over, clutching her foot tightly in emphatic fashion.
Wincing in pain she removed the sole heel from her blistered foot and kicked it towards where its partner lay, abandoned hours ago at the base of her bed.
A sudden nauseous feeling over came her as she stumbled towards the bathroom and emptied up the contents of the previous day over the toilet. Taking a minute to make sure there was nothing else left she pushed of the floor and stood up, unaware that it was now mid-afternoon and forgetting that she had promised her company to her best friend, Sharpay who would probably suggest spending the rest of the day at the shopping mall.
Wiping her mouth Gabriella walked back towards her room and stopped to check out her appearance in the mirror which adorned her cream bedroom wall.
Her raven hair, once her crowning glory, cascaded down her back but resembled something similar to a birds nest. She groaned at her reflection as she ran her frail hands over it in a vain attempt to tame the strands which were sticking out in all directions. Her eye makeup was so badly smudged she could have been mistaken for someone who had just escaped a deathly fight and her cheekbones were sunken into her face. The skin which was once a healthy, exotic olive tone had of late been a dull shade of grey and her previously curvaceous figure had been replaced with a gravely thin frame which accentuated the fact that her bones jutted out at all angles.
She stood back and sighed as she peeled the now severely creased black dress, marked with the evidence of a rough night, over her head and threw it meekly so that it landed with a soft thud beside her. She closed her eyes trying to remember last nights high and smiled as that similar feeling came flooding back. The feeling however was short lived. As time passed the highs became less significant and the lows all the more prominent and she found herself craving her vice more and more just to gain a sense of the same pleasure. She continued to search for fulfilment that she so desperately sought after, unaware, or perhaps unwilling to accept that all her efforts were in vain.
On hearing her brain thinking in such a way that smile quickly contorted as she pursed her lips tightly in an effort not to think at all.
It wasn't always that way. It used to be a recreational pass time, her escape, the only place she felt safe but now it was so much more than that. She had come to depend on each fix like the very air she needed to breathe.
She had told her self in the past it couldn't be, that she was still in control, but lately she had come to accept it. It was her addiction.
Still in a semi-trance Gabriella shuffled around her room collecting a clean white shirt and a pair of navy denim jeans along with her underwear and her shampoo. Making her way into the bathroom for the second time she turned on the shower until the freezing water ran warm and then stepped under, silently allowing her conscience to pray that the soothing water would cleanse her soul as well as her body.
Distinctly cleaner and feeling slightly better Gabriella emerged from the shower among a cloud of billowing steam, shielding her naked body from the sharp temperature change as her feet padded against the cold bathroom tiles. She hummed quietly to herself as she dried her hair in the bathroom mirror, changed and brushed her teeth and made her way downstairs, not before paying her bedroom one last visit to collect her purse and her black winter coat.
"Gabby, where…" came her mothers voice, muffled by the distance between herself and the kitchen.
She didn't give her brain the chance to process her mothers words, she couldn't witness that pain again without the overwhelming guilt that came with the knowledge that she was the reason for her mothers tearstained face and quivering voice. So she blocked it out.
Truthfully, Gabriella couldn't recall a day where her mother hadn't cried, even before she was the cause. That thought never left her, but she, herself had no tears left to cry. She had become empty long ago, both a necessity of her lifestyle and at the same time, a consequence of it. It was the reason she was still alive on the outside, even if that meant that she was dead internally and in turn, it had become so that she no longer chose not to feel but had lost the humanity to do so.
The door slammed shut behind her as she exited from the confinement of the four whitewashed walls that were called home, but it was plain to see that she had no sense of the word whatsoever. Making her way down the garden path she spotted an anxious looking Sharpay Evans fiddling with her nails, painted a soft shade of pink, as she sat in the cream leather drivers seat of her freshly washed black convertible.
The top was down which allowed the frosty sun beams to bounce of her honey blonde hair adding extra shine and as she turned towards Gabriella she scrunched up her expressive brown eyes to prevent the rays form blinding her. Worry etched across her face, she took one look at the sickly looking, yet somehow still enigmatically beautiful girl walking towards her and she knew that, far from her promise only one week earlier, Gabriella was yet to even start her fight. A best friend always knows, its her prerogative.
"Please, tell me I'm wrong Gabs, tell me I'm insane. Tell me…Just say something…" she muttered "we said…you said… and I was going to help and…"
Sharpay spoke softly and almost to herself, but not without purpose. Disbelievingly, she watched her best friend make her way to the passengers seat and observed her nervously scratch at her forearms, laced with blue blooded veins running far to close to the surface of her skin than what was reasonably natural. She took her friends failure to look her in the eye as further affirmation and she sighed deeply and genuinely and not for the first time in concern with Gabriella.
"I can't loose you, I can't watch you do this again! You promised Gabs, you promised me…"
She trembled as she spoke but her voice tailed off as she lost the ability to control herself, allowing her eyes to drop the tears she had tried so hard to hold in. Still sitting in the front seat of her car Sharpay broke down and cried.
"…You promised yourself."
The red pin prick marks scattered around Gabriella's veins appeared raw and sore and a few of them began to bleed as she continued to drag her nails across them. She opened her mouth to speak but only air came out and so, she shut it again.
Turning to face Sharpay she seen the anguish that she had seen a million times over, on a million faces and yet it still didn't seem completely real . Gabriella was quite happy living in her own world. Well at least she told herself that.
As she apologised and made another promise that they both knew she wouldn't keep, the only guilt she felt was in return for not feeling any remorse. For the only thing Gabriella Montez could think about at that precise moment was her need, her want, her desire.
It had been and always would be her addiction.
The music thumped around the large front room of the glorious Evans' mansion and shook the floor as an earthquake might, yet no one noticed; Their dancing feet continued to dance, excited chatter filled any silence left, drinks were being spilled and there was certainly no thought of the neighbours as the party roared on at full blast.
A nervous looking 16 year old Gabriella Montez, feeling slightly overdressed as compared to the other girls, looked around the room with apprehension in her expressive brown eyes, scanning the scene for a familiar face, preferably one who hadn't drunk their weight in alcohol.
It was plain to see that parties weren't her thing as she stood there alone playing with the ends of her long dark hair and shuffled her feet slightly as drunken teens past by. She was the good girl; she didn't drink, or smoke, she would always turn her homework in on time, she was perfectly together.
Yet not even her closest friends realised she was already more broken on the inside than any of them would ever understand.
Taylor would no doubt be with Chad, flirtatiously bickering about some trivial detail. Sharpay and Ryan, who's parents were out of town on their wedding anniversary would be making the rounds, entertaining their guests.
It was then that she spotted Kelsi and Martha at the other side of the room, shouting over the noise in an attempt to have a civilized conversation and she smiled with relief as they waved her over. However, something stopped her mid way across the floor.
Noticing a small group collected on the floor she made her way over, drawn in by their actions. She recognised a girl from her homeroom class although the rest seemed to be older and she was drawn in…
Expectantly unaware, she knew not that the night of the party was the night that she would finally be set free, discover her release…build the foundations for herself to become a drug addict by the time she was 18.
It was her addiction.
AN: I know this chapter is rather long but I felt that I had to say all of this to set the scene for the rest of the story. Troy will be making an appearance soon so look out!. Anyway thanks for reading and reveiws are much appreciated (be nice this is my first attempt). Much love xxx