One little one-shot that could be seen as a pre-"New York Minuet" story but not really.
Summary: Ryan has to say good-bye before leaving for New York. Sharpay doesn't want to.
Selfish
"I'm going to miss you."
The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them. She's finally said it. He looks at her, and his eyes match hers; they are identical in so many ways, sometimes she can't believe they're really fraternal twins. He opens his mouth to say something, but doesn't. It's quiet.
She can't remember ever being without him. Her heart hurts at the thought of not seeing him for a whole semester. New York City seems like it is on another planet, not in another state. Her tears smear eyeliner down her cheek.
An Evans doesn't cry.
She breaks the rule.
"Ryan, can I paint your nails?" Six-year-old Sharpay squealed after opening her first of many Christmas presents that year, her eyes sparkling.
"No! Boys don't paint their nails!" he said, eying her new make-up kit warily. "I'm not your Barbie-doll Sharpay."
She didn't seem to hear him, and later sat on his chest to keep him still as she painted his toenails. Sharpay Evans wanted what she wanted and always got it. Ryan should have known that by now. He was her Barbie-doll, and so much more.
"It's only a few months," he says, trying to soothe her. She put her arms around his neck and cries into his shoulder. He hugs her cautiously. He's only seen her like this when something horrible happens; the death of her first dog, for example. He's never seen her react to anything less than tragedy with tears off-stage.
He's sure she's never cried over him before.
"Go and get me that blossom," Sharpay demanded, pointing up to the highest branches of their favourite Cherry Blossom tree. Ryan looked at it sceptically.
"Why can't I get you a lower one?"
"I WANT THAT ONE!" she screeched, fake tears streaming down her cheeks.
Ryan practically flung himself up the tree, grabbing branches like a madman and hauling himself branch-by-branch to the top, repeating a mantra of "Don't worry, I'll get it. Don't worry, I'll get it." His fingers slipped and he screamed.
Ryan fell from twelve feet up. He was knocked out cold, and the doctors later told them that he'd broken his arm and his collarbone.
"How did this happen?" Darby Evans wailed, her make-up running with tears. Even Sharpay's father looked stricken as the doctor showed them the x-rays, holding them up to the light.
"He was fooling around in the tree," Sharpay told them, her eight-year-old brain working over-time to come up with a suitable lie. "Said something about making a tree fort?"
Their father cut down the tree that weekend.
"We've n-never been apart this long b-before," she sobs, burrowing her nose in his expensive lapel, inhaling deeply to remember his scent. She's never felt so helpless before. What will she do without Ryan?
"It'll be okay. I'll be home for Christmas," he assures her, and she stops crying long enough to stare at him. Her nose is red and her make-up ruined, and it's possible his jacket is, too. She wipes her eyes on her arm, but it doesn't help.
"That's a long time away," she says. He holds her close.
"I know."
When Ryan 'made' her miss a step during their first-ever ballet recital, she was furious. She yelled at him for an hour afterward, even going as far as complaining to their parents that he had done it on purpose. Their father grounded Ryan on the basis of sabotage.
"I didn't do anything wrong!" he told Sharpay over and over, "It wasn't my fault!"
She didn't believe him.
It was only the next day when she examined her costume that she found the minute tear— her tiny high-heel had caught the fabric of her dress and torn it, causing her to trip. She found herself feeling guilty for a moment or two that Ryan was being punished for something completely out of his control, but she pushed aside that feeling. He had probably done something else that deserved punishment and had gotten away with it; and at least he wouldn't ever try to sabotage her in the future, since he was learning his lesson.
He gently moves away, reaching out and taking her hands in his. "I'm going to miss you too," he admits, holding her hands to his chest. He presses them to his heart. "I am. But I have to do this; I have to be independent."
She knows it's true, but has an awful feeling settling. She has mistreated her brother for as long as she's had him, and now he is leaving her, and she feels awful. She wishes she had been nicer to him, enjoyed his company more. She thought that he would just be there, forever hers to use; and now he was leaving, and she was breaking down.
"I can't do this without you," she says. He laughs lightly, and it makes her wince because she's never realised how beautiful his laugh is, or how much she is really going to miss it when he's at Julliard.
"Of course you can, Sharpay," he tells her, "You always do."
She tries to pretend that she's strong all the time, but she's weak; she likes to be in the spotlight because then people are looking at her, not into her, and they can't see what she's hiding. Hurt, despair, and a horrible, awful secret: she loves her brother, and she doesn't ever want him to leave her behind. But he is. He's going to New York City. He's living her dream.
And she can't stand to see him go.
"Where's my hat?" Sharpay looked at her brother, a small smirk on her glossed lips as she regarded the furious twelve-year-old boy.
"What hat?" she asked innocently, and he put his hands on his hips, undeterred.
"You know, my favourite hat, the pink one. I need it for my solo." She shrugged.
"I don't know. I haven't seen it."
"Sharpay, I swear, if you don't give it back... I won't do the show at all. I swear."
"Fine, then don't do the show." He stomped off in a fit of rage, locking himself in his bedroom. She took the hat from under her pillow and began to slowly cut it into tiny pieces with her nail-scissors.
Ryan didn't do the show. Sharpay won the Star Dazzle award for her performance.
"I'm sorry I dyed your hair pink," Sharpay whispers, and his brow furrows.
"That was years ago," he tells her, and she nods.
"And I'm sorry that I made you go up in that tree." Her eyes water again, and she closes them to keep the tears inside. "And that I blamed you for tripping me up in ballet, that I stole your hat and your clothes and painted your nails and sabotaged your performances and cut up your costumes and was so selfish and made you quit baseball and switched our homework and..." He pulls her close to him again, and she stops her rant. Her breath is coming in short gasp, whispering, "I'm sorry, Ryan, I'm sorry," over and over into his neck.
He shushes her, kisses her forehead. "I know, Sharpay. I forgive you."
She doesn't forgive herself.