Summery: Gabriella has a stalker, a bad man who's after her, a dark secret from her past, gets blackmailed and has to end things with Troy. Will her secret eventually come out? Read to find out!

The events and whatever happened in the hsm movies, never happened in this story.

September 5th, 2006:

Gabriella Montez was on her bed reading a romance novel. It was already going to be her first day back to East High and her final year. She couldn't believe she already had to go back. She didn't have any problems with school. Infact she loved school. She liked learning new things. One of her favorite subjects in school was math. She was a member of the Scholastic Decathlon club; along with her best friend Taylor who she has known since the seventh grade.

Gabriella still had about five minutes before the bus would come. She turned on her TV and the news happened to be on. It was on one of her favorite channels that would usually have on romantic movies and TV shows. She was a huge fan of romance! But what was on the news had to be very important if it was on every channel. She wasn't really that interested in watching the news; it was basically always just about depressing stuff. But what she saw made her skin crawl. She heard a young teen girl scream as a masked guy grabbed her by the throat and made her face him.

"ATTENTION ALL TEENAGE GIRLS! There's this sick man out there known as the masked man since his identity is unknown. Anyway he's a pedophile and likes to mess with, sexually harass and rape teenage girls. He comes out at night and will come across any young girl who's all alone. Police have been trying to track him down since but he's just too fast and always manages to get away."

Gabriella was scared and clinged on her pillow. She couldn't bare to watch anymore of this and shut the TV off. She felt very bad for that girl who got treated that way but was happy that she was still alive. Her thoughts were interrupted by her mom calling her. "Gabriella! Troy's at the bus stop waiting for you!"

"Coming mom!" She quickly gathered her stuff and rushed downstairs.

"You have a great day. I can't believe you're already in your last year of High School; it feels like just yesterday you were only in Kindergarten." Miss. Montez gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"I love you too mom."

"What about me?" Behind her was a little boy. His name was Bobby and he was her two and a half year old brother. Gabriella smiled and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "I'll see you after school." She went outside and headed for the bus stop.

Troy Bolton was her long time best friend who recently became her boyfriend over the summer. The two have known each other since Kindergarten and now they were already in their senior year of High School.

"Hey Gabriella." He pulled her in for a quick kiss and she giggled a little. "Hi Troy."

"I missed you over the summer. The only time we saw each other was when we went to my uncle's lake house." Troy's uncle had wanted to see him and invited him over; so Troy decided to ask her to tag along and she happily accepted. That was the only time they saw each other over the summer and that was when he also asked her to be his girlfriend. She stayed with him there for about the whole week. After that, they would just call each other on and off and keep each other updated on what was going on.

"I missed you too Troy." She replied causing him to kiss her again.

On School campus, they both walked inside the building holding hands and giving each other cute glances. They were both greeted by all their friends. Taylor squealed when she saw Gabriella and rushed over to give her a big hug. "How was your summer? It's been so long!"

"Oh it was great."

Chad and Troy highfived and playfully slapped each other's backs. "Good to see you wildcat. Looking forward for another boring year of learning?"

"Well actually-" Before Troy could finish, a crowd of cheerleaders squealed and crowded him, Gabriella was right next to him too and she knew that both she and Troy really didn't like to be crowded like that. She was a little jealous; after all 'she' was Troy's girlfriend; not them!

"One at a time." Troy told them. They were all talking at once and he couldn't understand a word they were saying; it was just a bunch of babbling to him.

"We missed you Troy." Stacy said. She had blonde hair with light blue highlights.

"We've been thinking about you all summer." Nicole said. She had brunette hair.

One cheerleader stepped in front of the others. She was cheer captain, one of the most popular girls in school. Almost more popular than Sharpay. Well at least she tried to be. Her name was Amanda and she had chocolate brown hair and brown eyes. She was liked by many people but she wasn't very nice to those below her or when she didn't get her way; she would throw a tantrum. She was worse than Sharpay! She cleared her throat to speak. "Hey Troy!" She twirled her hair; flirting with him. "Listen, I was wondering if maybe you'd like to go out with me sometime. You know; on a date."

Gabriella turned to Troy and saw that he wasn't interested in this girl at all. She was relieved. She knew Troy wasn't the kind of guy who would go for the hot girl and ditch his own girlfriend; it was Amanda that she was wary about. Sometimes when Troy didn't want to hurt people's feelings; he'd say yes.

"I'm sorry Amanda, but I have a girlfriend."

Amanda's mouth dropped. "What? Since when?" She was shouting.

Troy smiled and pointed in Gabriella's direction. "Since over the summer."

Amanda gasped. "Her? She's not even popular!" The next words really hurt Gabriella and made Troy angry. "She's just a freaky math girl, a geek, an outcast, a nobody! No guy in their right mind would ever go out with her."

Troy held onto Gabriella's hand as all this stuff was being said. Amanda wasn't finished, she continued. "You don't deserve her Troy. You're way out of her league. You're too good for her. You deserve me. You being friends with her is weird enough but being boyfriend and girlfriend? You don't want to ruin your reputation or become a laughing stalk; do you?"

"I don't give a damn about my reputation!" Troy yelled. "I love Gabriella Montez and nothing or nobody is going to change my mind!" Gabriella's heart melted as Troy said this.

Amanda was angry and her hands were balled in a fist. "We'll see about that Troy. You will be mine." She stormed off swinging her purse.

Gabriella turned her attention on Troy after watching Amanda walk off. "Did you really mean all that?" She asked.

"Of course I did." He took her hand again. "Don't let her get to you. She's just jealous." They headed for homeroom; hand in hand. Troy sat in the front row near his two friends Chad and Jason. Gabriella was in the second row next to Taylor and Kelsi. Ms. Darbus was their homeroom teacher and she had a strong dislike for cell phones.

"Okay class; settle down."

A boy walked in the class; obviously new since no one has seen him before. He was dressed in black and the hood of his jacket was over his head. Something about him seemed dark; other than the way he was dressed. Ms. Darbus looked up from a paper she was reading when she heard his footsteps. "Uh, may I help you?" She asked.

"I'm Mark; a new student." He replied without emotion. Gabriella looked up from her novel when she heard him say his name. Mark? She knew a boy named Mark before. Could it possibly be the same one she was thinking about? She couldn't tell because the hood was covering him. "Right, well we have a rule about wearing hoods in this school, so you might want to remove it and there's an empty seat in the back." Ms. Darbus explained.

Gabriella watched as he slowly walked to the last row but not too slowly. She was the only one who was watching him and seemed suspicious. She didn't know they were having a new student. Wouldn't Ms. Darbus have told them? It's almost as if he just appeared out of nowhere and not even Darbus herself was expecting him. Gabriella continued to read her novel; suspiciously, until class began.

Mark got a cell phone out of his pants pockets and turned it on. He had it on mute so nobody would hear it. He looked up and made sure Ms. Darbus wasn't looking at anyone. She was busy writing something on the board. He pointed his cell phone in Gabriella's direction and took a picture. A flash was heard and Mark quickly dropped the phone on the floor as the class gasped. Ms. Darbus walked over to where the phone was and picked it up. The phone was near Gabriella's feet! "Miss. Montez! You know we have a strict rule against cell phones." She told her.

"But it wasn't-"

"Detention; after school." Ms. Darbus interrupted. She walked back to the board and continued writing.

'Great.' Gabriella thought. It was only her first day back and she already had detention. That wasn't even her cell phone. She had a bad vibe and felt like someone was out to get her. She had felt this way ever since Mark walked in the class. Maybe it was his phone? She couldn't help but feel that he was trying to get her in trouble for some reason. Their was something off about him.

The day might have gone slowly; but Gabriella was happy when she heard the last bell ring. This day was just different from other days, and most of the reasons had to do with Mark. She couldn't shake off the bad feelings she had. She knew it had to be his cell phone. When she was picking up her pencil; she heard a flash and when she looked up she saw mark putting something in his pocket and he just looked suspicious. She had no idea why she was happy that school was out; she still had to stay longer for detention. But on the bright side; at least Mark wouldn't be around.

As she headed for the detention room; she accidentally bumped into Mr. Willows. He was her science teacher and he was also a very kind and generous man. He was her favorite teacher and she knew him since the eighth grade, he was somewhere in his early forties. She even had a little crush on him back then. She knew that when she needed to talk to someone about her problems; that he was the one to tell. He really understood his students and wasn't as strict as the other teachers were. "Ms. Montez." He greeted.

She gave a small smile. "Oh hey Mr. Willows. I'm sorry, I didn't see you there." She apologized.

"That is quite okay Ms. Montez. You know I could never hold anything against you." He replied with his usual friendly, kind and assuring smile. "So where were you headed off too? From what I saw, it didn't look like you were about to leave."

Gabriella's cheeks lit up. She was embarrassed and really didn't want people to know that she had gotten her first detention even though she knew that she didn't do anything wrong. "Well I have detention." She finally replied.

"You?" He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He wasn't angry; he was just surprised to hear this.

"It was all a misunderstanding." Her cheeks grew redder.

He led her over to a bench and sat down. "Well you can tell me all about it; I have all day." He chuckled a little.

"Well someone took a picture of me in class with their cell phone but by the time Darbus turned; she saw it near my feet and thought it was mine." She then sighed. "I think that it might have been the new student."

"Did you try telling her?" He asked.

Gabriella nodded. "She wouldn't let me finish."

"Well you know me; I'm a very understanding guy. I could try talking to her about this if you tell me a little more about this new student." He explained. "Is it a he or a she?"

"A he."

"Name?"

"His name is Mark. He didn't really say his last name but he does look familiar to me."

"Mark Pinules."

Gabriella's eyes widened and she looked more terrified than shocked. It was just so horrible to hear his full name. It was the same Mark she knew in Junior High and now he was back in her life! She obviously didn't like the boy and he obviously didn't like her either. "Mark Pinules?"

He nodded; not seeming to detect the fear that she only half managed to chock back. He suddenly became concerned. "Is something wrong?"

She shoke her head forcing a smile. "No, not at all." She slowly got up from the bench. "Well I guess I better be on my way to detention now. It was nice talking to you again Mr. Willows."

"You as well Miss. Montez."

She went to detention. As soon as she set foot in the room; she received some looks from students who were throwing crumpled paper at each other. They stopped and stared; wondering what such a good student would be doing in detention. She found an empty seat in the front row; ignoring remarks, whispers and stifled laughter from other students. She decided to get started on her homework to give her something to do.

When detention was finally over; she made her way out of the classroom. She couldn't wait to get home and get ready for her date with Troy. He was going to take her to central park and for dinner; they were going to a nice Italian restaurant. She gasped when she felt someone bump into her. "Oh I'm-" Her mouth was a-gap when she saw it was Mark Pinules. They were reunited after four years.

He wore a smirk. "Well hello to you too Miss. Montez."