Between You & Me
Disclaimer: I do not own HSM.
Prologue
"There she goes; there she goes again.
Pulsing through my veins; And I just can't contain this feeling that remains."
–Six Pence None The Richer
It was a ritual. A common practice. The daily routine. It went unquestioned and opinions remained unheard. Even the teachers would be seen glancing at the clock subconsciously some mornings, never giving a second thought to the occurrence in the halls of East High. It was as expected as the warning bell or winning the basketball championships or the leads in the musicals. It was as predicable as the sun rising.
Five minutes before the warning bell for homeroom, the conversation in the corridors would quiet and the atmosphere would shift. The distinct sound of high heels and laughter would filter along the throngs of students before the front doors of the school were pushed open and sun would illuminate the two familiar figures. The students would rush to clear their path, so that unhindered, they could walk the tiled floor to their lockers arm in arm, laughing over something unknown. On some days, two other girls would be with them or trailing behind, but on most mornings it was just the two who caused the crowds to part as though it was the red sea.
The taller of the two, with her wavy golden locks and heavily lashed brown eyes, commanded attention with the practiced posture and grace of a dancer who had spent years making memorable entrances. On this day, she is wearing a light denim skirt that barely reaches a length deemed appropriate and the pink heeled sandals accentuate her long legs. The pink, rhinestone studded tank top falls over her curves and is enough to cause the boys to steady themselves against the wall but keeps the envious girls from putting cruel names to her style. The white monogrammed tote bag that is swung over her left shoulder bounces as she leans to whisper into her companion's ear. A giggle spills out and attention is shifted from the blonde to the brunette beside her.
Long dark tangles of hair flow over one sun-kissed shoulder, reminding the watcher that the Hispanic blood is not a trait possessed by the first girl. The dark lined eyes are the color of walnut stain and look like pools of ink. She is smaller than her friend, her curves less defined and her heels doing little to compete with height. The shortened hem of her dark blue dress draws the eyes of the male students up from her matching heels. The black bag carelessly hitched on her shoulder is a reminder that she is not on a Parisian runway. Laughing at the whispered joke, she lets her eyes roam the hall until they settle on the boy leaning casually against a locker.
His smile is genuine and not like the ones worn by those left swooning in their wake. His hair tells her that he has yet to break the habit of constantly running his hands through it and his blue eyes are the color of the sapphires in her studded earrings. They pierce through her from feet away, peeling away the layers and leaving her vulnerable in a way that few have the privilege of doing. His hands are shoved in the pockets of his jeans and his feet are crossed casually at the ankle. This, too, is part of the daily routine. The prize at the end of the gauntlet. When the girls reach him, the brunette receiving a one-armed hug and a kiss on the cheek from him before he leans down to kiss the blonde on the lips, savouring her raspberry lipgloss, it signals the end of the spectacle and the students of East High return to where they were before the Montez-Evans sisters arrived.
~*~
Gabriella Montez, at the age of six, would have told anyone who asked that Sharpay Evans was trouble. From the moment her mother escorted her to the elaborate swing set in the Evans' backyard and told her be nice, Gabriella had known that Sharpay would be at the root of any future punishments and reprimands. Seeing the little blonde girl clamber over the play set, with her twin brother following at a resigned and practiced pace, Gabriella felt herself drawn to her new playmate. When she found herself seated on a hard wooden stool in the corner of the Evans' dining room two hours later, with Sharpay in a similar position on the other side of the room, Gabriella's predictions were confirmed. Sharpay was trouble, and after several visits and coinciding lectures on behaviour, Gabriella joined in her escapades with enthusiasm.
At the age of eight, dressed in identical green flower girl dresses chosen by Gabriella's mother, Sharpay and Gabriella's only focus was on the intricate designs iced onto the massive wedding cake in the middle of the dining area of the reception hall. Fifteen minutes later, following Gabriella's suggestion to Ryan that no one would notice if he ate one of the many spun-sugar flowers and Sharpay's helpful prompting, the two girls were presented to their parents covered in icing. Without asking for an explanation, Maria Montez-now-Evans requested that the wedding planner bring out the back-up cake. Sharing a gaze with her new husband, Maria tried to convey her suspicions that the girls' mishaps were just the beginning of the trouble to come.
Sharpay had never had a sister. She had Ryan, sure, but it wasn't quite the same and despite her stubborn will, she knew that her father was right when he reminded her that one day Ryan would not want to play with her dollhouse or join her for a tea party. When Gabriella and her mother moved in after the wedding, Sharpay suddenly had a sister. Their parents had expected some turbulence given that Gabriella was not just an only child, but Sharpay was a spoiled rotten princess. Instead, miraculously, they fit together perfectly. Unlike Ryan, who was relieved to be free to do what he really wanted (like play pirate ship on the play set outside instead of pouring tea for Ken), Gabriella's wilfulness matched Sharpay's. After a week of door slamming and petulant sulking, the two settled into a pattern. If Sharpay wanted to do something and Gabriella didn't, she either tried to bribe her into it or faced the prospect of Gabriella cutting a chunk out of her hair while she slept. Gabriella subsequently learned that if she broke any of Sharpay's Barbie shoes, Sharpay would scribble crayon designs over the pages of her books. It was a relationship no one else could understand or fathom.
By the time the Montez-Evans children reached East Middle School, any child within a fifty-mile radius of the playground knew that to mess with one sibling was to mess with the other two as well. When Gabriella gave Chad Danforth a black eye for bullying Ryan, she set a precedent and made new friends. Although it took a few months for Chad to come around and stop referring to them as the Devil Children, Troy Bolton had found the whole incident rather hilarious and immediately latched onto Gabriella. Aside from Sharpay and Ryan, Troy became her best friend. When Chad had recovered from being beaten by a girl and Sharpay had recovered from Troy's sick prank of slipping a frog in her ballet slippers, the group of them became inseparable.
High school proved to be Sharpay and Gabriella's crowning glory. Rich, fun and friendly, they attracted everyone like bees to honey. When Chad declared his undying love for Taylor McKessie in the ninth grade, Gabriella made it her mission to corrupt the honours student and have her join the dark side. It took her six weeks and Chad had never shown gratitude in such a way as he did then. In the tenth grade, during second semester, Kelsi Nielsen joined the group when Sharpay learned that the other girl was too shy to join the drama club. Sharpay made some phonecalls, did some campaigning and had herself and Ryan named co-presidents of the club. The next week Kelsi was composing the spring musical. During exams that spring, Zeke Baylor found that way to a Montez-Evans' heart and the ensuing popularity was chocolate chip cookies. When he made the basketball team with Chad and Troy, he found himself at the heart of East High's hierarchy. Sharpay recruited Jason Cross after seeing his photography skills with still shots of his basketball teammates. She declared him her personal photographer and after that, pictures of Sharpay and Gabriella were all over school. Despite their superficial cover, the gang of them remained steadily loyal to one another.
With their senior year just beginning, Gabriella could sense something shifting within their dynamic. She had felt it at the beginning of the summer when Troy and Sharpay had become a couple and she felt it again as she entered the front doors of East High on that day in September and made the customary trip to Troy's locker where she hugged her best friend and watched him kiss her sister. It was the way he watched her approach and the way his smile slipped when Sharpay giggled and whispered in Gabriella's ear. It was the way the air crackled between them while Sharpay remained obliviously happy as she grabbed her books and looped her arm through Troy's before grabbing Gabriella's hand with her free one and towing both of them towards homeroom.
Troy dropped his gaze but not before Gabriella caught a hint of something forbidden in his glace. It went against the best friend code and pact between sisters. It went against everything she knew. Suddenly it seemed like a canyon had appeared between her and her sister, her and her best friend; as wide as the one in Arizona that she and Sharpay had gushed over when they were ten. The heat of Troy's piercing eyes dissipated and Gabriella's heart returned to its normal rhythm.
Troy had chosen Sharpay and no matter what happened to them now or in the future, that choice made Gabriella forever off limits. Between them would always be Sharpay who, as Gabriella watched, smiled cheerfully at her boyfriend with an emotion that Gabriella knew. Love. Her sister was in love with him and there was nothing that Gabriella would consider doing that could possibly distroy her heart. Sharpay always came first. Before their friends, before the guys they dated, loyalty to each other was always first.