It's. Been. Too. Long.

Hello, Everyone! Wow, so I've definitly missed FF! I know that I said I would have a full story ready to go by Christmas, but the truth is, it's only half way done! :( I've written a ton of oneshots, but I don't like any of them, so I won't be putting them up. But! This one isn't too terrible, so I'm posting this one so that I can update SOMETHING! Plus, I got inspired by bad news- you all know the bad news too.

R.I.P Z and V's relationship. I'm still mourning. I have to rant. It's going to be okay, everyone! Just think of it this way: 20 years from now, when Disney is smart enough to do a HSM reunion, Z and V will fall in love again through song, of course, and have beautiful babies that we'll all be writing about... if we're still on FF in 20 years. :D

Enjoy!

Coming Home Alone

Break ups are hard; they're hard for the dumpee and the dumper. They're hard for the moms and dads who watch their kids mope around the house because they thought they had found the one, only to find out that they had not. They're especially hard on the stomach, which takes in the gallons of ice cream and alcoholic substances. Break ups are even harder when you're twenty three years old, have no parents around to tell you to cut the crying out, and when the person you would have leaned on, was the one who had broken your heart in the first place.

Right now, Gabriella Montez was curled up on her brand new red leather couch, a pair of discarded heels on the floor between her and the coffee table, and a box of Kleenex half empty on the couch cushion next to her. Her brand new house was silent, partially painted, and unusually cold.

The cold weather had come quickly, and she was barely ready for it, considering she had no window treatments yet, which caused the cold to seep right into her house and give her wood floor that extra iciness. Her hair was disheveled and dangling over the couch's arm rest. The TV across from her was blank, staring back at her with the reflection of her family room.

Her boyfriend, Troy Bolton had just gotten off of the phone with her, where he had carefully explained why he didn't want to be in their long running relationship anymore. He said he wanted to see what it was like dating other people. Gabriella told him he was a loser. No pun intended.

But now, Gabriella had no more time to cry over him. She was supposed to be getting ready for her Christmas party, which she wasn't prepared for either. As of now, she wasn't too worried about the fact that her house was a disaster. Add a few strings of Christmas lights and it would likely hide the unfinished feeling her house gave off.

Why Troy had decided to dump her a few weeks before the holiday and mere hours away from her birthday, she didn't know. All she knew was that she was so sickened by the idea of being without him, that she had literally thrown up twice. The ice cream she ate earlier didn't necessarily agree with her.

The sound of the wind blowing harshly outside made Gabriella lift her head up from the couch's arm rest. She looked out the window, noticing the neighbors' glowing house. Compared to theirs, her house probably looked like it was celebrating Halloween, not Christmas.

"Okay, cut it out," Gabriella said to herself, shaking out her hair and rubbing her eyes. "All you have to do is keep yourself busy."

Stepping over her heels, Gabriella walked toward the kitchen to try to find something worth accomplishing. The cookie recipes she had strewn out over the counter by the sink, instantly gave her something to do. Baking cookies, her friend Zeke had once told her, was like writing in a diary; it let all of your emotions out, the only difference was that you could taste the extra salt from tears.

A chocolate kiss cookie recipe was the first receipt of the pile, and Gabriella instantly skipped it- they were someone's favorite. Candy cane cookies- someone's second favorite. As she came to the last recipe of the pile, she shook her head. She was not going to make cookies this Christmas. The last recipe was someone's twenty third favorite.

...

"Listen, Sharpay," Gabriella started as she sat on the edge of her bathtub. She was painting her toes a ruby red color, and she had a squishy sponge separator between them. Her hair was held up in a towel and her face was made up with a little bit of make up.

Gabriella paused, listening to her friend talk hysterically fast on the other line. She rolled her eyes, expertly balancing her cell phone between her ear and her shoulder while perfectly finishing the last swipe of nail polish on her pinky toe.

"Sharpay!" Gabriella said after a few more minutes. She set her feet on the soft white rug on her bathroom floor. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you right away that Troy and I broke up, it's just that I needed some time to let it sink in."

"Well, jeez, Gabriella, I wish you would have told me sooner because I told Zeke to remind Troy to stop by your house to finish painting your living room!" Sharpay explained.

"I doubt he'll come," Gabriella said calmly. "Do you realize how terrible that would be of him to do?"

"Do you really think guys know the difference between finishing a job and doing something terrible? Hell, they terribly finish jobs," Sharpay said.

Gabriella wrinkled her forehead, not sure what her friend was trying to say, but she figured it was one of those Sharpay metaphors that she never understood. Gabriella listened to Sharpay talk to her about the time her middle school boyfriend broke up with her via telephone, and Gabriella tried to be polite by adding the occasional uh-huh as she left the steamy bathroom.

Her house was currently shimmering with the sun that poured in from the street outside. Cars honked and families walked by her front window with strollers and golden retrievers. Their breath could be seen in the air.

"Hey, Sharpay," Gabriella started, stepping closer to the large bay window in the front of her house. "Didn't Troy get a new truck after getting promoted a few weeks ago?"

"Yeah," Sharpay said with a groan. "It's an ugly forest green color."

Gabriella's eyes widened when she finally realized that the truck parked in front of her house was holding long paint rollers and was a manly forest green color.

"Oh no!" Gabriella screeched. "He's here!"

"Told'cha."

"Bye! Bye! Bye!" Gabriella said quickly, hanging up her phone and tossing it on her couch. She ripped the towel twisted with her hair off of her head, and wiggled her head around, loosening the clumped strands of hair so that she at least had the beach look going for her.

Before she could throw off her bathrobe and get a completely new outfit on, there was a knock on the door, instantly causing her heart beat to quicken. Why would Troy dare show up to her house, ready to paint her living room as if nothing had changed between them? Now, instead of sitting on her new couch, making comments about his toned behind, she'd be hiding in a different room, hoping he didn't notice that she was shaking with anger.

Gabriella opened the door, acting so completely surprised to see him, that his expression changed to one of casualness to one that was surprised too.

"I just came to finish your living room… Zeke told me it was still okay."

"He didn't know you dumped me when he told you that," Gabriella said, tapping her finger on the door frame. She looked past him and studied the brick wall of her porch, trying not to get drawn in by him.

"Oh," Troy nodded, twisting the paint roller in his hand.

Gabriella stood still in the doorway, biting her lip as he nodded awkwardly. She barely noticed him look her over, smirking at her toes.

"You don't have to paint the living room," Gabriella told him. "I think I'm changing the color anyways."

"Really? To which color?"

Gabriella sent him a look that meant he no longer had the right to ask. Her living room was supposed to be painted light blue- a color that would pick up the white trim and red couch, but now that Troy wasn't in her life, blue wasn't an appealing color.

"I guess I'll leave, then," Troy said with a shrug.

He turned to leave, and Gabriella turned back into her house, looking out at her living room, which currently had only one of its four walls painted. She turned back to the door, opened it and stepped one freshly moisturized foot on her porch.

"Troy, I have to leave in two hours. If it's not done by then, you'll have to come back when I'm not around," Gabriella said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Troy nodded, stepping without a word back toward her house. He didn't make eye contact when he side stepped past her. Gabriella shut the door once Troy was setting up his painting supplies by the bay window. Her phone was ringing now, and it lit up in between the couch cushions.

"Hello," Gabriella grumbled as she took the phone with her to her bedroom.

"Is he there?"

"I'm going to have a nervous breakdown," Gabriella whispered into the phone after she shut her bedroom door behind her. She grabbed an outfit out of her closet as she pressed the phone to her ear harshly.

"Take a deep breath," Sharpay said.

"This is ridiculous!" Gabriella said to her friend, ignoring her advice. "He broke up with me yet he still comes over to paint my living room. That's cruel! He's in my house!"

"You know how Troy doesn't back down on promises."

"And you know how stupid that sounds. He promised me he'd be with me forever," Gabriella went on. "He's in my house!"

"I know he's in your house," Sharpay said slowly. "You already mentioned that."

"How do I get out of here?"

"Well, first, put on the hottest outfit you own, and then leave. Just leave him alone like he left you."

"You didn't have to add that last part," Gabriella said as she tossed the outfit she had originally pulled out of her closet, aside so that she could get a new one. She picked a black dress, kicked out a pair of heels from her closet floor, and huffed into the phone. "I'll call you tonight to tell you how this goes."

"I'll be waiting."

Gabriella quickly discarded her robe and pajama's and slide into her black dress. From the floor length mirror on the other end of the room, Gabriella could see that her hair was already almost dry and starting to curl. The foam in between her toes had fallen out somewhere between the front door and her room. Her legs simmered from the lotion she had put on before she answered the door, and her perfectly curled eyelashes winked at her.

She pushed on her heels and sat down in the blue chair that sat by the window. She had to stall, since it would seem too obvious if she walked out of her room dressed the way she was in less than ten minutes. So instead of leaving, she looked out the window, noticing the icicles hanging from the tree in her backyard. There was a brand new grill underneath a black cover that she had bought, thinking Troy would be around a lot to barbeque.

Her room was painted a sage green instead of the light purple she had wanted for the same reason: because she thought Troy would be around a lot. But now, he was painting her stupid living room walls a color she chose because she loved the color of his eyes. He was probably covering the red couch that she had bought because they both went to East High and the school colors were red and white, with a crisp white sheet so it wouldn't get paint on it.

He was probably humming their favorite song. And where was she? Sitting in a dress that she bought to wear somewhere he'd take her, in her room with two smaller dressers instead of just one. She had planned her entire life around the guy in her living room. She had learned to live with him, not without him, and her stomach sunk even further now that the memories of him were just that; memories.

The clock on her nightstand was an hour past noon and she stood up, slipped off her dress and kicked off her heels. She pulled on a tight pair of jeans, shimmied into an old t-shirt and threw her hair back in a half ponytail. In the mirror across the room, she could see that she looked normal- ready for a day of errands and mischief. She unclipped a familiar necklace from around her neck and set it on her dresser.

This was it, she thought. Leave now or stay stuck in your room.

Pulling open her bedroom door, she was greeted with the smell of paint fumes. Troy was already hard at work with painting the wall that the TV was going to be hung up on. He glanced back at her when she wasn't looking, collecting her purse from the coffee table while tucking her hair behind her ear. She was wearing the shirt he loved the most on her, but he turned back toward the wall when she looked up at him.

Gabriella went to her front door, opened it and idled in the doorway.

"I'm going to run some errands," Gabriella told him, glancing momentarily into his eyes. "Try to be done before I get back."

"When will you be back?" Troy asked, pausing with the paintbrush.

Gabriella shrugged, sending him a look that he would most likely read as just-be-done. Troy nodded at her, going back to the blue paint on the white wall.

...

The bags hanging from Gabriella's arms felt like a hundred pounds. Usually, Troy would be carrying the other half. She was quickly coming to realize that she had relied on Troy too much, and that she had planned too much around the hopes that Troy and her would be together for a long time. She stabbed her house key at the lock, hoping that she could get into her house without having to set all of her groceries on the porch. With a good struggle, she finally got the door open. She was surprised to find, as she set her groceries on the wood floor, that the living room was completely painted, and Troy was no where to be found. The TV had been mounted on the wall too.

The left over paint was set by the bay window and the paint brushes were cleaned and set next to it. She looked around at the finished room for a while, taking in the finished look of it before finally walking over to the paint can. A piece of paper was tapped to it, and she bent down and carefully peeled it off of the can. She stood up as she unfolded the paper and read, and then reread the message ten times.

I'm finished –T

She wondered if he meant it in more than one way.

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Much love,

unknownbyhim22