Hi! It's been a while HSM fandom, hasn't it? I have no real excuses except for I spent all summer being very social and very busy and very lazy when it came to my creative outlets. Of course now that I am back in school I suddenly think I should write all of the time and also read non-school related books because that's productive. Alas.
Let's get some housekeeping out of the way while I have you here. Two things: I'm not 100% sure what I am doing with French Fries. I want to continue it, but I'm not at this point sure if I will. I have discussed it on my Tumblr. Additionally, I am writing pieces for other fandoms (namely Young Justice) but that doesn't mean I don't love HSM any less. I just think how I want to write about it has changed is all.
And that brings us to this. This was inspired by me thinking about change, real life events (my dear coworker has a friend who is the bride from hell), and the song Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men, which I have been listening to almost non-stop since I downloaded their album. I highly recommend it.
I also listened to 17 by Youth Lagoon a lot while reading this, so there is your soundtrack for this chapter. I'll reblog it on my fic Tumblr. The whole fic will be between 5 to 10 chapters; I haven't quite figured it out yet since I decided I want to write this at 10 AM this morning.
Thank you all for your continued support.
Little Talks
Weddings were really only a good time for the people who were getting married. For everyone else, it was a lot of stress and a lot of money. Why did people want so much when they got married? Why did they suddenly need so much? Should getting married be enough? After all, they were in love; had found someone to spend the rest of their lives with. Ideally. Divorce rates were high.
After Sharpay Evans fourth shower, Gabriella Montez, maid of honor and completely exhausted, was more than a little over it. Why Sharpay had needed to have four showers, Gabriella wasn't sure, but she did know that Sharpay and her fiancée Zeke Baylor, had already been living together for three years and had everything under the sun that you needed to furnish a first home. Now with four showers worth of wedding presents, they had enough to furnish a second and third home, and maybe even a small vacation home or an apartment in the city, perhaps.
Gabriella was crumpling up wrapping paper after the fourth shower when Sharpay approached her, pink high heels clicking almost obnoxiously on the ground. Everything about Sharpay had become obnoxious and insufferable since she had started planning her wedding though, and for that thought Gabriella only felt mildly guilty. She figured that she still loved the woman, even if she often thought she defined Bridezilla, so it balanced it out.
"Gabi," Sharpay said, wrapping her thin arms around her. "Thank you so much for helping out. I know I said the shower Grandmamma threw me would be the last, but I really couldn't say no when the girls at dad's office said they wanted to have a tea party for me. I just couldn't."
Smiling tightly, Gabriella nodded. "Of course. I can definitely see why that would be difficult." She shoved a wad of ivory coloured paper into a trash bag. It was the ugliest paper she had ever seen.
"Have you figured out arrangements for your hair?" Sharpay said, sitting down and inspecting her nails, ignoring the mess of paper and boxes around her. Sharpay didn't believe in manual labour; never had, never would.
"Yes," Gabriella said tightly. Sharpay had informed her a week prior that one of the hairstylists had cancelled for the day of the wedding, and she absolutely did not trust anyone else, so they were only going with two instead of three stylists. That meant that time was being cutting down by an entire third and as a result, Sharpay felt it necessary to trim one of the girls in the bridal party off of the list. That girl had been Gabriella as her hair was 'too thick and too long' and would take 'entirely too long, like, the entire time.'
"Oh?" Sharpay asked, looking up. "What's the plan?"
"I have an appointment for 8:30 in the morning; the salon is opening early for me. It should take about an hour and then I'll come over to get my makeup done."
The blonde's eyes widened. "Oh, no. Oh Gabi, that really won't do. I mean, you'll have to go earlier."
Pausing mid clean up (this time, it was a pale pink paper), Gabriella looked up at her. "What? Why?"
Shaking her head as if it was obvious, Sharpay bit her lip. "I really want you to be there to see me get ready from start to finish. I'm getting ready starting at nine. You'll have to reschedule."
"I can't reschedule," Gabriella said through gritted teeth. "I told you, they are opening earlyfor me."
"Oh," Sharpay looked crestfallen, but it lasted only a moment. "Oh! Here's an idea! What if you got your hair done the night before and just slept sitting up? That could work!"
Sharpay Evans' wedding was in twenty-two days and Gabriella wasn't entirely sure that the bride would make it to the wedding. There was a very high chance that she'd kill her first.
She knew he was coming, but she put it to the back of her mind and filed it under 'Things She'd Rather Not Think About'. He'll be here one day, she thought, but that day is not today. She dealt with it the same way she dealt with summer break ending; the inward panic she would feel as a kid as the days slipped through her fingers like grains of sand.
The day would come but it was not today and therefore she could deal with it the idea. She could handle it.
Only as she stepped out of the Evans estate, onto the front porch to escape from the maddening discussion inside (Sharpay was suddenly unsatisfied with the linens for the reception) and get a little fresh air, she was greeted with the sight of Troy Bolton. He was dressed in a crisp blue button down and black trousers, his tie slack around his neck and a cigarette dangling from his lips. His hair was longer than she imagined it, but still shorter than when they were together, and his face was still all hard angles and blue eyes and long lashes. He was leaning forward, his elbows resting on the railings around the porch deck and glanced over his shoulder upon hearing the front door close shut.
He was early. He wasn't supposed to be here. She wasn't prepared for this.
"Gabriella," he said softly, turning around and taking the cigarette between his fingers. "It's been a while. You're looking good."
She gaped, her heart jumping into her mouth and lodging itself in her throat. Troy Bolton had the undeniable ability to render her absolutely speechless. Always had, probably always would. She hated it. Folding her arms, she shook off the chills that were running up her spine upon seeing him and scowled.
"You were supposed to arrive at the end of the week."
"Ah," Troy said, tapping the ash off his cigarette. "I was, but as it turns out Zeke is feeling a little overwhelmed so I took a few extra vacation days and decided to come back to good ol' Albuquerque to help Zeke with his dance moves," he brought the cigarette to his mouth and took a long drag. "I was always more coordinated than him."
Heart pounding, she nodded. "I see." She turned to go back inside.
"Really now, Brie?" she stopped at the sound of his old pet name for her. It made her stomach curl. "That's all you're going to say to me after what, three years?"
"Yes," she said curtly. "After three years of no contact, that is all I'm going to say. I mean, we're doing so well at the not speaking thing, why quit now?"
He chuckled. "You never were a quitter."
"No," she said, whirling around to face him. She could feel her blood pumping in her veins, adrenaline rushing to the surface. "I wasn't. I'm not." She glanced over at the cigarette still perched between his lips. "Guess we can say the same about you. Give up trying to cut the cancer stick?"
He blew a stream of smoke from his mouth and she practically rolled her eyes, disgusted. "I tried," he said, smiling at her lopsidedly. "But we both know I've never had the best willpower."
Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, Gabriella nodded, pursing her lips. "You're going to end up dead."
He shrugged. "Live fast and die young, YOLO, and all that shit, I guess."
"You're not that young."
"Thirty is not old, Gabriella."
"You tell yourself that to keep you warm at night?"
"Don't need to. I've got other options. You're no spring chicken either, Brie. Twenty-eight? You might as well be eighty."
"Given that I probably have about ninety percent fewer STDs than your bedmates, I'd like to think I'm doing a little better than what you consider to be the average twenty-eight year old, Troy. Glad to see you're still drowning yourself in your work and your women, by the way."
"Oh yeah? Cause you know so much about my life right now?" he scoffed. "You're a lab technician in Boston, I'm a senior vice president in NYC. Our paths don't exactly cross."
"Don't be so sure, Troy, the grapevine grows wherever, and the grapevine is full of stories about you."
"Yeah, well, a guy's gotta do something to get through the days. How I spend them is no longer any of your business. "
Gabriella felt her blood boil even further. "I'm a research analyst thank you very much, and I do some very important work. I work in life sciences. I graduated from Harvard, in case you seem to have forgotten."
"I hadn't."
"Well, you're pretty good at forgetting most things—"
"Always have to get the last word in, huh, Brie?" Troy cut her off. "Guess some things never change. Still have that heart shaped birthmark high on your inner thigh? The right one?"
A silence passed over them and she suddenly felt like she was drowning, like she needed to get out. It was easy to forget when they were sparring, easy to forget that she had once loved him and that she had had him in every intimate way a person could have another. Forget that he had had her in the same way. She bit her lip to keep from crying.
He noticed her frame stiffen immediately. He was always able to read her. He was right. Some things did never change.
"Gabi—"
"Troy, don't—"
"I missed you," he said, his voice even and steady and she knew that he meant it. Troy Bolton didn't use his words lightly. He said what he meant when he meant it. He was a terrible liar and in her opinion that made him a great one. "I've really, really missed you."
Shaking her head, she looked at him, really looked at him. Was he at all the same? Was there still a part of him that was the man she loved? Or did that all exist in yester year? Did the boy she fell so madly in love with when she was nineteen years old still exist, was he still a part of thisTroy Bolton? The one who wore suits and who was the Senior VP at a sports marketing agency, did he have the qualities and characteristics that made her love him?
Somehow she doubted it. Yet there was a part of her that doubted that, too. She wasn't sure of anything when it came to him.
She was sure, that his words however, were not enough.
"Too little too late, Troy," she said simply, turning to go back inside. "Too little too late."
There was a pause until she heard him call her name. "Just so you know," he said, weighing his words carefully. She wasn't exaggerating when she claimed he used his words well. "Or in case you've forgotten, I'm the Best Man. And you're the Maid of Honor. I may not have had to do much so far, but I will have a lot to do now, and best of all, you and I will be doing it all together. So whatever escape plan you have that you're typing up in your brain, you can toss it. It won't work. You're still a runner, Brie, and you're not going to make it across the finish line this time. The race isn't over and I'm still in it, and I know you are too. So try to avoid me all you want, but it's not worth it. I didn't come back just to help Zeke learn to cha-cha, you know."
There he went again, babbling in all of his unexpected, poetic glory. God, he was just as insufferable as Sharpay sometimes. So full of romantic, flowery expectations. Opening the front door, she stepped inside before responding. "Don't speak in riddles, Troy. It's entirely too childish."
She heard him chuckle again, and the faint flickering of a lighter as he lit another cigarette. The chain smoking was new. "See you at the altar, Gabriella!" he shot after her.
Slamming the door closed behind her, she leaned against it and slid down. The smell of smoke slid underneath the cracks of the door and she could practically feel his presence on the other side. He was here. He was here too early. He was speaking in metaphors.
The wedding was in twenty-one days and Gabriella had never hated it more.
She lay in bed that night, up until the early morning hours, feeling like she was suffocating. If she just rolled over one extra inch, she was certain her pillow would smother her. The walls of her bedroom suddenly felt too close together and she was momentarily afraid they would close in on her. She hadn't felt this way in years, panicked and anxious and entirely afraid. On nights like this, back when they were younger and together, Troy would wrap her in his arms and count to ten before making lists with her. He'd ask her to plan a week of groceries, a month's worth of dates, and the panic attack would pass and she could sleep without trouble.
That had been years ago and she had since found that being alone and not in love had given her less anxiety. Being in love there was always the background noise; the chatter that said it might end at any moment. She had been single since Troy and found that she worried overall less. You had little to worry about when you had little at stake, especially when the stakes were as high as your heart.
The wedding was in twenty days and it was shaping up to be what seemed like the worst time in Gabriella's life. Sharpay had been replaced by a robot from the planet Bridezilla Bitches and Troy Bolton had wandered back into her life three years after they packed up their boxes from their shared apartment and went their separate ways. He was back with his tousled hair and his blue eyes and his successful career and his cigarette smoke. He was back and it was entirely too much to deal with.
Rolling over, Gabriella took three deep breaths before throwing the covers off her. She swung her legs over the bed and slid her hands under her thighs, breathing slowly, her eyes closed. Then she flicked the lamp on her night table on, stood up and walked over to her desk, and opened her laptop lid.
The blue light from the screen illuminated the room and she squinted from the sudden brightness. A lump forming in her throat, she logged onto her email and went to a folder.
"Do Not Open Ever," she had titled it in a moment of absolute wit and determination. She had made the password a complex series of words and numbers, hoping that over the years she'd forget it, but she didn't. She typed it in with ease, the birth date of their pet goldfish, followed by his mother's middle name, followed by the last four digits of her high school cell phone number followed by a random series of numbers. She remembered them all. If you cared about something, she thought, you'd retain it. You'd remember it.
Still, as she opened the emails, she wished she hadn't. She hadn't read them at least two years, if not slightly longer, having decided that that part of her life was over and it was time to move on.
And she had been doing a good job; some would even say great. But it was still Troy she thought about when her mind wandered to the places she didn't know still occupied her mind. Still Troy she conjured up when she glanced into a crowded, busy street. Still Troy she'd have strange dreams about. Still Troy she missed.
He had sent the emails steadily every day for about two months. In the last, he said expressed that he knew it was over. The emails stopped.
She had read them so many times she knew them by heart. Opening the first one, she took a deep breath, and began mouthing the words, taking in their familiar meaning, and wishing her heart didn't hurt so much.
"I miss the way your legs would tangle with mine and your nails would scratch my calves. I loved the feel of you against me, but hated the scrapes. It drove me crazy. But today I miss it."
Squeezing her eyes shut, she swallowed, letting his words wash over her. It felt exactly the same as it had when she first read them. It hurt in the exact same ways, in the exact same places. Had she moved on at all or had she just been fooling herself?
In the next twenty days, she was either going to end up a murderer locked in a cell, or completely, entirely, and pitifully heartbroken.