A/N: Ah! It's nice to write angst again. If I write more than one story for a fandom (which, upon this one, I have done for HSM), I must inevitably hurt, angst, or kill my favorite character. So Ryan's not so lucky in this story. I thought it'd be fun to write...and I was right. So, hopefully you guys will enjoy this product of my demented mind. Leave a review and tell me what you liked and/or hated and what you think I could have done better. Thanks.
Who Cares?
He turned ten years old today. He jumped out of bed and ran downstairs in hopes of being greeted with a song of jovial celebration.
But, just as his birthdays had been for the past three years of his life, no one was there. No one but the maid, who had made him a simple cake. She smiled at him as he rushed eagerly into the kitchen and he returned the smile as best he could, trying to hide his disappointment.
Happy Birthday Sharpay & Ryan!
The icing was perfectly etched on, forming their names in a gorgeous and elaborate design. He couldn't help but frown just a bit, though. Her name always appeared first…and it didn't even come first alphabetically.
Upon seeing his sadness, the maid interjected, "Your parents send their love. They wished they could be here, but they are away on business. They left presents for you and your sister, though."
He perked up just a slight bit at this prospect. They always left presents to try to compensate for their absence…though they never really did make up for it.
"You can't open them until Sharpay comes down, though."
He pouted again, but nodded in understanding, nonetheless. An idea struck him and he scurried upstairs to his sister's room. Thrusting open the door, he yelled at her as loudly as he could without alerting the maid that he was waking his sister.
"SHARPAY! What are you doing still asleep? It's our birthday! Come on, wake up!"
Sharpay stirred and looked up angrily at her brother. She needed her beauty sleep. But when his words registered in her mind, she immediately forgot her anger.
"Are Mother and Daddy here?" she asked hopefully.
He slumped a little and looked away from her, shaking his head.
"Oh…" she said, disheartened.
"But they left us presents," he said as cheerfully as possible.
Sharpay shrugged and slowly got out of bed.
"Fine. Let's go open them."
Her brother nodded apprehensively and they both wandered downstairs. Once they got to the kitchen, the maid gave him a quizzical look…how had his sister so conveniently woken up? But she didn't say anything about it.
"They're in the family room," she said, knowing the children would ask where their presents were.
They both skipped eagerly into the room and plopped down on the floor next to their packages.
"You go first," He told his sister, but she had already taken the liberty of starting to tear open the wrapping paper.
"Oh, yay! It's a CD player with an entire collection of CD's from my favorite artists! I can't wait to listen to them," she said giddily.
He smiled at her happiness. Her joy was his joy. But this was mainly because he received little joy of his own accord. His sister was its only source.
He looked down at his package and silently hoped that it would be something else.
Anything else.
He unwrapped it.
It wasn't.
He sighed as he stared down at the baseball, bat and glove. They got him the same gift every year. Just because his father had forced him to play on the baseball team did not mean that he enjoyed it. Sure, he was good; fantastic, even. But it wasn't his true calling. Only Sharpay knew his secret desire, and she was giving him a pitying look.
"I'm sorry, Ry. They just don't spend enough time around you to know…it's no big deal. You can share my gift," she offered.
He finally tore his gaze from the objects in his lap and smiled gently at her.
"Thanks."
And he knew that every birthday after this would remain the same because his parents just didn't really care.
But at least Sharpay cared.
HSMHSMHSMHSMHSM
It was several years later, both twins now in high school. In order to maintain her authority over the world, Sharpay had become a little less pleasant and a little icier to make sure everyone followed and obeyed her. This included pushing her brother around, forcing him to audition with her for every school musical because, as of that time, she had no other boy with which to do so. Not that he minded. Secretly, he had an uninhibited passion for the theater and performance. Auditioning with his sister was the perfect excuse to do so and not seem utterly unnatural.
No matter how hard she pushed and bossed him around, though, he could rest in knowing that she cared, which was more than he could say for the rest of his peers. After all, they had been close their entire lives. She didn't show it as often anymore, but her feelings of sibling love couldn't possibly change.
Could they?
He passed by her dressing room, smiling to himself in satisfaction at his own performance today. He held his water bottle and his towel was slung over his left shoulder as he exited the stage. But he heard Sharpay mention his name, so he stopped and listened in.
"…the performance today, Sharpay? How'd it go?" asked someone whose voice he could not recognize.
"Horrible," she scoffed, "Ryan never makes his cue and he looks like he's tripping over his own feet all the time."
He grinned bitterly. It's what he'd expect her to say. Nothing more, nothing less.
But it was about to become something more.
"Really? I thought you guys did a pretty good job," said the angel in disguise. He guessed this was one of Sharpay's many loyal followers.
She snorted. "A pretty good job, my butt. We sucked. End of statement, and it's all Ryan's fault. I swear, I can't stand him anymore. I need a new partner and fast. He's an idiot. He needs to take a long walk off a short pier."
His heart stopped beating and his breath caught in his throat. He knew that Sharpay criticized him to his face, but the fact that she was so cruel behind his back left him a little disconcerted.
"I need a new partner and fast…"
He could handle criticism. He could handle her backstabbing. He could handle her advice to fall into a lake.
But this was abandonment. And he could not handle being abandoned…again.
She would ditch him without a second thought.
She no longer cared.
HSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSM
Sharpay let the door slam behind her, to let the house know she was present. She saw her brother sitting at the kitchen table and decided now was as good a time as any.
"Ryan, I need to talk to you…" she began, but he didn't let her finish.
"Let me guess. You're going to audition with someone else for the musical. You don't want me to be your partner," he said.
She glared at him. "How did you know…?"
He looked up at her. If she had been paying attention, she would have noticed the deep hurt in his eyes. She would have seen his inner pain and cried out that she loved him. But she didn't. Because currently she didn't care.
He shrugged loosely. "Lucky guess. Or a little birdy told me. Or any of those other lame sayings for 'I overheard you'. Good luck with your show," he said quietly before rising from his seat at the table and skulking slowly upstairs.
She stared after him for awhile, but then simply shook her head, dismissing this little confrontation and slipping into her own room. She had to get ready for her date with Zeke tonight. Perhaps she could ask him to be her partner. After all, they did seem to have a sort of magical chemistry together that could potentially shine through in their performance. And he would do ANYTHING to please her, including rehearsing for long hours to make sure he got everything down just the way she liked it.
HSMHSMHSMHSMHSM
He sat on his bed with his head in his hands three hours later. Though to him, time was no longer important and it wasn't something he could fathom. He'd been thinking much too hard. He tentatively lifted his head and stared into his mirror. A lone tear finally escaped his eyes and he scowled at his weakness. Picking up a pillow, he threw it at the mirror and that sent it crashing to the floor. He stiffened, hoping no one had noticed (but secretly hoping someone had). No one came, and he stared at the floor. The maid must not be home. This was nothing new. Ever since the twins had been old enough to be left alone, she came around less and less because she wasn't needed.
And because she didn't care about him.
A thunderbolt shook the house, but he barely noticed. His parents didn't come check on him either. He chuckled hollowly at the absurdity of the thought. They only came around for about one week in the summer and for major holidays. They were never home because they were always out on business. Because they were too busy.
Because they didn't care about him.
He didn't see Sharpay running up to make sure he was alright. Surely she would have heard the shattering of a mirror. Surely, if she cared, she would have rushed upstairs to check on him. But she didn't come because she currently hated him and his inadequacy compared to her fabulous perfection.
Because she didn't care.
A flash of lightning lit up his room and he stared outside his window at the gusting winds and heavy rainfall. The water droplets falling from the sky mixed in with the blurriness of his vision caused by the water droplets falling from his eyes. Another crack of thunder shook the house. Normally, he was frightened to the point of paralyzing trauma of thunderstorms. But not this time. He just sat in neutrality. In impartiality. Why?
Because he didn't care.
This realization struck him and the tears continued to fall from his eyes, even though he no longer felt distraught. He no longer felt anything. The tears were just a force of habit.
What was the point if no one cared about him? Why should he stick around in this miserable life if it had no purpose and no one to worry for him? He immediately stood up and stumbled down the stairs. He came to a stop in front of the garage door. This was his last chance.
"I'm going out for a drive. I might not come back…" he let his sentence trail off, hoping that it would entice the listener. Hoping beyond hope that somebody—anybody—would burst out of a room and throw his or her arms around him to show that he or she cared.
But that didn't happen.
Because no one cared.
And that was enough for him.
He tore open the garage door and jumped into his car. He started it up and pulled back out of the garage, his vision severely impaired by his water-filled eyes. He screeched down their street with no intention of coming back. He was headed for the lake.
HSMHSMHSMHSMHSM
Sharpay ran into her house from the rain about fifteen minutes later. Zeke had just dropped her off after their date. She had almost asked him to be her partner, but something in her brother's eyes earlier had prohibited her from even mentioning that she needed a new one. She began to squeeze the rain water out of her clothes, but then stopped when she realized something was horribly wrong.
Where was he?
He always greeted her when she came home. Especially in a thunderstorm, when he usually clung to anybody with a desperate desire to get away from his worst fear. She made her way to his room and peeked in the door, surprised to find that he wasn't there, but even more bewildered at the fact that his mirror lay shattered on the floor. It must have fallen when she was gone because she definitely would have heard something like that.
After walking through the entire house and finding not a trace of her brother, Sharpay began to feel extremely uneasy. She opened the garage door and was horrified to see his car gone. He hardly ever came out of his room when there was a storm. He would NEVER drive in one unless absolutely necessary.
Suddenly, whether by her own deduction and intuition or by some sort of shared telepathy between the twins, the events that led up to this seemed to fall into place and Sharpay felt her stomach twist into a terrible knot and she fell to her knees on the floor.
Oh my God, what have I done?
HSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSM
His target was in sight and he pressed harder on the gas pedal, willing himself to end his misery faster. His car sped across the pier and flew into the air for a few seconds of absolute thrill out of danger, though he felt none of it. It crashed astoundingly hard into the water and began to sink faster than he could have ever imagined.
Once it had filled up with water above his head, his body's instincts automatically took over and he attempted desperately to open the door and unbuckle his seatbelt at the same time, panicking. His mind was fighting to stay alive, but his heart was already dead, wanting to take the rest of him with it.
Eventually, he ran out of strength to do anything more. He tried to take futile breaths of air habitually, but of course, nothing came of it. Nothing but water filling his lungs. It was as if the lake wanted him; wanted to claim his life for its own.
As if it cared about him.
At this minor last thought, he smiled softly and slowly drifted away…
HSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSM
She had called her parents that night, before she knew anything for certain (though a part of her did, indeed, know for certain). She'd told them her brother was in trouble, and they had hesitated, asking what kind of trouble and if it was important enough to cancel "one of the most important business meetings of their careers". She'd said of course it was and it was the most serious thing to ever have happened. There was no doubt he was either hurt or dead. It was only upon those words that her parents decided that this was a problem worthy of their presence at home.
It wasn't until later that night that her suspicions were confirmed by a call from the police. A spectator had seen a car go out of control and fly off the pier into the lake. They'd found the car and her brother's body inside of it. She'd thrown up. It was bad enough that he'd done this. It was worse that he'd chosen to do it the way she'd so cruelly suggested earlier.
At the funeral, it seemed the entire student body and almost every teacher showed up. They were shocked, having had no hints or clues as to his situation. Maybe it was because they never took the time to get to know him, she deduced angrily.
And she hated them for that.
But then why hadn't she noticed? She'd distanced herself from him lately, having Zeke and an entire crowd to surround herself with; she was completely fine with the prospect of not doing things with her sibling anymore. She should have thought of things from his point of view, but she couldn't. She couldn't because she was selfish. A selfish, icy bitch.
And she hated herself for that.
Her parents blamed themselves (as right they should) for not being there for him and for her. They vowed to stay around home for a long while now, to make sure their daughter was all right and didn't stoop to anything extreme like this. They couldn't stand losing another child.
And she hated them for that.
His casket still sat in the front of the church after the funeral. The world seemed to be a hazy blur around her as she walked up to it. Everyone left her alone, not knowing any words to say that would comfort or make it hurt any less. And they were right.
"I love you, Ryan," she whispered, touching the smooth wood of his casket and running her hand slowly up and down its length.
She looked back at the large crowd buzzing around behind her and wished he had been there to see that everyone cared.
To see that she cared most of all.
But none of them had shown him that. And now it was too late.
Because he was gone.
Like? Hate? Undecided? Let me know. Leave a review and let me know how I did with my first angsty High School Musical fanfiction. Thanks, peeps.