August
Gabriella Montez wakes up on the second day of her first year of university completely terrified. Not about her classes, which don't seem to be any harder than high school, or even about making friends, which she frankly couldn't care less about at the moment; instead, her heart is racing and her palms are damp and her stomach aches because she's suddenly realized that her and Troy have completely different lives.
She hadn't thought about it last night, after telling each other about their respective first days at college, and talking so long her phone had become hot and burning against her ear. She hadn't thought about the fact that they'll meet different people, learn different things, experience different events. All summer long she could only focus on the fact that he would be here with her, only forty-five minutes away, practically breathing the same air as her. But now, with his voice replaying last night's conversation in her head, the sheer unknown that is Troy's life is overwhelming. No matter how many details he uses to describe his friends and his classes and his teammates, she'll never know them the way he does. There's no such thing as mutual friends now; their separateness is strong enough to divide life, and the people involved, into his and hers.
She's scared that the sheer proximity of high school was what had kept them together so long; that propinquity is the only explanation for the ridiculous rightness she feels with him, for him, because of him. She's scared that the very foundation she's building her new life on is made up of girlish assumptions that will shatter in the face of the real world: time, distance, impossible schedules, and a world full of people who couldn't care less about the story of Troy and Gabriella.
October
The separateness of their lives makes her see their differences so much more clearly now. It had been difficult to notice back in Albuquerque, where their lives had been so connected. From their very first meeting, their lives have been so intertwined, so similar; though she'd been in a science lab most of the time while he'd been in the gym, their lives had revolved around the same building, the same people, the same events. High school was so insular that nothing went unnoticed or unmentioned; their lives had been lived in each other's pockets.
But here, separate for the first time, she can see themselves for who they truly are. Instead of focussing on individual traits, like his stubbornness or her practicality, they are now whole people. She can see Troy and herself as complete people, and she realizes that they are intrinsically opposite.
She is a Thinker, and he is a Doer.
Her days are spent sitting in creaky desks with books piled in front of her, while he walks the boards of stages and runs suicides in gyms. She has brilliant ideas, but never the skill, or maybe the bravery, to see those ideas come into fruition. Without Troy around, she lives her life inside her head, where theories and dates and laws keep her occupied and motionless.
The thing is, it's so easy to slip back into who she used to be, before Albuquerque. In that strange hectic time in the winter of her sixteenth year, Gabriella had gone from invisible to centre stage and somehow she'd stayed there during her entire time at East High. But now that there's no spotlight on her, no curious eyes constantly watching her, no Troy to elevate her into something more—she has to wonder who she really is. She'd spent sixteen years as a nobody, and a year and a half as the one, but where was the middle ground? She doesn't like extremes; she likes order and structure and rules, but her life is rife with dichotomies and contradictions.
She knows that the odds are against them; she's not blind to the expression on people's faces when they realize she's one half of the massively derided high school sweethearts. Her new friends admire his butt, not his sincerity. They tell her she'll never grow if she's in a long term relationship, that now is the time to be free and experiment.
Troy will stifle you, they declare, and one day you'll wake up, middle aged and decaying, and realize that you don't know who you are—that you never did, because you invested everything you had into a man.
Everyone knows you don't take the guy with you after high school.
December
She's walking in the pouring rain, trying to hold together the umbrella that the wind had just snapped, when she hears the unmistakable sound of squeaky brakes and a voice, instantly recognizable, calling her name. The smile builds on her face even before she turns around to see Troy inching along behind her, his window rolled down and water dripping from his now soaked head as he gestures for her to get in his rusty but relatively dry truck. At this very moment, she truly believes he is her knight in shining armour.
Except he's not, because as genuinely glad as he is to see her, he is also genuinely pissed off. He got a bad mark on an essay, and the theatre production is full of problems, and exams are freaking him out and he just doesn't know how he's going to make it to Christmas break. His voice washes over her, strident and pitched, and she knows she's supposed to be listening to him, sympathising and soothing, but all she can do watch his face and hands and the way his mouth twists his words.
He is impulsive, this man she's chosen. He's lazy when it comes to deadlines, and life comes too easy for him sometimes, with his charming smile and endearing hair smoothing paths better left bumpy. He is optimistic and naïve and annoyingly oblivious; he is also totally and unswervingly in love with her, blindly certain that life will ensure their happiness together. It hits her quietly and suddenly, after months of doubt and guilt and fear; she finally gets it. Sitting in Troy's old and dirty truck, her wet jeans sticking uncomfortably to her legs and the windows covered in a layer of opaque steam, she understands.
He is not her, and she is not him.
She is pessimistic and straightforward, pragmatic to the core. Her methods for living are strict and defined, and there is no room for blind faith in her logical brain. She knows what hard work is, and sacrifice is a recurring theme in her life. She is different from Troy, just as he is different from her. And that, she realizes, is what makes them perfect for each other. It's easy to forget, amongst the papers and the midterms and the unending obligations that are a student's life, exactly why they work so well together. Hurried phone calls and quick meetings punctuated by constant streams of people that need to be introduced and included into their collective lives have hidden the truth from her: they balance each other and push each other and frustrate each other, but always, always, they accept each other. And that, she knows, is what love is.
He jumps a little when she suddenly launches herself across the seats and into his lap, fingers grasping and tugging at his shirt and his hair and finally settling on his chest, holding the steady beats of his heart in her palms. She leans into his face, searching his eyes and cheeks and mouth in an effort to reconcile him with her new epiphany. And it fits perfectly, wrapping around him and her and this life they've chosen; it's always been there, just waiting for her to grow into it, into him, into herself. She smiles a little and whispers I missed you against his lips. His eyes warm and the muscles around his mouth relax. I missed you too.
February
The end is in sight.
Though they're only halfway through the winter semester, she can feel April exams looming, and she can't wait. Her mother is leaving soon, and Troy is moving in with her even sooner, and as stressful and frustrating as her life can be, it's also amazing.
They are adults now, really and truly, and as terrifying as the thought is, she relishes it. Finally, for the first time in their lives, they can just be. She hadn't realized how stifled they were in Albuquerque, where teachers and parents and friends and schedules had been constant constraints in monitoring their time together. It's all up to them now; their lives, their choices, their relationship. There is no excuse for failure, like there would have been had he gone to U of A. Long distance relationships, their friends would have stated wisely in the case of a break up, never work out. But being only 32.7 miles away from each other means that they don't have anything or anyone else to blame.
But the miles don't really matter anymore. They had spent Christmas apart when he went home to visit his parents, and they survived it just fine. To be perfectly honest, Christmas break without Troy was amazing. Not that she didn't miss him, because she did; she always misses him, even when he's only a short drive away. But with twenty-three days of alone time, Gabriella had realized that she could be okay without him. She'd slept in and caught up on all of her favourite shows, and she'd spent time with her mom and drank hot chocolate with her friends, and she enjoyed every minute. All of her doubts and worrying during the fall semester had served a purpose; maybe it had been her friends, or their constantly conflicting schedules, or the harsh realities of what it meant to live in the real world, but in the end, it just made her stronger, and in turn, made them stronger together.
They are adults now, and it finally feels real. Sometimes, when she was in high school, she'd wake up in the morning after a wonderful dream about a boy with blue-blue eyes who looked at her like she was goddess and she'd sigh over the sheer perfection of it all. Now, she can look across the small café table at a man with blue-blue eyes and messy hair in desperate need of a trim and a small stain of something on his white t-shirt and she sighs over how much she loves this impossibly disorganized creature.
This is perfection.
April
It's spring now, and she feels like she's glowing. She wakes up early one morning and lies quietly, revelling in the feeling of being sandwiched between the heat emanating from Troy and the warmth of the sun streaming through her windows. It is bright beneath her eyelids, and she smiles into the sound of his breathing.
Exams are frighteningly near, and the prospect of four months of freedom makes studying that much more painful. She's staying in Palo Alto, working at the university library, while Troy is taking on the job of research assistant for a sociology professor at Berkeley. He'll be commuting every day from her house; her mother left last month for Atlanta, helping to set up a new office there, and she won't be back until September.
It's just her and Troy now, living alone in her house for the entire summer, and she wants to giggle at the bubbling happiness that's taken up permanent residence in her chest. With classes done, and exams starting next week, they've been giddy with domesticity. Buying groceries together, doing the dishes together, going to bed together; it's like a fairy tale, except a million times better, because it's real and it's hers. She can even see it now, the happily ever after her father once promised her she'd have; she'd been six at the time, and thought that happily ever meant an unending supply of chocolate sundaes.
She knows better now.
She can see her future, their future, stretching out into the blinding horizon. She'll get a job in San Francisco after law school while he finishes grad school, or maybe he'll be performing at the Orpheus theatre. They'll live in Berkeley, because it's quieter and less expensive, and she'll wake up some mornings to the smell of Troy burning toast in another misguided but completely adorable attempt to make her breakfast in bed. And after they're married (a small ceremony on the beach; he'll cry, but so will she) they'll settle in Sausalito, because he loves to hike the hills and she loves the view of the bay. And they'll have three kids (Jake, Ryan, and Isabelle) and a dog (Max, a golden retriever).
Or maybe not.
Maybe they'll end up on the East Coast instead, or back in Albuquerque, or on a different continent altogether. It doesn't really matter though, because she can feel his breath on her neck, and his body, heavy and warm with sleep, resting against her back. She knows, as she pulls his arm more tightly around her and curves her body into his, that they're just at the beginning of their story, but they're with each other, and that's all that matters.