A/N: Oneshot only I decided to make. Don't worry. 7 Days to Love's last chapter will up soon enough. No exact date. Review if you like this story…
Disclaimer: I do not own the name character on this story. I only own the storyline and title. Nothing less nothing more.
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It's never been easy
Have you ever felt that a certain guy will broke the wall around you and will start to notice you? Well, for me it worked. I'm Gabriella Montez and this is my story. But it's never been easy.
It all started when I moved back here in Albuquerque, New Mexico – my hometown. That's right. Albuquerque is my hometown before we move to different places. The place where I never knew will be a part of my life. The place where someone will notice me.
East High, the school I never knew that I will exist. Know why? Out of all schools I attended, East High is the only school that I felt so welcomed. Only school that has cliques – from jocks, cheerleaders, brainiacs, etc. Where do I belong? I belong to the brainiacs. I know I should belong to the other cliques but none of them fits me. Only the brainiac group is the only group I belong.
To tell the truth, I have been bullied from all schools I had attended, but this one is different. My bully is different. Who is that person? That person is Troy Bolton. The Golden Boy of East High. Captain of the basketball team called Wildcats. The guy that changed because of… me.
Do you know when I noticed him to change? It was 6 months since I transferred to that school. I don't know why he had changed but it never, repeat, never surprised me.
FLASHBACK
I was walking at the hallways of East High when I suddenly felt weird. Someone is looking at me. Waiting at my locker. When I had reached my locker, I saw Troy Bolton and his posse. He walk towards me and started to talk.
"So genius. Do you have my homework with you?" He started with a laugh from his posse.
"Excuse me?" I asked
"You heard me. If you don't give me my assignment, I will hang you up at the basketball net on the gym" He threatened, whispering into my ear.
I got scared at the moment. I didn't move but I felt that someone from his group grabbed my bag and started to search for my homework.
"Have you found it?" He asked to one of his friends.
"Here it is" Chad replied. The good ol' Chad who has afro hair, slow mind, annoying attitude and mostly, he is best friends with Troy – the guy I hated so much.
"Good. Give me the paper" He commanded to Chad. He gave Troy the paper and Troy leaned in to my ear to whisper, "I believe this is mine now. If you have anything against to what I am doing, I suggest you stay away from it."
He laughs standing straight and brushing his arms against mine forcefully as I hit my back at the lock of the locker. I winced from pain. My bruise on the back had affected it from the impact. Some of the cheerleaders helped me when I started to fall from the ground. Truth – not all of the cheerleaders are bad.
After thanking them to help me, I turned on my heel and started to walk to homeroom. As I was walking, I knew that someone was watching me until I heard the person to yell my last name.
"MONTEZ!!" He yelled walking towards me
I walk as fast as I can to get to homeroom. I didn't succeed avoiding him. He grabbed my right arm but I winced from pain and I hide it immediately. I look at him for a moment and started to say, "You know, if you're going to beat me up again, go ahead. I don't care. I'm numbed from all of the pain you gave me."
"That's not it. I'm going to give you back your homework and I want to say sorry. I was just pressured and—" I cut him off before saying anything.
"I don't care what you will say to me. I need to go to homeroom or else I will get detention - which is I don't want to happen" I grabbed my homework from his hand and started to run to homeroom.
End of FLASHBACK
Right now, it's not a mystery to me anymore. It's never been that easy for me to trust people whom from the first place treated me differently like a normal person. I'm not an autistic person. Why treat me different?
One more thing that mystifies me is when he followed me home. I got nervous when someone had started to follow me. It feels like that he's stalking me and then will cover my eyes and going to drag me to an abandon house and will rape me and kill me afterwards. I know it's creepy but really, it never crossed my mind until to that moment in my life.
I want to run away from him but I knew that it will turn out very dangerous if I will do run. So, I calmed myself down and started to think of memories that will ease up my mind from the situation and act like that no one is following me but it never worked.
FLASHBACK
It's 4 in the afternoon and I was walking home from school when all of a sudden, I felt that someone is following me. When I had turned around, the person is not behind me. I got scared and started to fasten up my pace but the person is still following me. I started to calm myself down and tried to think of happy memories that will ease up my mind but it never worked.
I have no choice but to stop and wait for a moment until the person approach me instead of following me. After a moment, I felt that the person is gone. I started to walk away slowly. Taking 10 steps away from the last position I had stop. I felt his presence back again. I continued to walk. Not paying attention on the situation, I walk slowly and turned my face not stopping. That's when I saw Troy Bolton following me.
"What do you want now, Bolton??" I asked bitterly
"I don't want any thing. I just want to ask you something" He replied taking a step closer to me
"You can start now and one more thing…" I raised my right index finger and started again, "Don't dare stepping your feet to get closer to me. Or else you want me to report you for abuse" I threatened
"Okay. Um… Can I… ask if… if it is okay with you… do you have… a partner for…will you go with me to the dance?" He asked stammering on his words.
I stood frozen on my spot. I was starting to process what he had said when he started to talk again.
"It's okay if you will talk"
"What am I going to say?" I asked raising my right eye brow
"It will be okay if you would answer 'Yes'" He replied with hope
I chuckled, "You and me? Partners for the dance? I don't think so"
"Please, Gabriella. I don't know anyone who I will take to the dance" He pleaded
"You know all of the girls on the school. Why don't ask them?"
"Because, I want you to come with me."
"And why is that?" I asked shifting my body weight to the left with arms crossed
"Because I like you. That's why I'm asking you to the dance" He confessed. He likes me? I asked myself.
Awkward silence builds up. Once again, he broke up the silence.
"So… What do you say?" He asked again walking towards me.
I can't say anything to him I said to myself. I will ask him a question, that is, if he's smart enough to get what I am going to imply to the question.
"Do you know what's the answer if a person says that everything will be alright even if it will not going to be alright?" I asked
"Yes…"
"That one word would be?"
"No?" He replied more of a question
"Good. You got it" I replied turning on my heel and walk away.
I'll tell you. I saw that sadness is occupying his feelings right now. What can I do? He had hurt me before, now is the time to make revenge.
I turned around for the last time and ask him, "One more thing. How does it feel to be rejected? It hurts, doesn't it? That's what I felt when you always beat me up if I didn't gave you my homework." I confessed as I feel my tears builds up on my eyes.
End of FLASHBACK
Truth hurts. It does. It really really does. You know what hurts the most aside from being abused and humiliation? Getting jealous. I confess I got jealous at Troy when he brought a different girl to the dance. It hurts. It broke my heart. It hurt even more when I saw him kissing the girl.
Here's what happened when I saw that she's kissing the girl…
FLASHBACK
My heart starts to beat faster as I continued to watch Troy kiss the girl he brought to the dance. I want to run away. Run away from reality. Run away from everything. If I'm going to run away, it will only look like that I had given up. I'm a loser in other words. I don't want to be like that.
Enough is ENOUGH!! I can't take it anymore. I got up from my chair and run down the hall of the school. I freely let out my tears. I don't care if anyone will saw it. I cannot control it even how hard I try to cover it up. Eyes will show the truth.
I ran as fast as I can until my feet hurts and knees gave up. I leaned my back to a hard, cold wall. Slipping slowly, eyes covered with my hands as the tears falls uncontrollably. I heard footsteps approaching down the hall. I don't care if someone will walk on me now. I heard the person stop; I looked at the person with bloodshot eyes. The person looks at me with a smile and sat down to look at me clearly.
Tears falls again from my eyes as the person hugged me. I never knew that Troy will follow me and comfort me at this moment. I knew he is smiling as he rub my back to sooth me.
"Stop crying. I don't want to see you cry" He said to me as he continued to rub my back
"How can I stop if my heart is breaking?" I replied hoarsely
"Hey" he looked at me "don't get jealous. I already told you that I like you" he said wiping my tears away.
"I am not jealous!! And I don't like you, okay? I—" he cut me off by crashing his lips into mine. My eyes grew wide but I didn't kiss him back.
As he pulled away, he smiled at me. I don't know what to do. I lifted my right hand and slapped his face. He touched the left side of his face and looked at me angry.
"It would be nice if you should have said that you don't love me than slap me!" he said in an angry voice
"I was just going to say that but you kissed me!" I replied with the same tone he used
He stood up and looked at me dead in the eye. I don't know what happened next but I felt that he had kicked me and my head hit the wall behind. I fell on the floor with blood flowing out of head.
End of FLASHBACK
The night when he left me on the cold floor of the halls on East High, I doubt that I will live again as I got unconscious for merely an hour after he left. Next thing I knew is that I was on the hospital. Probably, someone saw me lying on the ground with blood flooding around my body.
I just wished I never had survived that tragedy. I just wished that I got amnesia so that I can't remember anything that had happened. But it's never been that easy.
FLASHBACK
I'm lying down on my hospital bed hours after the doctor had checked up on me. My head is aching every time I move. This is all Troy's fault. If he didn't have kicked me, I will not be here. He should've fired a gun at me 10 times so that I'm totally dead by now.
The pain that resides in my body right now is not coming from the pain I am feeling from my head. It's the pain coming from the heart and the guiltiness I made. I shouldn't have slapped him. Mostly, I shouldn't have fall from him in the first place. What can I do? It's not easy to stop my heart from falling.
The door opened all of a sudden. I stared wide eye at the person on the doorway. What is he doing here? I asked myself. I looked away before I stared long at him.
"What are you doing here?" I asked coldly
"I'm here to visit you. Are you feeling fine now?" He asked, concern evident in his voice
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm perfectly fine" I replied sarcastically. "You know, you should've shot me 10 times than kicked me and left me unconscious at school last night. That would've been better."
"I'm sorry about what happened last night. I regretted doing it. I knew that I had hurt you badly" He said walking towards the side of my bed. "I'm sorry, Gabriella. Please forgive me"
I scoffed, "Forgive you? What the hell?! Troy, forgiving you is not easy! Let alone killing me!" I looked at him "And thanks, Troy, for saying you are sorry. Sorry will not mend the pain I'm feeling right now. It will not mend the pain I'm feeling from my head and from the pain I felt from my bruises you left after beating me up at school. I'm lucky that the cheerleaders and other students care for me. Even the jocks of different sports team on school care for me. If not for them, my bruises will get more painful if it not cured earlier" I said, madness evident on my voice.
"Y-you have bruises? How? Where?" He said stuttering and panicking.
I felt his hand touch my whole body and I winced from pain when he had touched my bruise, "OW! You know" I brushed his hands off my body "you better leave before I call security. Plus, I don't need your pity for me. It's your entire fault. Don't get all pity towards me because it won't and wouldn't work. Comprende?"
End of FLASHBACK
At that moment, I knew that he had understood what I had said. Boy, I was wrong. He only continued getting all pity on me but in a different way. How I wish I had never told him that. My gosh!
Every time that I will walk down the hall of East High, he always comes up to me and grabs my bag and books like he's my boyfriend. Protects me from people that always bully me every time they saw my face, taking care of me when I get hurt at gym class, and lastly, he always drives me home.
Now, I'm sitting at the cafeteria thinking on how to tell Troy that I love him since he had changed his treatment to me. How I saw his love for me since he confessed that he love me. How am I going to—
"Hey" a voice cut off my thoughts
I looked up and replied, "Hey, Troy"
"So… What are you doing?" he asked casually. Oh, God, how I love the way he talk to me.
"Just thinking about something." I said and started to play with the food on my tray. "Um… Troy?"
"Yes, Gabby?" he replied
"Can I tell you something?"
"Sure. Anything you want to tell me"
"Okay. But not here. Meet me after school?" I asked
"You can tell me now. First, we need to find a place where no one can hear us" he said grabbing my hand and leading me to a nearby closet.
"So… what's up?"
"I want to confess something" I started nervously.
"Go on"
"I'm… in love with a guy" I said
Troy took a moment to process what I had said before saying a word, "Oh…" All he can say with a sad face expression but he tried to cover it up. "Who's the guy? Do I know him?"
I can tell that he's not taking it up seriously. "You know him pretty well, Troy. To tell the truth, he's the one that made me go insane." Receiving not emotion from him or any thing I continued, "Because that guy is… you" I said, whispering the last word.
We stood in an awkward silence, 'cause I knew he didn't heard what I had said earlier. I can't take it anymore!
"You know, I can't take it anymore." With that, I pushed him onto the wall and started to kiss him. He got shocked on what I did but soon enough recovered and started to kiss me back.
Reluctantly pulling away, I had the courage to tell him how I felt, "I love you so damn much, Troy. I will not hide it anymore."
He pulled me closer to his and hugged me tight, "Gabby, you don't know how long I had waited for you to say that you love me too"
"I know, Troy. I know" I replied kissing him again. This time, taking us more than a minute before pulling away.
"Tell me. Why didn't you told it to me earlier when I had confessed my feelings for you?" He asked me pulling me closer to his body as if it is humanly possible.
I put my hands over his chest, "It's never been that easy." I replied leaning down and started to kiss him on his shoulder and leaving a mark.
"Don't tell me you just left a mark"
I smiled and didn't say anything.
"How am I going to cover it when I play basketball?" he asked
"You're a big boy now, Troy. You can think of something to cover it up. Right now, I want to enjoy the moment with you before the bell rings" I replied kissing him on the lips again.
Moments later, the bell rang. Troy and I walked out of the closet and kissed each other one last time before heading to class. I now know that today is the start of something beautiful with our relationship. Despite of what had happened between the two of us, I knew that it's never been that easy to hide my feelings anymore from him.
- The End -