Keep Believing
Both Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez live double lives. Neither believes there's much hope left in the world, but after meeting each other, will they find that there's something worth living for after all?
Chapter 1
"Coach, you can't really believe that I would give up this position, right?" His bright blue eyes lit up excitedly as the older man smiled at him, the silver whistle around his neck glinting imperiously.
"Of course you're not. If you were, I'd have to talk to the principal."
"I saved you some time, then!"
Coach Rogers patted the brown haired boy's shoulder. "Just remember, Troy. Basketball isn't everything, as much as we'd all like it to be. Keep up your school work, all right? Or else I'm gonna have to kick you off the team. And I definitely don't want to do that to the new captain of varsity!"
"You can count on it, Coach," Troy said, bouncing the rubbery orange ball twice before shooting.
"Nothing but net! That's my boy!" Rogers laughed his booming laugh before shoving Troy out the door. "Now get out of here. You need to tell your friends, don't you?" He smirked at him.
Troy ran out of the gym, his sneakers squeaking on the wood floor. A huge head of hair leapt at him the moment he exited.
"Did you get it? Did Coach make you captain? I mean, he loves you. He couldn't have called you to stay 'cause you got in trouble…"
He could only reply with one of the cheekiest grins he could muster.
"ALL RIGHT!" Chad yelled. Several students stared. "TROY BOLTON IS NOW CAPTAIN OF THE VARSITY BASKETBALL TEAM!"
That was the key. Suddenly, swarms of people dressed in red and white grouped around Troy, giving him their congratulations and even trying to touch him. He gulped nervously. Of course he was on top of the world right now, but he had to get away from all these people. Even if he did love the attention and the cheerleaders flirting with him, this had a slight claustrophobic feeling.
Mumbling sorry's and excuse me's to the people who got in his way of escape, Troy slipped out of their grasps and hightailed it. Once he was a few yards away, he could hear Chad's loud shout and laughed quietly.
"WHERE DID TROY GO?!"
He climbed a familiar flight of stairs and exhaled a huge breath as he breathed the sweet scent of the Science Club's garden. Except…He stopped short. There was already someone there.
She was pretty and petite, with curly dark brown hair that cascaded down her back and gold, tan skin. In any other situation, he would have just sprinted away and come back later, when this mystery girl wasn't here. In fact, he had no idea who she was. He'd never seen her before in school. If there was something he was sure of, he definitely would have remembered her had he passed her in the hallways.
She probably sensed someone else was there, because her head snapped to where he was standing. Her eyes widened and she quickly got up.
"Oh, um, am I not supposed to be here? I-I'll leave." A ruby blush flooded her cheeks and Troy smiled, brushing his brown gold locks of hair out of his cerulean eyes.
"It's fine. Nobody really cares, anyway. I just come up here sometimes."
She looked at him and spoke again, in a soft, sweet voice. "Do you…own this place?"
Troy laughed. "I'd love to. But no, this is the Science Club's garden. One of the people on it told me about this place, actually. Only me and them know about it." He stopped. "I guess you do now too."
She started, seeming to think his tone was uninviting. "I won't come up here anymore if you don't want me to. I'll forget it all. It was just that it was free period and I had nowhere to go, and I saw this place from outside, so I decided to take a look…"
He chuckled. "It's fine. I don't mind. Not that I should be giving you permission to do anything. After all, I don't own this place."
She seemed to think it was safe, that she wouldn't get in trouble. Stepping forward, Troy extended his hand.
"I'm Troy Bolton."
"I'm Gabriella Montez." Gabriella smiled sweetly, but didn't move forward to take Troy's hand. She coughed nervously and shied away even more. Troy dropped his hand. They were both submerged in what you could only call awkward silence.
When the bell rang, both rushed to the door.
"What class do you have next?" asked Troy.
"Um…Calculus."
"How lucky. I do too. I can show you there." He started off down the hall with her trailing behind him. The entire way, people greeted him with various compliments on how he managed to earn the captaincy of the basketball team.
Gabriella caught up with him. "Basketball captain, huh?" she asked, smiling slightly.
"Yup!" Troy said proudly.
"You must be really good, then. I heard that East High is one of the best high schools in basketball. Only defeat was…" She tapped her chin, looking cute as she deliberated. "Championship game last year, right?"
"Wow," Troy said, impressed. "You did your homework."
"I just decided to do some research before I came. I move a lot, and I've learned that knowing more about a place makes it less difficult to fit in."
"What do you mean by 'a lot'?"
"Basically almost every state in the country. We just haven't yet gone to Wyoming, Colorado, Connecticut, and…Ohio." She counted it off on her fingers.
Troy inhaled sharply. "Okay, that is a lot. Me, I've never moved before."
Gabriella sighed. "Lucky you."
"I know, huh? Here we are." He beckoned her into the classroom and sat down in a chair near Ryan Evans. He saw her sit down next to a dark skinned girl called Taylor McKessie. Ten minutes into the class, and they already seemed to be best friends.
From Calculus, Troy learned one very noticeable fact.
Gabriella Montez was possibly the smartest girl he had ever met.
She answered all the questions without a problem and even corrected the teacher when she made a mistake.
Taylor looked like she had just gone to heaven. Troy could practically see the gears working behind her head, thinking of a way to get this girl into her various genius clubs.
After the last bell of the day rang and students poured out of the school doors, anxious to get home, Troy slowly walked to his old white truck. He tried to be as slow as humanly possible. Still, it was too early when he got home. The moment he stepped into his house, he saw the broken antique vase his grandmother had sent to his mother for her birthday.
It was smashed on the ground, shards of white china lying everywhere. At least the screaming had stopped.
"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? I THOUGHT WE'D BEEN THROUGH THIS BEFORE!"
Or maybe not.
"Honey, I'm just saying, it may not be as good an idea as we thought previously." His mother's soft voice echoed through the closed master bedroom door, seemingly louder than his father's yells.
"NO, YOU AGREED, AND WE ARE GOING TO DO IT! YOUR DAD IS AN OLD MAN AND IT'S HIGH TIME THAT HE BE SENT TO THE SENIOR HOME INSTEAD OF STRESSING US ALL OUT!"
Troy winced. His grandpa wasn't at all annoying. He could still remember when Grandpa Dave played basketball with him when he was a little kid. His dad just seemed to find fault in everything his grandpa did, and nagged his mother repeatedly about sending him to a senior home.
"But…"
His mother's sentence was cut off by something else crashing to the ground. Troy wanted to help, but he flashed back to the promise he had made.
"Lucille! Get back here right now!"
"Mommy, why is Daddy being so mean?" whimpered Troy.
"He's not being mean. Mommy just did something wrong, and he's going to show her how to correct it, okay? It's nothing you need to worry about, sweetie. Just go and play, and Mommy will be out soon to make you something to eat." She smiled at him.
"No, I'm coming with Mommy."
His mom's eyes became wider than usual and she quickly knelt down so she was at his eye level.
"Now, honey, I need you to promise me that you will never interfere with whatever Daddy's doing. If you do, you might get in trouble, and Mommy doesn't want you to get hurt. So, promise?"
"But-"
"Mph!" She held a finger over his lips. "Just promise."
"Promise, Mommy."
"That's my good boy Troy." She kissed his forehead before opening the bedroom door. Troy skipped towards the screen door to go out to the yard, but before he opened it, he heard another sickening crash.
He was a wimp. A chicken, a wuss, whatever synonym there was for being a complete, utter idiot.
He was scared of what his dad could do. So he let his mom face everything alone. He used the excuse of being bound by his promise so that he wouldn't have to deal with any of the pain. Sure, he'd tried. But instead of coming to any use, he had just endangered his mom even more.
His dad was evil. He spent money on alcohol and abused his mom. Troy had often been caught in the crossfire, but nothing too harmful had come out of it.
Nobody at school knew. Even Chad, his best friend, had no idea. They just thought he was shy when he refused to allow people to come to his house. It made him even more desirable. The girls contended, each hoping to be the first to be let into Troy Bolton's private bubble.
It was a position of the highest honor in East High. Little did the student body know that Troy never intended this to happen. Nothing would break his impenetrable barrier, and he never would have thought it would all soon come crashing down.