Author's Note: I will try to write happier stories, but the best ideas that come to mind are always horribly sad, such as this one. Please review.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the general plot.
What Would You Say?By musiclover94
"Troy?"
"Yeah, Gabi?" Troy said to his wife.
Gabriella made to ask him about how the new grill worked, but no sound came out. She looked something like a fish out of water, but nothing could look less amusing.
"Gabriella? Are you all right?" Troy asked, sounding worried and panicked as he looked at his wife of twenty years struggle to speak.
Gabriella gave a great gasp and said, rather hoarsely, "I'm fine, Troy. Just typical stuff nowadays." She picked up their one-year daughter Isabella and rocked her. Troy still looked increasingly worried.
"Gabriella, I think you should go see a doctor about this. I mean, they are getting pretty frequent right? Where you can barely breath for minutes at a time?" he said, looking as serious as he could when their two other kids, Shane, who was nine, and Jake, who was four were swarming around his ankles like dogs.
Gabriella considered this for a moment and then finally said, more quietly still, "Okay. I'll make an appointment as soon as I can."
"Hello, is this Greffer Family Practice?" Gabriella asked the following week after dropping Shane off at school.
"Yes it is," said a calm voice on the other end.
"Can I schedule an appointment to check on my throat?" she asked, blushing slightly.
"Sure…does Friday sound okay with you?"
"Yeah, thanks," Gabriella said graciously and hung up, heaving a sigh.
"Well, the only thing wrong with your throat, Mrs. Bolton, is that you have severe and undiagnosed allergies," the doctor said, handing her several bottles of medications Gabriella couldn't pronounce.
"Thanks," she said, adjusting Isabella on her arm as she got out her checkbook.
The next night, Gabriella got out the slip of paper on which the doctor had scrawled a calendar of when she should take her half-dozen meds.
"Hmm…." She said to herself as she consulted the list, "it's Gede for Saturday…" She took a swallow of the liquid, which tasted horribly of stale water. She quickly got out a glass of water and doused it down.
"Mommy," Jake asked, looking up at Gabriella with his mother's eyes, "can you read me a bedtime story?"
Gabriella smiled down and said, "Sure, sweetie. I'll be there in a second."
"See you later, honey," Troy said, checking is briefcase one last time before kissing his wife goodbye.
Almost immediately after locking lips, Gabriella felt the all too familiar closing of her throat right above her voice box. She broke apart and staggered around blindly, clutching her throat and trying to speak, but nothing came out. Her face was turning a shade of blue and her eyes were bulging madly.
Troy's eyes widened and he thought wildly about what to do. He ran at his wife, and wrapping two arms around her middle and did the Heimlich Maneuver. A great lurch and Gabriella spat something put that looked something horribly like blood.
"Gabriella, I'm getting you to a hospital right this minute." He tried to sound commanding, but his voice was shaking and the arm pulling Gabriella to the door had turned white and was shaking as well.
"Troy…I'm fine….your job…" Gabriella said weakly.
"I'm not leaving until you're safe with doctors, Gabriella," he said, starting the car and pulling out of the driveway.
"Hello, I'm Troy Bolton and my wife is sick," Troy said as they half-ran to the front desk.
"Please go to Room 34," the receptionist said sweetly.
"Thanks," he said, half-pulling Gabriella to the room. She had turned a pale green tinge and was swaying.
She awoke and saw a figure swimming before her unfocused eyes. She sat up and tried to swallow, but felt a gauze-like material in her throat.
"Gabriella, we have taken cell samples from your throat and voice box, and we found some bad news deep-rooted in there," the nurse said, trying to look friendly, but her smile looked more like the kind a parents gives their child when they tell the, their puppy died.
"What is it?" Gabriella asked, but couldn't say much more. A sharp, intense pain shot through her throat as of someone had set a match to it.
"You have Stage 3 malignant throat cancer. Mrs. Bolton? Mrs. Bolton!"
Gabriella had fainted on the spot. When she awoke again, she was lying on the floor in a spread-eagled fashion and her head was throbbing painfully. She sat up with enormous pain and difficulty.
"I have throat cancer?" Gabriella asked groggily, looking at the nurse.
"We can still preserve your throat. Well, most of it," the nurse added unreassuringly, "We'll have to remove the part where the cancer lies, which is the voice box."
"So…so I won't be able to talk ag-again?" Gabriella asked, turning paler than ever.
"Yes, I'm afraid so, Miss," the nurse said.
Gabriella almost fainted again, but the nurse propped up her prone figure on some pillows.
Gabriella awoke. A blood-red sunset met her eyes and made her squint. It must have been hours later.
Gabriella looked around at her surroundings. She was in the same room she was in earlier that day. She was propped messily against half a dozen pillows.
Someone was sitting in the hard plastic chairs by her bedside. She thought she recognized the dark brown head.
"Troy…is that you?" Gabriella asked, in a voice barely above a whisper.
The figure stirred. "Brie, is that you?" he asked, his groggy voice filled with concern.
"Yeah, it's me," she said, trying to laugh but winced from the reappearing pain.
"Don't speak," Troy said.
"I'm not going to have very much speaking time left, Troy," Gabriella said.
"What do you mean?" he asked, his voice higher than usual.
"I have throat cancer, Troy," Gabriella said weakly.
"Wh-what?" Troy stuttered, turning paler still.
"Stage 3 and malignant," Gabriella said, closing her eyes and sinking against the pillows.
"No-no….this can't be…" Troy said. Gabriella inferred that he was pacing the room near her bed.
"And the only way they can save me is to cut out my voice box," she said.
Troy did a double take. "But that…that means that…"
"That I won't be able to talk anymore after the surgery, yes," Gabriella said.
"Sp there's no…no way they can save-?"
"No, it's either I lose my voice forever or I die."
"When's the surgery?" Troy asked after a moment.
"Two weeks."
The camcorder was set, everything was in place. Gabriella took a shallow breath, because that's all she could muster these days. She pressed PLAY and started to talk…
"Hello. My name is Gabriella Frida Montez and these are the last words you will ever hear me say. I just want to say that I love you all, especially my husband Troy and our kids Isabella, Jake, and Shane. Even though Mommy can't say it anymore, she loves you, loves you more than you can even imagine," She felt hot tears flow down her face. She wiped them away, wanting to stay strong for her kids, "And to anyone I have hurt, I am sorry. Sorry to Sharpay for stealing her role in Twinkle Towne and her crush, sorry to everyone. Actually, sorry to virtually every girl at East High for dating Troy," She smiled at the thought, "To Mrs. Darbus, for giving me my first role. To all my friends, you were my rock all through high school. To Chad, who helped me find the best water fountains in the school," she smiled again, "To Ryan, for showing me how to do a jazz square, to Taylor, who prevented me from accidentally blowing up the school on countless occasions, to Kelsi, for helping us with the Mid-Summer Night Talent Show and Twinkle Towne, to Jason, who showed me how to spin a basketball on my finger, to Sharpay, for helping me with the musical, whether you knew it or not. And finally, to my husband Troy. For being my first love, first date, first everything. I love you with all my heart and more; even of I can't express it verbally. I love you all more than I can say. Goodbye." She turned the STOP button on the camera and let the long-standing tears fall thick and fast into her lap.
Tuesday: surgery day. Gabriella, Troy, who was holding Isabella, followed by Jake and Shane.
"Mrs. Gabriella Bolton?" the surgeon called to the dead silent waiting room.
Gabriella turned to her family. She wordlessly handed the, the tape she had made four days previously. "I love you all so much," she said quietly and gave them each a hug.
"I love you," she whispered into Troy's ear.
"I love you too, Gabriella," he said back, tears threatening to spill over.
Seven hours later, Gabriella awoke to find herself situated in a surrounded by her family, her friends, everyone she held dear to her heart.
"How do you feel?" Gina Montez asked her only child, pushing some hair off her face.
Gabriella looked around, looking for a way to convey her words. She spotted a whiteboard and wrote 'horrible' on it. Her throat felt like lead.
Gabriella picked up a mirror lying next to the board. She put it up to her throat and saw that she had a long red scar where they had cut open her throat to remove her voice box.
It looked grotesquely like a jagged red necklace.
Gabriella looked around at the other people in the room. There was Kelsi, Sharpay, Ryan, Jason, Chad, Taylor, Gabriella's parents and, finally, Troy sitting in a corner, apparently too stricken for words. Gabriella's father handed her Isabella. She wrote carefully 'Hey Bella sweetie' on it, but when Isabella saw it, she just gave Gabriella a very confused look. It hit Gabriella like a train: Isabella couldn't read. She felt, perhaps, the saddest she had been in her whole life as a new wav of tears snaked down her face.
"Hey sweetie," Troy said gently to Gabriella, who was lying on their bed at home.
She scribbled 'Hey Troy. How are the kids?' on the well-used whiteboard she had gotten from the hospital.
"Jake and Shane say that they miss their mommy telling them they love them, Troy said gently. Gabriella's already leaden-like throat felt five pounds heavier as a fresh lump of tears formed in her throat, the throat that had flipped her life around.
Author's Note: I got the general idea for this from an episode of Inside Edition I saw today. I almost cried writing this, as you probably did too. Please review!