Hey, all! This is something I've had running through my mind for awhile now. We know in HSM3 that Gabriella is the valedictoian at graduation. the question I've had is: how exactly did she hear the news? How did Taylor handle the news? How did she tell her mom? This will be a 2-shot, but fear not! "Time Out" is not finished! I just had to take a time out of my own to get this one out of my brain and now that I have, I'll be able to focus on it again and will be returning to it soon! I hope yall enjoy!
And The Winner Is…
Another day of boring, dreary teachers droning on and on about mindless information that was supposed to be important. As Troy, Chad, and Jason all sat in their American Government class struggling to stay awake so as not to be busted and called out in front of the whole class yet again by Mr. Brown, Gabriella and Taylor sat on the other side of the room, busily taking the notes that they knew their boyfriends would somehow convince the to girls to let them borrow. The routine of the day had become very mundane, and the group of Wildcats had been overcome with a massive case of senioritis and were anxiously counting down the days until graduation. Only thirty days of school left…
This particular Wednesday had started off the same as any other. They sat in homeroom, listening to Ms. Darbus as she gave the morning announcements along with a few changes to the rehearsals which were scheduled for the week for the Senior musical. When the bell rang, Taylor and Gabriella separated from their boyfriends as the girls headed to their Advanced Placement Calculus class and the guys to American History. The separation would last through the first three classes, as the four of them plus Jason would join back up again during fourth period for American Government, during which they all knew the boys would fall asleep and the girls would reluctantly be required to carry the weight for the group of five and make sure their basketball playing friends would pass the class and graduate.
Just as Mr. Brown was in a deep lecture about the inner workings of the judicial system and the three branches of government, the intercom system buzzed, signaling an incoming announcement.
"Excuse me, Mr. Brown?" The voice of Mrs. Wilson, the guidance secretary, came through the intercom system, interrupting what the guys referred to as "Mr. Brown's snore fest".
"Yes?"
"Do you have Taylor McKessie and Gabriella Montez in class right now?" At the mention of the names of Mr. Brown's prize students, the heads of every student in the classroom snapped around to look at the two girls. The two turned to look at each other with questioning looks on both of their faces.
"Yes, I do."
"Would you please send them to the guidance office? Ms. Duffy would like to speak with them."
Gabriella and Taylor each gathered up their belongings and started to make their way to the door of the classroom, stopping at Mr. Brown's desk to get a hall pass. As he handed them the small pick slip, he looked at the back corner where the school's basketball captain and two of his team mates were sitting with their heads leaning on their hands- he wasn't oblivious to the arrangement that the boys had made with their girlfriends when it came to his class and didn't mind as long as they passed and was still able to tease the boys daily about it- and brought them back to life with his next announcement.
"I guess this means you boys have to actually stay awake and take your own notes today. Our two future lawyers of America will not be here to pick up the slack for you three." As the rest of the class broke into laughter, the two girls sent over exaggerated looks of sympathy to the boys.
"And make sure they're good notes, too, guys," Taylor said loud enough for the rest of the class to hear.
"Yeah, we'll be coping your notes tonight!" Gabriella said, as the class laughed once again. Troy just shook his head in the direction of his girlfriend in response and she winked back at him and smiled as Taylor led her out the door.
"Come on, Flirty, let's go. Ms. Duffy is waiting for us."
As the two girls walked down the hall, the speculations of why they had been called to the guidance office began between the two.
"It can't be regarding our college choices. We turned those in three months ago!" Taylor said.
"Maybe she wants to talk to us about the Senior College Survival Night," Gabriella suggested. One of the duties of the president of the senior class was to organize the annual College Survival Night- a night with information from former East High students on the dos and don'ts of surviving the freshman year- and Taylor as president had enlisted the help of Gabriella. The two girls had held many meetings with Ms. Duffy- the senior class guidance counselor- and had the feeling that this was just another of those meetings.
"Could be, but man I hope not! I'm just ready for next week so this stupid survival night whatever is over!" Taylor complained. As they walked the rest of the way to the guidance office, the conversation turned to something a little more personal. Something that Gabriella was a little too uncomfortable talking about at this point in time.
"So, have you told him yet?" Taylor asked.
"Told who what?"
"Gabriella, you know what I'm talking about," Taylor gently chastised the brunette. "Have you told Troy about the honor's program? You've known for almost a month now and you have to be there in a week and a half!" Taylor pointed out. She stopped walking as the thought dawned on her. "You haven't told him?" she practically shouted.
"Ssshhh! Taylor!" Gabriella reprimanded her best friend, giving a quick look around the empty hallway to make sure that no one was lurking around a corner or sifting through their locker and possibly overheard. As uncomfortable as it still sometimes made her, Gabriella had quickly become one of the most popular girls at East High and she knew it was purely because of her relationship with Troy. If someone overheard her and Taylor talking about the honor's program and her impending early departure, they would surely rush back and tell someone. Before too long, Troy would know her news and it wouldn't be because she was the one to tell him. That was not a confrontation that she was ready to endure.
"No, I've not told him yet. Yes, I plan on doing so this weekend when we go out. And please keep your voice down!"
"I'm sorry, I forgot that you don't want anyone to know until you tell him. However, please forgive me for pointing this out, but Sweetie, you have to be there a week from this coming Monday. How is he going to take the fact that you've known this incredible news for as long as you have and you didn't tell him until just barely over a week before your report date?"
"Oh, hey, look! The door to the guidance office. Here's an idea, Taylor. Why don't we go in and find out why Ms. Duffy wants to talk to us?"
"Fine, I'll drop it for now. But I'm on to you, Montez!" Taylor reminded her, pointing a finger in her friend's face as she walked through the door that Gabriella had opened for them.
As they walked in, they were greeted by an oddly overly- exuberant Mrs. Wilson, the guidance secretary who had started at East High the previous year. She was young and had recently married. The two girls got to know her fairly well since they were well known within the guidance department due to their good grades and acceptance to Yale and Stanford and had made many visits with Ms. Duffy.
"Hello, girls!"
"Hey, Mrs. Wilson. Ms. Duffy wanted to see us?" Taylor asked on behalf of the pair.
"She does! Why don't you two have a seat and I'll let her know you're here?" she said as she stood and walked down the hall. When she was out of earshot, Taylor turned to face Gabriella.
"Okay, is it just me, or she just a tad too overly excited for some reason today? I mean, yeah, she's always in a good mood, but this? For her to be this wound up is just odd." Taylor asked.
"Maybe she and Mr. Wilson celebrated just a bit too much last night," Gabriella suggested.
"Gabriella Montez! I'm shocked!" Taylor exclaimed.
"What?" Gabriella asked innocently.
"That's just not something I would have expected to hear from you! Me saying that, okay, yeah. But you? I'm impressed."
The girls were interrupted mid giggles by Mrs. Wilson reappearing. "Ms. Duffy's ready for you girls."
"Hey, Mrs. Wilson? We have a question for you," Taylor asked her as the two stood up and picked up their bags.
"Yeah, Taylor, what can I do for you?"
"Why are you in such a good mood today?" Taylor asked, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.
"Taylor!" Gabriella spoke up, smacking her friend on the arm and coming to the rescue of the young secretary. "Mrs. Wilson, I apologize for Taylor's lack of subtlety."
"It's okay, Gabriella. I'm just so excited for you two!" Mrs. Wilson told them. The two friends exchanged a confused look before continuing.
"Excited for us? Why, what did we do?" Gabriella questioned.
"You'll see!" she told them as she knocked on the door and pushed it further open. "Ms. Duffy? Here they are," she announced before stepping aside to let Gabriella and Taylor walk in the room.
"Good morning, girls. Come on in and have a seat," Ms. Duffy greeted them as she grabbed two sheets of paper off the top of a stack sitting on the corner of her desk. "Do you two know why I've called you in this morning?"
"No ma'am. We don't have a clue," Taylor answered.
"Well, I'm going to give you two something and I want you to look at them closely." Ms. Duffy handed the two friends each a sheet of paper. As they looked at the papers, the girls noticed that it had their names, address, grade, homeroom teacher, and student identification numbers on the top left corner and all of the classes they had taken with the grades received. They looked at each other, confused, before looking back at their transcripts. Gabriella spoke up first.
"Um, Ms Duffy? I'm a little confused. May I ask why we're looking at our transcripts?"
"Gabriella, I want you girls to look at your transcripts and notice the grade point average you've each received. You'll find it at the bottom right, underneath all your class grades. Taylor, what's your GPA?"
"I've got a 4.068," she said, looking up, still confused.
"And Gabriella, what does your's say?"
"Um, my GPA is a 4.068, too," she said as she skimmed the bottom of the paper to find the number she was looking for.
"Normally, if the two highest students in the senior class have the same grade point average, we then look at their overall average from all of their classes for all four years. This type of meeting would have been held about two weeks prior to now, but Gabriella, we had to wait on all of the official transcripts from your other schools. We have copies of them all, but we needed the official ones for this," Ms. Duffy continued. "That number is found right above your GPA. Taylor, what's your paper say?"
"It says that my overall average is a 98.9866," Taylor read out loud.
"And Gabriella?" Ms. Duffy prompted.
"Mine is a 98.9876." There was a moment of silence between the three in the small office. Ms. Duffy had yet to tell the two seniors exactly why she had called them into her office and Taylor and Gabriella were quickly getting more confused. "Um, Ms. Duffy, what does this mean?" Gabriella asked.
"I think I know," Taylor said. "Ms. Duffy, does this mean that…?" Taylor let her voice trail off as she looked at the middle aged woman. Ms. Duffy gave a smile and a small nod before confirming what Taylor suspected.
"Congratulations, girls. The two of you are numbers one and two in the graduating class, which means that you are the salutatorian and the valedictorian of the graduating class of 2008." Taylor and Gabriella sat in a stunned, confused silence simply looking at Ms. Duffy across the desk. Suddenly, Gabriella came to life and took Taylor's paper out of her hands, studying it carefully.
"There's no way!" she exclaimed. "How can this be? Taylor's worked hard for this! This is all she's wanted, to be valedictorian! Ms. Duffy, there must be some mistake!"
"Gabriella, sweetie, there is no mistake. Every counselor in this office has looked over these number five times each. We even had Ms. King and Mr. Gibson in the Math department look over them, too, to make sure we didn't miss anything."
The two girls sat in silence once again, each just looking at the transcripts in their hands. Gabriella's eyes were starting to water, but she fought hard to hold the tears in. She had done it. She had taken away the one thing that Taylor wanted so badly, and she wasn't even aware of it. How would she ever be able to make this up to her? Just as those thoughts were running through her mind and she was overcome with disappointment in hurting her best friend, she felt Taylor throw her arms around her neck.
"Girl, you deserve this. You apparently worked just that much harder than I did and you deserve this. Gabriella, I'm okay with the way this has turned out. I'm so excited for you. Be happy about this, please? For me?"
At the sound of her friend's voice, Gabriella looked up from the transcript that she was gripping tightly in her hands, and saw Taylor crouching down beside her chair. Taylor had set her own transcript on top of her bag and her free hands were now wrapped tightly around Gabriella's neck. Gabriella looked at Taylor's face and saw the look of pride in her eyes.
"Taylor, how can you be okay with this? This is all you've ever wanted."
"No, all I've ever wanted is to be successful in all I do. Being salutatorian or valedictorian doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is that my best friend and I are graduating together- provided you come back from your Honor's Program for graduation- and we're both going to absolutely amazing schools and will be absolutely amazing lawyers one day. That's all I care about." As Ms. Duffy sat there watching the exchange between East High's two best students, she couldn't help but smile. The mood in the guidance office was interrupted by the bell ringing, signaling the start of lunch. Gabriella stood up and grabbed her bag, turning toward the door of the office.
"Thank you, Ms. Duffy," she said quietly as she opened the door.
"You're welcome, girls. I'll see you soon." The girls walked back into the now crowded hallway and made their way in silence to the cafeteria where they would meet the other eight people from their circle of friends. Taylor immediately spotted the rest of the group and rushed over to the table where they were sitting. Jason was the first of the group to notice them approaching.
"Don't ever do that to us again!" he cried, startling everyone else at the table in the process. His outburst caused Troy- who was leaning down to get a book out of his backpack, which was resting on the floor next to him- to hit his head on the table.
"Dude, what the hell?" Troy exclaimed as he sat up, rubbing his head. It was then that he noticed Gabriella and Taylor standing next to the table. He looked up and noticed the far away look on his girlfriend's face.
"Jason, what are you talking about? Don't ever do what?" Taylor questioned.
"Don't leave us in that class, with that man, alone, ever again!"
"It's not like we had a choice, Jason. Chill out. You survived, didn't you?" Taylor said.
"Well-"
"Yes, we survived. Jason is just exaggerating," Troy told her, not taking his eyes off Gabriella through the whole exchange. She hadn't said a word since the girls arrived. She wouldn't take her eyes off the piece of paper that she held in her hands and he was starting to get concerned. "Hey," he started, taking one of her hands in one of his.
"Huh?" she looked up finally, startled.
"Are you okay?" he tried again. "What happened with Ms. Duffy?"
"We have got the best news!" Taylor anxiously told the group.
"Taylor, please, not here-" Gabriella asked Taylor softly, but Taylor quickly rushed on, eager to share the news.
"Gabriella's the valedictorian and I'm salutatorian!" she excitedly announced. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, the whole table erupted with congratulations and hugs for both girls. All except Troy, who kept his eyes on Gabriella's face. He could tell that she wasn't exactly thrilled about this news, but he wasn't sure why. During all the attention she was receiving, it seemed to Troy that Gabriella was just retreating deeper and deeper into the shell that she had worked hard to discard over a year ago. Finally, she picked up her bag which she had laid on the table, put her transcript safely inside, and spoke for the first time since coming into the cafeteria.
"Guys, if you'll excuse me, I've got something to take care of. I'll see you all later." Leaving her Wildcat friends staring after her, she turned around and walked away from the table and straight out the door of the cafeteria and into the hall, disappearing from view of the rest of the group.
"What's wrong with her?" Chad asked.
"Taylor, I have a feeling you know what's wrong with her, so I'll leave you to fill them in and I'll go find Gabriella and try and talk to her. I'll catch up with you guys after a while," Troy told the group as he gathered up his lunch trash and walked toward the same door that Gabriella walked through just moments before. He didn't have to think twice about where she may have gone. Troy knew exactly where she was and didn't hesitate to go there himself. As he maneuvered his way through the hallway and found the door that hid the set of stairs that he knew without a doubt his girlfriend of fifteen months had taken just moments before him, his mind began to wander.
I have a feeling I know what's bothering her, but what am I going to say? he wondered. He didn't have long to ponder those thoughts as he reached to push open the door. He began the climb the cement steps and turned the corner at the top, pausing when he saw Gabriella standing just a few yards in front of him. She had her back to where he was standing and was facing the mountains in the distance, with her hands resting on the railings on either side of her. He silently approached her from behind and placed his hands on top of hers.
"Congratulations," he whispered, before placing a kiss on the shell of her ear.
Gabriella gave out a soft sigh before answering. "Thank you, I guess."
"What's going on in that head of your's? Why aren't you excited about this? I mean, this is amazing news. You deserve to be bouncing off the walls and driving everyone crazy," he joked as he wrapped his arms across her front. Gabriella reveled in the feel of her boyfriend's arms around her for a moment before speaking again.
"I don't know, Troy. I- I guess I just feel like I'm stepping on Taylor's toes or something. I mean, she's spent her whole life working towards being valedictorian and I'm taking it from her? What kind of friend am I?" Gabriella stated as she pulled away from Troy's arms and went to sit on the bench just feet away from where they were standing.
"The kind of friend that just happened to get one point higher on a test at some point in time. Gabriella, you haven't done anything wrong. You've worked just as hard as Taylor and you deserve this just as much. She seems to be okay and excited about the way things have happened. I think she'll survive, Babe." Troy took the few necessary steps to the bench and knelt down in front of Gabriella, taking both of her hands in one of his as he reached up with his other hand and brushed a dark, ebony curl out of her eyes and behind her ear.
"All my life- well, for the past almost nine years anyway- all I've wanted is to go to Stanford. I never wanted to be valedictorian. I've got Stanford, that's all I needed."
"Can I ask you something?" Troy asked, standing and moving to sit next to her on the bench. When she turned so they could face each other, she nodded and he continued. "Why Stanford? Wait, let me rephrase that. I don't mean 'Why Stanford'. I mean 'Why Stanford'? I mean, out of all of the other really great Ivy League schools- Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown- that you can have your choice of, why Stanford?"
Gabriella sighed and gave a soft smile before saying the one word that the two of them seldom talk about. "Daddy." Seeing the somewhat confused look on her boyfriend's face, she continued. "My dad went to Stanford. When he died when I was nine, I promised myself that someday, I would, too. When my eleventh birthday was approaching, Mom asked me what I wanted to do and I told her I wanted to go to San Francisco and visit Stanford. So we did. Here I was, eleven years old, visiting a school that I knew I would someday be attending. And that's all I've ever worked for. None of the other extra stuff is important to me. Not as long as I've got Stanford and Daddy."
Troy gave a soft smile as she finished her story. "I wish I could have met him."
"No, you don't," Gabriella said, shaking her head. When Troy looked confused, she smiled and continued. "You wouldn't have made it past the first date!"
"Well, then I guess it is a good thing after all that I've only had to deal with Maria! I don't know if I could handle Roberto, too!" he joked. "Hey, tonight, I'm taking you out and we're going to celebrate, Ms. Valedictorian. What do you say?"
"I don't know, Troy. I might have to take a rain check on our private celebration. Once Mom hears this about this, she'll be on the phone with your mom and the two of them will be making their own plans for a celebratory dinner tonight. And you know she'll insist on making her enchiladas."
"And brownies?" Troy asked, his blue eyes glimmering with hope.
"If you and Coach are there, then she'll have to make two batches." The two of them shared a laugh, and Troy placed a hand on her cheek.
"You okay now?" he asked lovingly.
She leaned into his hand before reaching her own hand up to rest on the back of his neck and pulled him forward, giving him a soft kiss on his lips. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you for making me talk."
"You're welcome," he answered after giving her another brief kiss. "What do you say we go find Taylor and the rest of the gang?" Gabriella nodded and picked up her bag, reaching out her hand for his. Troy took her invitation and connected their hands as they made their way back downstairs. When they reached the top step, Gabriella pulled away.
"Just a second," she told him, holding a finger up. Troy watched as she went back to the railing where they were standing just moments before and looked up at the sky. What he witnessed next brought a lump to his throat and almost made his eyes water. It was the first time he'd seen his girlfriend make such an acknowledgement.
"Thank you, Daddy. This is for you." She then turned and walked back to Troy and connected their hands once more. He pulled their hands up and placed a gentle kiss on top of her knuckles before leading the way down the steps and began the search for their friends.
