DISCLAIMER: All characters are the property of Disney. Lyrics by Ross Copperman.
She wanders all alone
This is all, she's ever really known
A stranger in her skin
Nothing more, it's all she's ever been
She spills these words across the page
It helps to ease the pain, and she cries
Nobody out there
Wants to understand
Nobody out there
Takes me as I am
I'm feeling alone here
I know there's got to be
Somebody somewhere
That's all she wrote
Life was like wading through a thick, never-ending fog. Gabriella Montez's life was grey – no nuances – and the lights and chatter of the lives encircling her pressed the damp warmth and darkness of the fog closer to her body.
She was the beautiful girl with empty eyes and an unsettling aura. Nobody stopped to look, nobody stopped to speak. Her tear ducts had frozen months ago and the ice had spilled from her soul; burning a circle of isolation around her weary body.
There were books and there were sums. There was math and science and literature; fact and fiction. There were the fantastic worlds that she tumbled into as she thumbed through the worn pages of well-loved books. There were the friends and lovers of old that would have stopped to notice the girl wandering alone through the busy streets of New York City with a sad smile on her face. It was comforting to fall into the classic tales that gave her faith that maybe someday, somewhere Gabriella would find something else.
It was comforting to think that the blurred faces of the people that flowed passed her in the streets really were something more than blurred faces; that they were different to her.
The city was vast and convulsing, shallow and asphyxiating and it was supposed to be an escape. She had meant it to be a new start. It should have been a move, a leap of faith that carried her away from the insufferable sadness and torture of memories. A chance to be an adult, a chance to find out who she was outside of the loving daughter that had nursed her mother through the last few traumatising years of early-onset Alzheimer's; that's what it should have been.
The move had given her something to busy her hands and her mind. The packing and the organising had descended into lists and revised lists. Gabriella had lists but no plans; at least not for anything that mattered.
What was the point of planning for a life that had dissolved in front of her eyes?
Her apartment wasn't a home. It reeked of emptiness and loneliness. Sitting alone with her books and her lists, grief seeped under the door and through the cracks in the paintwork; it haunted the words that she read and the shaky breaths that she inhaled.
So she walked.
She let her feet carry her through the crowded streets. Shadows fell over her as she moved; it was as if the bustling city was trying to blot her out of its vibrant pages. She walked and she walked and not a single person stopped to look at the beautiful girl with the leaking eyes and soul.
In the evenings, Gabriella went home and she cried. She cried over the family she had lost and the independence that she never really had. She wept over the life the she'd wanted and as she drifted into a wet, uncomfortable sleep she wondered when things would ever fall back into place.
She dreamt of books and of fairytales. Men bathed in white light and women with glittering smiles danced through her unconscious and her mother's memory embraced her in the dark.
She always feels so small
Pushed aside, a flower on the wall
They never ask her name
No one sees, the girl without a face
She spills these words across the page
It helps to ease the pain, and she cries
Nobody out there
Wants to understand
Nobody out there
Takes me as I am
I'm feeling alone here
I know there's got to be
Somebody somewhere
That's all she wrote
It was a Thursday the first time that she saw it. She had always hated Thursdays; they stank of the sickening white of hospital corridors and the torrential black of the heaven's tears.
The muggy air and demons that had already chased her from San Diego to New York had spewed her from her apartment and onto the streets that glimmered in the sunlight. She had wandered aimlessly, trying to find the answer to a question that had never been posed and spotted the cafe tucked away in a corner that had managed to avoid the sun's glare. Its consolatory gloominess and isolated quiet had drawn her in and rescued her from the overwhelming laughter of the world outside.
Gabriella had ambled over to the counter; that's when it had happened. The sandy haired boy behind the counter had looked up from his paper as she approached and smiled. He'd seen her and his eyes had lit up and Gabriella thought that maybe, just maybe, there really was something beautiful to be found in the world that existed outside the pages of her familiar books. His eyes were like oceans, blue and warm and chilling like the clichés told her existed. It made her fingers itch with the words that had died at the nib of her dry pen and not dared to spill forth for years. She had taken the coffee that he handed over; an unfamiliar warmth on her cheek. Uncharacteristically glancing back at a man who finally had a face, she only caught the bounce of his hair as it seemed to fall back into place and his eyes gazed out in the opposite direction.
That afternoon Gabriella plucked her forgotten notepad from her bag and surveyed blank page upon blank page.
It was like staring into a mirror.
Her biro was a lead pipe in her grasp and her fingers strained as they tried to remember how it had felt to be led by it. It bled out onto the first line and ink seared the underlying pages. For a moment Gabriella's fingers had twitched and her mind sparked but the weight of the pen in her hand was too much and she let it fall. As she sipped at her coffee, a lone tear trickled a translucent path down her cheek and she sighed.
Her traipsing always led her there. She began to think, with a wry smile on her face, that it was the sort of coffee shop that her mother would have loved. Her mother would have adored the aroma of fresh coffee mixed with the worn leather of the furniture and the scratched varnish of the floorboards. Maria Montez would have berated her daughter for spending so much money sipping expensive coffee as she conjured words out of parched air and tried to ensnare them on paper.
Gabriella wasn't really sure when exactly she had stopped letting her feet direct her there and when it had been the thought of the handsome student taking her order that made the decision to head to Lily's for her. She wondered when the casual "how are you, today?" had become the words that teased her from her slumber and opened her eyes to the brightness of the new day. She pondered whether the day's headlines had ever been as interesting or thrilling before he had chosen to start announcing them to her upon her arrival.
She realised how much she'd missed the sound of her own laugh. Her voice had never sounded as alive as it did when she answered his mundane questions.
The weeks ticked by, collapsing on top of each other and fading into a haze, and the glimmer of warmth and character that had been caked in the muddy brown of her eyes gradually reignited.
It was a Thursday when Troy Bolton swallowed his anxiety and decided it was the day to extend his conversation with the enigmatic beauty beyond the habitual "how are you today" and announcement that the Senate Panel had approved a new healthcare bill. He had always loved Thursdays: the air always seemed crisper and cleaner and excited to ring in the weekend as soon as possible.
It was the day that she had first walked into his grandmother's coffee shop too.
She was the enigmatic beauty that had started brightening up his days at work almost two months ago. When a tentative shadow had fallen over his newspaper that wintry afternoon, Troy wasn't sure what sight he had been expecting to greet him when he looked up.
It hadn't been her.
He never could have imagined her.
She was so damn stunningly beautiful, magnificently so, that it had taken his breath away. He had smiled, instinctively, when she had asked for a cup of black coffee and Troy was positive that he had never before felt the need to put so much effort into such a simple task. He hadn't been able to suppress the awe-filled smile, even when he had noted the implicit sadness in her eyes and the way that she carried herself. The hint of shock that melted from her features upon noting his smile had been spine-chilling.
Troy had never seen anybody look so completely lost.
His heart had skipped a beat at the delicate blush that had caressed her cheeks when their hands brushed. Driven by curiosity and something else, something undefined, his eyes had hopelessly followed her body as it slinked over to the cosiest corner of the room. It had been a quiet afternoon and Troy never finished reading his paper. He'd watched the enigma and been moved by her insistent gaze at the notepad in front of her. She hadn't written a word.
She had barely written a word in the two months that she had been frequenting the establishment. Even on the days when pen and paper managed to copulate, she would never leave the coffee shop without first ripping the offending pages from her notebook and discarding them on her way out. Troy spotted her tears and wondered what those faithless words were costing her.
He wondered why they cost her so much.
One day, though, and Troy wasn't precisely sure when it had happened – perhaps it had been a gradual change- she had greeted him with a smile. It was a smile that had bathed her entire face in an ethereal glow.
His enigma's eyes had always been enthralling, sometimes unsettlingly so. Her dull irises had been scarred by her obvious distress and sometimes a mere glance into them had been enough to make his breath tremble in his throat. Now, however, her eyes smouldered with the understated warmth of an August afternoon.
Often it was a radiance that was short lived for as soon as she retreated to her table, the silence of her pen seemed to descend her russet orbs into a premature dusk.
Today was the day though, Troy had decided. Mainly because it was a Thursday but also because it had been four days since he had seen her weep over her notebook and he figured that now was as good a time as any.
She was early and as she sauntered over to the counter Troy realised that he really had no idea how he had intended to set his plan into motion.
"Morning!" she had said quietly and Troy gulped as he tried to remember what it was that his job actually entailed.
A nervous smile coaxed the corners of his lips into action and he softly returned her greeting. "What are you having today?" Troy asked, finding his voice. It didn't matter that she only ever ordered a cup of black coffee, or that he had already programmed the machine before her answer sounded. Troy found that any opportunity to hear her voice was worth the superfluous words.
"Just a black coffee, please."
His heart was dancing erratically in his ribcage as he tried to think two steps ahead; as Troy Bolton tried to think of a way to prolong their conversation. He placed the full cup back on the counter, as far away from her as possible, and his tongue felt stuck to the bottom of his dry mouth. Inexplicable nerves confounded him and he fell silent.
Troy and Gabriella's eyes met and the air ignited a golden trail between their souls.
For so long Gabriella had been a wallflower. She had been emptiness wrapped in a skin but something had changed. Instead of puncturing it, the claw of needles clenched around her heart had begun to foxtrot its tingling points over the muscle.
Gabriella broke their silence. The hollow was filled. "No headline today?" she murmured; the joviality of her tone tasted sweet and she longed to try it again.
Blinking, Troy tried not to blush at the feelings that this uninitiated change in their ritual had provoked. He glanced down at the paper and scanned the headlines. Feeling emboldened, he smiled after making his selection. "The New York Philharmonic is playing in Central Park tonight."
"That's nice," Gabriella responded with a smile. Her hand was shaking as she reached across for her cup. It must have been the cold.
Their eyes communicated a message that neither knew how to decipher and Gabriella turned away to take up her usual seat and stare at her notepad waiting for the words to form themselves from out of the jumble of her brain.
Half an hour later, Troy knew that he had to make his move. A freshly made cup of coffee in his hand, he wandered over to her table. The way that her eyelashes fluttered in momentary confusion as the darkness of his shadow settled over her back was almost enough to make Troy forget what he was there for in the first place.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide in an amalgam of confusion and bashfulness, and Troy coughed nervously before speaking. "I was just wondering whether you wanted another cup of coffee now." The second's quiet that followed was too long and he hurried to explain himself. "It's a special offer, I mean. You get your second cup of coffee free and I thought that, you know, since you looked like you've finished your first one that you might want one now."
Eyebrows furrowed, Gabriella smiled softly. "A special offer?"
"Yes." Troy cursed himself mentally for rambling. "Because it's a Thursday."
Gabriella sighed. "I hate Thursdays."
His limited confidence was dwindling by the second. "Thursdays are great days. The day in between Lousy Wednesday and Waiting Friday," he quipped and was surprised when his comment had made her giggle.
"Do you steal all of your philosophy from Steinbeck novels?" Gabriella asked in wry amusement.
Setting the cup down on the table, Troy shrugged nervously. "It's better than stealing it from 'The Simpsons'," he countered. Their exchange lulled into muted contemplation and the silence wove its thread between their bodies. "So," Troy mumbled as he scratched the back of his neck. "I suppose I should get back to work or whatever. Enjoy your coffee, Miss. – "
"Gabriella," she rushed in instinctively. A rosy blush spread across her cheeks at the flash of excitement in his eyes.
Smiling boyishly, Troy ducked his head as he offered her his own name. "Troy, I am, I mean."
Gabriella laughed. "I know," she murmured, gesturing to the name-tag that he was wearing.
"Oh, yeah."
The threads of silence binding them began to vibrate awkwardly and Gabriella fought to shake her jitters as she reached for her purse. "Here, I need to pay for my coffee..."
Holding his hands up, Troy shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Thursday special, remember!"
Gabriella's blush only deepened at her forgetfulness and Troy was positive that it made her even more beautiful. "Well, just thank you then."
"You're welcome. Very." Troy dug his hands into his pocket whilst the husky words toppled off his tongue. "That must be a tough essay," he shrugged, attempting conversation as he nodded towards the stark white of her notepad.
Gabriella took a slow sip of her coffee and the mug hid the sad smile that snuck back onto her face. "Oh. It's not an essay luckily. It's a – " she sighed loudly. "It's a book, or supposed to be. I write," she amended herself. "I used to write but – "
Troy detected her uneasiness and cut in straight away. "Oh, I just assumed that you were a student too. I mean, you look sort of my age and stuff."
Leaning back in her chair, Gabriella carefully observed the boy that she was chatting to. The words slipped off her tongue without her ever really needing to consider them. "I sort of am: I had to defer for a few years but I start here again in the fall. I just used to enjoy writing. It's cathartic, relaxing, exciting...all sorts of things really. Most of the time."
Nodding in understanding, Troy's shoulders slumped when he heard the bell above the door signal the entrance of another customer. "I suppose I should get back to work. Nice talking to you, Gabriella."
Was it the genuine smile on his face? Was it the tangible regret in his voice? Gabriella wasn't sure what it was but for the first time in an age something coursed through her veins. It was a feeling that could only be labelled 'happiness'.
She grinned. It was wide and bright and flashes of gold and yellow and contentment burst in Troy's vision.
He waved as he walked backwards towards the counter but his foot stuck to the floor at the point at which he should have turned. His mouth opened of its own accord and Troy blushed at the words that he knew were going to be expelled from it. "Do you have plans tonight, by any chance?"
Gabriella looked startled; too startled to say a word. Shaking her head slowly, her blush returned.
"Do you maybe want to check out the music in the park tonight?"
Her voice was foreign to her ears. It was firm and joyful and wrapped itself around the three letters of her response in an elated grip. "Yes," she replied and Troy grinned.
"Awesome!" He gestured behind him at the counter and Gabriella watched him race to serve the other customer with a spring in his step.
Looking down at the empty page, her fingertips tingled with the words swimming across her vision.
Her pen didn't feel heavy any longer.
Her great escape
She found her place
And she's never gonna be the same
It's beautiful
Cuz now she knows
~
There's somebody out there
Who wants to understand
There's somebody out there
Who takes me as I am
I'm feeling at home here
I knew there had to be
Somebody somewhere
