Disclaimer: I do not own 'High School Musical' or any related characters.
A/N: Hello. I'm new here, so yeah don't really know what to say. Erm this is one of my first stories ever basically. I am Norwegian, meaning I'm from Norway (no, Norway is not made out of snow), but I am currently in Australia on an exchange. Yeah thats basically it! tata. Okay, and this is her friend SouthernStars, I want to say music-obsession is one hell of a writer!! Just to let you all know, this is an AU fic, she's forgotten to mention that!
Freedom tattooed at heart
Slowly she walked down the path at the empty train station. The night was lying over her as a blanket, protecting her from the outside.
Her footsteps echoed loudly through the building, making it sound that was nearly hypnotic in the loneliness, being the only sound she could hear except for her own heartbeat.
She looked at her watch only to realize that it had only been 7 minutes since the last time she checked it. She found it amusing, but frustrating, how time would go so slowly when she wanted it to go fast, and so fast when she wanted it to go slow, like you were playing this endless game where you would never get what you wanted.
She kept looking around her, desperately hoping for a sign of someone else, not just someone else, but THAT someone, that someone that she had been waiting for, for the last 10 minutes. Where could she be? Had she changed her mind, was she going to let her down? She tried to shove away all these thoughts and worries, but it appeared to be harder than she had though. She walked in to the bathroom which was hardly lit by any light at all. She put her hands down on each side of the dirty sink and looked herself in the mirror. She looked tired. A black eye was taking all attention from her face, which once had been a pretty face with life and soul. Her eyes looked empty and dried out, like the tears she had been crying for far too long had suffocated them completely, leaving them broken and empty. Beneath her eyes there were bags of black, completing her tiring look. She had once been so pretty, so full of hope and dreams, so full of life. She hated the fact that she had changed so rapidly. She hated the fact that she had changed for the worse and that she had let it happen. She could feel her eyes filling up with tears as she clutched her fists in anger. She wanted to smash her hand into the mirror, she wanted to kill the broken image of her, the broken image which he, and he alone had created without as much as a "sorry". Her reflection looked back at her for the last time before she went back out into the darkness, looking back at her and making sure that she knew why she was leaving, making her remember the reason, the sorrow and the pain.
She walked out into the train-station once more. She dried her eyes with a worn out handkerchief and kept on walking the path that she had walked so many times. At the end of the platform she could see a dark shadow. She could see the glow on the shadows cigarette and as she got closer she saw that it was a woman. Her heart was beating faster now, was it her? Had she come after all? The dark figure stood up, and a small stripe of light from a single lantern blinking nearby hit her face, revealing a young woman who looked far to drained out and broken for her age. Her face filled with drained emotions, the tears she had shed the last years still being obvious, and her eyes being empty and harsh.
She walked over to her, trying to avoid eye contact. She had come after all. Finally their broken eyes met. "Didn't think you would come" She said to Gabriella. Gabriella looked up at her and wiped away a single tear, "I had to come". It was obvious that Gabriella as well wasn't completely sure that they were doing the right thing. Running away from everyone and everything at the middle of the night, leaving nothing more than a note with a simple "good bye". They were both leaving the life they had known for so long, and at this moment what had seemed so easy a few hours ago no longer felt as simple. Were they doing the right thing? After all, they had once fell in love with them, and even though their husbands hadn't always been great, not even ok, to them that didn't mean that they hadn't had their share of good times, their moments of pure love and happiness. Maybe it was their own fault that it had all changed, maybe it really was the wives not the husbands that had failed…
Her eyes met Gabriella's once more and all these thoughts faded. Gabriella's black eye and broken eyes were shining back at her, reminding her about all the hell she had been through, all the black eyes that she had covered up the last years, all the lies she had been forced to tell her parents and friends the last years and all the pain she had been through.
She had been a wreck when she met Gabriella. She had pushed her friends and family away as they had tried to help her. They didn't understand, they couldn't understand. Soon enough Gabriella became her best friend. They understood each other, for they were both in the same situation. Gabriella had been married to her husband for 13 years. It had started out great, love, romance and happiness. They were going to spend their lives together, she was happy. Soon after they got married things had started to change. He didn't like her going out, whereas he went out with his mate all the time. She was forced to quit her job, because he wanted her to stay home and be a house wife. So many times when he came home after drinking with the guys, he stumbled in to the bedroom and he beat her. He hit her with such hate, with such pleasure that she was bound to be scared for life. After years with abuse, years with loneliness and years without talking to her family and friends, she had had enough. So many times she had wanted to run away, but she had been scared, she had been alone.
The lantern kept blinking, its light being weak. They didn't speak, they didn't have to. They knew what the other one was thinking, they knew that the other one was scared, that she was filled with doubt. It was hard leaving everything, and even though they had gotten more scars and bruises out of their marriages than happy moments they felt as if they were betraying their spouses. They had both faked a smile for so many years. Sometimes they wondered whether or not anyone could see the fakeness in their eyes as they forced a robotic smile. A smile could be faked, but the eyes would never lie, the eyes would tell the truth.
The anger grew in her as she thought of the suffering he had put her through. She thought of how he had used to play with her feelings, make her feel guilty when she was mad at something he had done, making it feel like it was her fault that he hit her, her fault that he beat her, and her fault that she was hurting. One time when she had come home from visiting her sick grandma he had been sitting in the living room waiting for her. She had tried to be quiet so that she wouldn't wake him up, but there he was. He stared at her when she got in, his eyes suffocating her, his evil smile making her sick. She tried to explain why she was late, she tried to tell him, but he wouldn't listen, he didn't say a word. He walked towards her and started taking his belt off. She backed away from him, knowing how brutal the pain would be, knowing how much it would hurt her. He pushed her into the corner and he hit her. He hit her time after time as she was begging him to stop, begging him to leave her alone just this once. She could feel the belt ripping off her skin, forcing it to bruise and to bleed, and breaking down every part of her. After what had seemed like hours with pain, blood and bruises, he stopped. He sat down next to her, lifted up her head with two of his fingers and looked her in the eyes. She could hardly keep them up, but she was forced to look back. He kissed her on the forehead, "you have to stop hurting me love, you have to stop it". Once again she had let him fool her, let herself believe that it was her own fault.
The memory of this made her heart beat faster, why the hell had she felt any kind of doubt? He had been terrible to her, a nightmare! She deserved better and she was going to get it. She had no idea where she was going, all she knew that it was away from him, away from the city and away from all the bad memories that had been hunting her.
In the distance she could hear the rumbling sound of the train, alerting them both that time had come. They looked at each other and smiled, not one of those cover girl, over-happy smiles, but a little smile, a smile that was good enough for them both.
The train stopped next to them and they grabbed each other's hand. The lantern stopped blinking and filled their faces with light as they walked on the train. She looked around her for the last time before she left; she wasn't going to miss any of it. She was free, entering her road to freedom, never turning back. She felt something she hadn't felt in far too long, she felt happy. At last she had gotten away, at last she was free.