A/N : Hello all you beautiful people... here's the next chapter... review and tell me how much you liked it... review even if you didn't... just the fact that someone reviewd makes me smile for the rest of the day!... :)
Oh and i don't own anything... I'd just like to make that clear...
Chapter 2
Everyone in school knew Ryan Evans as Sharpay's brother… The other Evans kid… Sharpay's shadow… Even, That gay dude who wears hats to school… Till that day, Kelsi herself had thought about Ryan on those lines only… Not the comment about Ryan wearing hats… She completely understood that, what with her own collection of them at home… She loved wearing hats too… It almost felt like she was missing something essential if her head was bare…
There had been the one time Chad and Troy had decided to take her favorite purple pageboy hat and play with it instead of the basketball they always seemed to have with them… That day both the basketball stars had gone home with her angry shouts ringing in their ears… Chad had decided that day to never get on the wrong side of 'Small Person' ever… Even his girlfriend Taylor had never shouted at him like that!... And that was saying something cuz Taylor was always shouting at him for one thing or the other…. No one had ever seen Kelsi so angry as she was that day… And she had never been that angry since as they had all decided that they were much better off not making her angry in any way…
Still, that was probably the only thing she and Ryan had in common…. Their love of hats… Not that she had any opportunity to talk with him to find out whether they shared any other interests… His sister was always around him, bossing him, demanding things and making him do most of her work and Kelsi wasn't suicidal yet that she would talk to Ryan in front of his sister… Everyone knew that if there was one thing in the world Sharpay loved other than herself, it was her younger twin… She was also highly protective and possessive of him and didn't like it at all if anyone other than her got his attention…
Ryan cheerfully took all of the demands, the rants and the threats from his sister, reacting to them in ways he knew would calm her down…. He had always had a special soft spot for his fame-crazy but insecure sister… Everyone thought that he took all her abuse because he was afraid of standing up to her but the truth was that his sister needed him so much more than he needed her… She was basically a very insecure person who needed people around her to keep bolstering her confidence up all the time… Her insecurity often came out in the form of a major superiority complex, which most people didn't understand and didn't even bother to try… Thus, she had alienated almost everybody around her and was conversely even more dependent on Ryan now….
He was still thanking god for the day he had shown Sharpay the importance of having friends and she had started to open up and make acquaintances with people outside her circle… And he also thanked god from the bottom of his heart for Zeke Baylor, the one saving grace in Sharpay's life… The one guy who had stuck by her through everything and still loved her for who she was…. Sharpay had finally decided she had had enough of ignoring the sweetest guy on earth and had confessed to him that she did in fact return his feelings fully and had made Zeke the happiest man in the planet… Ever since she and Zeke had started going out, Sharpay had mellowed out a lot and had even started talking to people nicely…
Just the other day, he had found her talking animatedly with Gabriella, Martha, Taylor and a few others in the drama club about the new musical they were trying to get everyone to do as part of our final year at East High and her hopes of making it big in Broadway someday… It had made him happy to finally see his sister being able to interact with people comfortably, without lording it over them or trying to get them to do something for her… Sharpay had finally learnt how to make friends and it left Ryan free to pursue his own goals, dreams…. Free to lead his own life instead of worrying about both his and his sisters'.
And goal number one in his life now was that Juilliard Scholarship… He needed to get that if he was to make his father believe that he was serious about pursuing his dream of being a professional theatre actor and choreographer… His father had been after him, to drop all this dramatics crap, his words not mine, and take up the responsibility of the family business… Mr. Evans wanted his son to take over his company after his retirement… Not that Ryan didn't want to… He just wanted to pursue his dream of the theatre while he still could… Later in life he would have no objection to taking over the reins of the company from his dad… They both knew that Ryan had a very good head for business and could learn whatever he had to in a very short period of time…
Coming a very close second in his list of goals was to finally get up the courage to find out if the beautiful Miss. Nielsen liked him even a tiny bit as much as he liked her… In fact, like was such a major understatement… Ryan had been in love with Kelsi Nielsen and her musical genius ever since the day he had heard her play the song 'What I've been looking for' for the first time in the music room at school… It had been before the spring musical and Kelsi had been writing the score and fine tuning her music when he had happened upon her…
He was ashamed to say that before that day he hadn't given the quiet girl a second thought… He had been so involved in his life and his sisters' that he had had almost no time for anything or anyone else…. But now he noticed… He noticed the way Kelsi's black newspaper boy hat was perched on her caramel colored curls… He noticed the way her chocolate brown eyes sparkled beneath her glasses as she found the correct lyric for a piece of melody… The way she pushed her glasses up hurriedly and bent down to the sheet music to write her thoughts down…. The way her delicate yet strong hands with long fingers moved so fluidly over the piano keys as if they were meant to be there… The way her tongue poked out of the side of her mouth cutely when she was concentrating on getting everything just the way she wanted it… The way her mobile mouth, topped by the most luscious pair of pink lips he had ever seen, smiled ever so often as the songwriting came along much quicker than he had ever done it himself…
He didn't know exactly what had inspired her but the scene before him was inspiring him now… Melodies and lyrics filled his head so fast that he had to get a hold of himself or he would've just barged into the music room and sat at the piano with Kelsi… He figured it was best if she didn't know that he had been staring at her like a love-crazed stalker for the past half hour and left as quietly as possible…
That night, he had written song after song, all inspired by a petite girl composer with caramel hair and warm chocolate eyes… Not that he had played any of those ever again… The sheet music for all of them was hidden away in a secret compartment in his writing desk… one that even his nosey sister had never found… The feelings expressed in those songs were so personal, so heart rending that he had never had the courage to play it for anybody else…. He had thought that if some day, he had the courage to tell Kelsi how he felt, then she would be the first person to hear what he felt about her through those songs…
Since then, he had tried very hard not to let his feelings for Kelsi show around his sister… He knew that not only was Sharpay very possessive of him, she would also think that Kelsi Nielsen was not good enough for the guy who was going to be her partner on Broadway… Wanting to protect Kelsi from the wrath of Sharpay Evans had been the most difficult task Ryan had ever undertaken…. As his sister had naturally become jealous of Kelsi's musical talent and had set out to overshadow her and show Kelsi just who was the boss at East High…
Ryan had felt like he was desecrating a masterpiece when he found out what his sister had done to the song Kelsi had given them to sing… It was the same song that had led to Ryan falling in love with the composer… The faster tempo had completely changed the mood of the slow, soft utterly romantic ballad that Kelsi had written… Now it sounded more like a peppy pop number that his sister was famous for doing….His heart bled for Kelsi but there was absolutely nothing he could do about the song because his first duty was to support his sibling no matter what…
Most of the times Ryan didn't agree with Sharpay's views on things but that didn't stop him from having her back… She was his twin sister for god's sake!... If he didn't support her then who would?... He knew that he was probably sounding the death knell for any relationship he could've had with Kelsi by going with his sister's view on this one but it was already too late… He had made his decision and now he had to stick with it…
That summer, he had tried his best to stick with Sharpay and her decisions but she had taken it a step too far by trying to sabotage the whole Wildcat crew during the summer talent show at Lava Springs… He had finally decided to side with the rest of the group because he had had it with her high-handedness… He'd trained the disorganized Wildcats into a sleek, well-formed talented crew of dancers… And had a whole lot of fun doing it… He'd also made a lot of friends during the process, which made his life a lot more fun during his senior year… Now he was really enjoying the process of going through their final year in school together and doing the final musical with each other….
Another reason why he was excited about the musical was that he knew if he was the choreographer and if Kelsi was asked to do the composing for the show, they would have to be working together for quite a long time to get everything in place even before they started practicing with the others… Now that Sharpay had become friends with everyone and was dating Zeke, Ryan was free to explore the feelings he'd had for Kelsi since their junior year….
He'd been extremely excited about the senior year musical ever since Ms. Darbus had told him that she would like it if he choreographed and Kelsi composed the whole thing by themselves… There was also the added impetus of representatives from Juilliard coming in to see their finished product on opening night… Ryan knew that there was only one scholarship on offer and that Sharpay, himself, Kelsi and Troy were gonna be competing for it… Even knowing that he would be competing against Kelsi on some level, couldn't dampen the euphoria he was feeling at the prospect of spending a whole lot of time alone with the composer…
End of Chapter 2
A/N : review plz... :)