(A Lifetime of Mean Reds)
(Chapter 2)
(Singles Awareness Day and Breakfast Food)
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When she'd first moved in, Sharpay did not relish the idea of having a roommate. At any performing arts college, it did not do well to live with potential competition. And really, where would she put all her clothes if half the living space was being occupied?
She didn't exactly relish her roommate now, but sometimes, it was good to have someone around who was the other half of sane that Sharpay was missing.
Now, it seemed, Michelle was the one in want of sanity.
"Tomorrow's Valentine's Day!" Michelle exclaimed.
"In the five years that I've known you, you have never been this excited over Valentine's Day. And even if tomorrow is Valentine's Day, that's still no excuse to cover your bed with felt and cardstock and construction paper and piping and glitter." Sharpay picked up the container of said glitter. "If you sneeze, I will have to smother you with my newly-shiny pillow."
"Oh, don't be so bitter, Sharpay, it's a day of love!"
"Not yet," she was careful to add.
"Jeez, Evans, at least pretend to be happy. You don't have any classes tomorrow. Anyway, I thought it'd be nice to make Valentines for all my friends. They're so wonderful to me!"
"Please, extract that arrow before I go on a winged-baby hunting rampage."
"Fine, you won't get any glitter on yours."
Sharpay's eyes widened. "Oh no, anything but that. You know how much I love glitter...the herpes of craft supplies." She twisted her lip at Michelle's offended face, and rolled over on her own, clean, tidy, made-up every morning after waking up bed to get some sleep.
She woke up the next morning to a horrifying vision of white cardstock with red piping glued around its edges. She wondered how Michelle managed to prop it there without waking her. God was somewhat merciful, and no glitter waited to flake off the card onto her sheets. Michelle had taken care to use a red marker to write:
Happy Valentine's Day, Evans, even if you're all glass half empty about it. I love you, and you know that no matter what happens, I'll always be there for you. (Sharpay grunted disbelievingly at this) Thanks for being a great roomie!
The rest of the space was occupied by a giant "#1," in red. She dropped the card on her pillow, and closed her eyes, trying to retain some vestige of rationalism on a cold, Tuesday morning.
Her eyes eased open again at around noon, and, in a noticeably worse mood, she declared to herself that she was going to celebrate Singles Awareness Day instead of lying around.
Sharpay got dressed quickly, jeans and a top picked from Michelle's closet (it was cute and looked better on her, anyway) and stalked down the hall to scrounge movies and low-cal ice cream from other students.
No one had Casablanca or Breakfast At Tiffany's or Bringing Up Baby (She was beginning to think that she was the only person who deserved to be at this school) and the only ice cream available was a gruesome blend of strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, and five months of residence in a mini-fridge (otherwise known as Neapolitan).
And everywhere she looked, there was blatant unawareness of singles. She almost swore off human contact forever when she walked into Alice's room, expecting to find a stack of DVD's and getting something much less useful. (She'd eaten pizza on that bed last week, and while she was far from a prude, what they were doing went a bit too far.)
Twenty minutes in, and Singles Awareness Day was already worth giving up. She returned to bed a little subdued, and lay under the covers fully dressed, running her fingers over the piping on her Valentine. How silly it looked, all alone in her hand, when years before, she had been overburdened with gilded pieces of cardboard trying to win her favor. No favor was rewarded, but they were still there, and at the end of the day, Sharpay Evans always had a better haul than any child on Halloween.
Now. Senior year of college. So close to success she can dream without longing. About to spend the rest of her life giving away her soul on a stage, and maybe someday, sharing a soul when she ran out, but that was just a romanticist talking on Valentine's Day. Just. A. Romanticist. It wasn't as though she needed any love now. All memories of a high school...a high school crush were pushed away, and she ran her knuckles one more time over Michelle's proclamation of friendship.
Red piping on white cardstock, and that was the only love she'd get today. She wasn't sure if that was such a bad thing.
---East High, Summer
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Her head bounced off the brick wall, but she didn't register the pain. He did, though, and almost asked, but Sharpay stopped any line of inquiry with a kiss, and so they continued, senses too agitated to stop now.
She was starting to regret the wall, cold and rough against her back (Her shoulder blades were probably worn away by now). But she wasn't really regretting it as slightly chapped lips brushed over her neck. Curly hair tickled the bottom of her chin. Stubble pricked her shoulder. She tried to stop her brain from wandering over to her shoes, the way they were scuffed on the bumpy floor. She'll have to salvage them later.
Everything was jagged here. Everything was wrong and out of place, but it didn't feel wrong (well, physically, she was aware of the wrongness, but for some reason, that didn't matter).
Something was whispered, something that Chad (or Sharpay) probably didn't mean, something that began with an 'L' and probably didn't end in 'ower,' (that came later).
The shadows were harsh, too harsh, and she felt like there was something (someone?) hiding behind them, hoping that no one would notice. Watching and waiting. Let them watch, she thought. It would educate them, build character, encourage procreation.
Hands danced over her stomach, and the last coherent thought scampered from her mind as fingers fluttered over her ribcage. Her eyes flickered closed, energy focused on something more important than seeing. In the instant before her self-imposed blindness, Sharpay caught, right before her eyes, burned on the insides of her eyelids like a solar flare, the vision of a discarded jersey, white with red piping, a number 8 emblazoned on the chest (it was folded over and she could only see half the—
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Chad stared unenthusiastically at the something-coffee clutched in his right hand. But his expression distorted slightly as flashes of skin on skin scratched at his brain.
He coughed off to the side.
What had brought that on all of a sudden? He shifted slightly in his seat, uncomfortable as if the entire world—or at least a majority of the Starbucks customers—had just received a sneak peak at his unexpected flashback. Chad sipped the coffee, cringed and quickly gulped down the sweetened substance before it registered a second time.
Sharpay. Another back-glance at high school?
Those rapid and frankly rude memories of his fling with Sharpay seemed obnoxiously spontaneous.
Chad stared at his bagel, half-eaten and cream cheese filled. His appetite lost to a series of unsettling flashbacks, Chad wondered if his hangover was truly so present as to induce unneeded memories. And now it was nearing eight-thirty, and Chad never expected to be on a date this early.
A date. At eight in the morning.
With some girl he didn't know.
Well, he never knew any of his dates, but, this was different.
He hadn't meant to say yes to her, but…
It was a Sunday morning, and Chad wasn't sure what had happened. At seven thirty he was frazzle-dazzled from his four-hour sleep cycle by a grumbling stomach and an unhappy throbbing in his skull. With a vending machine located too conveniently down the hall, Chad had fumbled from his bed—or a jungle of black sheets—to the counter, locating his wallet and forcing crumpled dollar bills from it. Regretting his earlier decision to grocery shop tonight rather than Saturday afternoon, Chad pulled on a UCLA t-shirt and staggered into the hallway, eyes half-open.
Maybe he was just a bit hung-over from the previous frat party last night, but it didn't matter now, because it was Sunday morning. Not entirely wasted but definitely tired, he had left the party at midnight to avoid an ex-girlfriend. Or multiple ex-girlfriends. Whatever. But at seven-thirty, Chad certainly didn't feel like the king of UCLA he believed he was.
The glass pane separated Chad from the month old candy bars and bags of chips the vending machine offered. Not at all enticed by the menu but definitely hungry, Chad narrowed his choices to the two largest items: cheese puffs and chocolate-covered pretzels.
"Don't tell me that's your breakfast?" a voice rang through halls, or maybe just through Chad's throbbing head.
A little startled, Chad threw a glance to the blonde girl from the apartment across from his. Leaning against the threshold of the door, the blonde girl stabbed an old memory deep within Chad's gut.
He stepped forward a bit. "Do I know you?" Chad grumbled at his own question. It was very clear he had no clue who the blonde girl was, but the churning feeling in his gut certainly wasn't hunger anymore. He studied the girl's face briefly, the nagging feeling pestering his brain, but he couldn't place any remote identity for the random girl. Slender, tanned, and blonde, she looked like every other Southern California female. Regardless, though, something wasn't right.
The girl smiled. "No, I don't think so. But I guess you're pretty hungry, huh?"
Chad squinted a bit before turning from her. "Yeah, I'm starving." He pressed the coordinates for the appropriate snack, but felt an arm on his. He looked over to the blonde girl.
She smiled again.
And now Chad was at Starbucks, indulging a sweetened coffee experience he found slightly disgusting. The girl was apparently titled Rachel, she loved hot chocolate and Orlando Bloom, and her insane major consisted of bio-technology and a lot of coffee.
Rachel grinned. "Oh, I'm also into theater."
Theater.
Chad sat forward instantly.
Theater. That was it.
Rachel looked like Sharpay.
Chad almost felt guilty. He had said yes to Rachel's food offer because she looked shockingly similar to Sharpay Evans; he knew that was the only reason—well, maybe for the food, too—that he had even remotely considered Rachel.
Chad unfortunately surrendered most of his focus as his mind was assaulted with unnecessary and adult-friendly memories of Sharpay.
He could hardly grant any attention to Rachel for the remainder of the breakfast date.
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End Chapter 2
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A/N: TehFuzzyPenguin: Jen hates OCs, and so do I, to an extent, but I do love my foils. Michelle's a favorite of mine I pulled out in One Thousand Words for a little while. As for the flashback, I have no idea which summer it is (I wrote that one), so...yeah. I'll come up with it soon. Sorry for the long time between updates! We're both not at home, so it's a bit hectic.
Star Vitamin: Ew, yes, Rachel serves as Chad's significant other, but don't freak, it's not like she's that amazingly terrible. I got stuck with creating a female character, and I HATE female OCs, so that made the job infinitely worse. If you read my Chad, Sharpay, and the Little Rem fic, you'll know I take a while with OCs. Damn them.
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