Hiii! Here is the first full-length chapter. I hope whoever reads this enjoys it!
Disclaimer: I do not own the High School Musical series.
Show Me What I'm Looking For
Chapter One
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"Lovely playing today." An elderly woman approached Kelsi and smiled warmly at her. Kelsi laughed modestly.
"Thank you," she said. Kelsi slid off of the piano bench she had been sitting on for about the last hour. "Can I help put anything away?" she asked, gesturing around the room.
"Oh no, Dear. You're help enough to us," the lady said. Kelsi smiled and began to make her way out of the building to go and pick up some lunch, even though it was no use. The post-church rush home was still in full force and the parking lot was likely jammed. Nonetheless, she walked slowly out to her car and just sat inside, turning on a CD of classical music to listen to in an attempt to burn some time before she was to meet with some couple was coming to pick out music for their wedding.
Kelsi Nielson had never planned to stay permanently in New Mexico, but things don't always work out as they plan. She had every full intention of moving back to New York City after everything was ... done and starting over. However, she was just sort of sucked back into Albuquerque - and once you come back home, you never leave.
Immediantly after getting off that plane from New York, she headed straight to her mom's home, and she after that, she hardly left. Things were happening so fast, it was difficult for Kelsi to wrap her brain around it. Against Kelsi's pleading, her mother had made it quite clear after a round of failed treatments that she wasn't going to spend the last bit of her life in a hopsital. So, all Kelsi could do was basically whatever she could to make her mom comfortable - even though it was painful for her to do so.
Meanwhile, the more time she spent in New Mexico, the more her communication with Ryan began to decrease. Kelsi supposed that this was what a long-distance relationship was like, talking on through e-mails - Ryan claimed he was too busy to have the time for a phone conversation. She hoped that this was true, considering that she would send him long, detailed e-mails describing all of the day's events and she would wait forever for him to reply with something like: I miss you. How're things going?
It made sense that Ryan should be busy, he had recently signed on to be an assistant choreographer on a New Jersey production of some musical (he was so bust he had never gotten around to actually telling her which musical) and if things went well, they would likely be able to have a revival of it on Broadway. Kelsi completely understood about how important this was, this was a huge deal and Kelsi was happy for Ryan. However, she was dealing with her mom dying and all he could say was "how're thing going?"
Eventually - after what felt like a painfully long process that went by too fast - Kelsi's mom did die. Though Kelsi had been expecting it, it was still hard. Luckily her uncle, John, came into town to help her with the whole funeral planning process, because not only was it kind of hard, but Kelsi was was completely lost on what to do. After meeting with the funeral home to make arrangements for a visitation, they headed over to the local church for plan the actual funeral.
Kelsi had a pretty good idea of what she wanted to be said/played during the funeral, so it wasn't a terribly long process, until one of the elderly church ladies who was helping them out, approached them.
"I'm sorry," she said in a quavering voice, "but we don't seem to have a pianist available for this Thursday." Thursday was the day the funeral was supposed to be on.
Kelsi decided to let her uncle handle this one. "Well, what days is on available on?" he inquired.
"We can't reschedule the funeral, can we?," Kelsi said to her John in a quiet voice. "I mean, the funeral home already sent the newspaper the obituary."
"Actually," the lady said, "we don't have a pianist for any date. We just cannot afford it anymore."
"Oh," said Kelsi. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to say to that remark. "I could do it for free ... "
"Can you play the piano?" the lady asked. Kelsi smiled and nodded. John looked over at Kelsi.
"Do you really want to do that?" he asked. She would miss the procession and out of the church. She didn't really mind too much. Kelsi nodded. It was good for the church, a free piano player. This enabled her mom's funeral would have music. It also meant Kelsi would have a bit of a distraction from her mother's death over the next couple of days.
So Kelsi learned all of the music she had picked out, and come time for her mom's funeral, things went by smoothly. Apart from the sympathy she recieved after finishing playing, she also recieved compliments for her playing. In fact, the elderly lady she had spoken to earlier walked over to her.
"That was marvelous playing," she said. "It's too bad you can't play here all of the time!"
Kelsi wasn't entirely sure that was supposed to make her feel inclined to play the piano at that church, but she felt a twinge of guilt.
"Well, I could play here for a while," she offered. "For free ... " The lady's face lit up.
"Oh thank you!" she said. Kelsi smiled. What would it hurt to just stay home for a couple of weeks while she tried to figure out what exactly she was going to do with her post-college life?
Fast forward two years, and she was still there.
Kelsi felt too guilty to ever leave the church. They seemed so, so grateful for her to be there. Every time she convinced herself she should move to some place for where songwriters could find success, she chickened out. Of course, Kelsi had a knack for chickening out of things. Ever since she was in middle school, she was just the passive type of person. She was a listener, not a talker. She observed - and had no desire to be observed. She just sort of let things go as they wish.
So that's exactly what she did with her relationship with Ryan after a while. She was beginning to sense that he wasn't really invested in their relationship and just sort of gave up. She didn't see the need to reply to two sentence e-mails anymore. As much as she knew she loved Ryan, something had changed between them. Distance was unfriendly.
Finally, she e-mailed him, telling him that she was going to say in New Mexico a little long. She urged him not to wait for her and that they should "take a break." He e-mailed back "okay" and that was the end of that. While the idea of them not being together was hard to Kelsi, for all purposes, they had been sort of been broken up for the past several months. Even so, the second she hit "send" on that e-mail, she regretted it.
So, time went by. Kelsi began to supplement her "career" (if you can call it that, considering she did it for free) of playing piano at church with a career in songwriting. And things went unpredictably amazing. See, she had started off writing a song for some local band. Then this local band somehow hit it big with the single Kelsi had written for them. Then, somehow in a massive blur, Kelsi was getting all sorts of requests from famous people and ended up nominated for a Grammy. It was exactly the sort of thing she had dreamed of when she was a kid. Of course, Kelsi wasn't exactly one for the fanfare - the band she'd written for recieved the credit for the song (in the media, anyways - and she could care less, it was still exciting), and she watched the award show on television. Her song didn't win, but it was still just so beyond incredible.
She tried not to be interested in Ryan's life, but she found it hard not to try to find out certain things that were going on in it. To everyone's confusion, Gabriella Montez, one of Kelsi's closest friends and Sharpay Evans, Ryan's twin sister, had befriended eachother sometime during college (the pair had had a bad history together). So, Kelsi would ask Gabriella what everyone was up to. By everyone, she meant Ryan.
"By everyone you mean Ryan," Gabriella said when Kelsi asked her over the phone. Kelsi was grateful that this was a phone conversation, or else Gabriella would see how red she was turning from blushing.
"No, I mean everyone! Like how's Troy and - "
"Troy is great," Gabriella said. Troy Bolton was another close friend of Kelsi's and was also Gabriella's fiance. They had that sort of perfect relationship, like the couple from high school that's still happily together at your twenty-five year reunion. "According to Sharpay, Ryan's fine. He's dating a girl from his production of Hairspray."
And from that point on, that's all Kelsi would hear about when she asked about her one-time boyfriend - the Hairspray girl. Despite her best efforts, Kelsi was undeniably jealous. How could she not be? After about a year, she just stopped asking and Gabriella didn't tell her. She didn't care to know anymore. He had moved on into a serious relationship so fast! Kelsi convinced herself was too busy for dating - and at a time, she thought Ryan was, too.
As successful as her professional life was working out to be in Albuquerque of all places, Kelsi's personal life was just sort of a mess.
---
"I don't understand why we have to get married in this desert."
Ryan Evans sighed. They had surely gone over this at least a million times, but she still felt the need to ask the same question over and over again.
"Amy," he said softly in response, "we don't have a choice. You know my dad isn't doing well."
Amy Lyons rolled her eyes. "I know, but it's so dull here. And too hot! I'll like sweat off all of my make-up at our reception."
"Then it's a good thing the reception is going to be inside," Ryan quipped. Amy rolled her eyes at Ryan, who smirked. They were having a reception at Lava Springs, a country club owned by Ryan's parents, which fortunately Amy (as picky as she was) had decided was fancy enough.
Amy was Ryan's fiancee. They had met during rehersals for an off-Broadway production of the play Hairspray. Ryan was given the task of assistant choreographer, which basically meant take aside anyone who couldn't dance and teach them the moves. His first person he had to work with: Amy. Amy had the role of a brat named Amber. While he felt bad to even think it, he had no idea how Amy even got a role until he learned her dad (an incredibly wealthy man) was helping fund the show. She was a good singer, but she was a less-than-talented dancer. However, after a long, long time with Ryan, she began to improve drastically.
She also began flirting with him. Ryan deflected all of her advances, as he had a girlfriend - and while things were hard between them, he loved Kelsi. He was completely blindsided when Kelsi sent him an e-mail essentially breaking up with him. So Ryan began to not care when Amy continued to be all over him. Finally, he surrendered and agreed to go out with her. Amy was, more or less, a rebound from Kelsi.
Well, things went well in the show and the production moved from New Jersey to Broadway for a revival. However, the actor portaying teenaged guy character, Link, couldn't perform in that run. There was had no time to hold auditions or have anyone learn the role, so Ryan somehow got shoved into the performance. This required Amy and Ryan to work even closer, at they play a couple at the beginning of the play, and somehow his rebound turned into a actual relationship.
Or at least it must've, because fast forward a few years and they were still together.
Though Ryan had never gotten that sense of closure from Kelsi, he assumed they must be over. That sucked for Ryan, though even if she did call up and say she wanted them to get back together, he couldn't because he was with Amy.
Now maybe Amy came on a little too strong, but Ryan couldn't understand why he recieved so many negative remarks about her. In all honesty, she reminded him of his sister, Sharpay. While this probably explained why Ryan alone could put up with her, this was probably a bad thing (and kinda creepy).
Anyways, after dating for quite a while, Amy began to pressure Ryan into proposing. This made Ryan uncomfortable. He didn't feel like they knew eachother enough or that either of them were mature enough to be married. Nonetheless, after putting up with her pesistant hint-dropping (and sometimes literally begging), he finally caved - under one condition. If they're getting married, they're getting married in New Mexico. Ryan's dad had endured two heart attacks in just the last year, and he didn't like the idea of him traveling across the country. Grudgingly, Amy agreed.
Not that Amy wasn't going to complain about Albuquerque every chance she got. However, she wanted a wedding and Ryan had made it quite clear where it was going to take place.
"So, like, where are we even headed?" she asked.
"To go pick out music for the wedding," Ryan replied. "Apparently the piano player at the church is really, really good. Do you have anything in mind?"
"I'll have to go back to New York to buy a dress," Amy said, apparently having not listened to what Ryan said. "I mean, there's almost nothing out here." Amy had been whining about missing New York every since they got on the plane to Albuquerque. They had both ended their runs in the show and Ryan suggested that they stay in New Mexico for a while, to plan their wedding. Apparently, this was a bad idea to Amy.
"Whatever," Ryan shrugged. Amy was a poor listener. They sat in silence for a few moments until Ryan pulled into the church. Though Amy had already seen it, she surveyed the building with a look of utmost loathing. She felt that it was "too small."
They both exited their car and made their way into the seemingly empty church. "Great," Amy whispered to Ryan. "No one's here."
"I'm sure the piano player is here," Ryan muttered. Amy took matters into her own hands.
"HELLO?! IS ANYONE HERE?" she yelled. "HELLOOOOO? WE DON'T HAVE A LOT OF TIME, YOU KNOW!"
"Amy!" Ryan gasped in a hushed voice, automatically placing his hand over Amy's mouth to quiet her.
"I'm sorry, I'll be out in just a second," Kelsi, who'd came back inside the church after listening to music for the past hour, called from behind the piano. She groaned. She really disliked dealing with the "Bridezilla"-type.
Ryan sat down in a chair near the piano as Amy paced around impatiently behind him. Kelsi stepped off of her piano bench and Amy marched over to her. Ryan, whose chair was facing the opposite direction didn't notice her come out.
"Okay, finally," Amy said to Kelsi, who looked at her, taken aback. "So my fiance and I don't have a lot of time here today, so let's just do this."
Apparently, there was no time for introductions. Ryan, who knew that Amy would have final say over everything in the wedding anyways, didn't even bother to come over.
"All right," Kelsi said in a shaky voice. She was clearly intimidated by that blonde girl standing in front of her. "Well, I have books of music, if you want to look at them. I can play whatever you want, if you want me to play something popular, not a church song, I can ... "
Hmm. Ryan knew he recognized that voice, only he didn't know from where. He paused and sat very still, listening quite carefully to what the piano player was saying. After hearing the girl talk for justa moment, did he realize why it sounded so familiar. But no ... no, it couldn't be.
Ryan whipped around to face Amy and the piano player. "Kelsi?" he asked, his jaw dropping at the sight of what was clearly his ex-girlfriend awkwardly thumbing through of book of wedding music with his fiancee.
Kelsi took her gaze off of the music and looked up. Her eyes widened in clear shock and horror at what was clearing her ex-boyfriend, lazily sitting in a chair while his bratty fiancee looked over a book of wedding music. "Ryan?" she asked, hoping that it was just someone who looked and sounded just like Ryan ... and someone who just also recognized her for whatever reason.
"Do you, like, knoweachother?" she asked Ryan, who seemed to be in a state of shock.
Oh no. This was so, so wrong.
