Disclaimer I do not own High School Musical or any of its characters.

A/N: I know, I know, I know, it's been a long time since I updated, but guess whose teachers suck? You know things are bad when you spend more time on homework than you do sleeping…Anyway, here's the tip of the iceberg! Enjoy…

Chapter Four – An Old Wound

The next evening, Gabriella walked down the stairs to help her grandmother with dinner. Just as she was rounding the end of the stairs, she heard the doorbell ring.

"I'll get it!" she called out before she opened the front door. The smile that was on her face for the unknown guest quickly vanished as her brown eyes locked with almost identical ones. Her mother looked timid, despite her sharp attire.

"Gabriella," her mother exhaled. Before Gabriella knew what she was doing, she slammed the door shut and quickly lent back against it for support.

Just then, Mariana came into the hallway, "Who was at the door?" she questioned.

Gabriella opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She definitely was not going to be able to answer that question.

"Gabriella?" Mariana pressed, walking down the short hallway to her granddaughter, "mi cielo, are you alright?" Gabriella could only stare blankly at her grandmother – she couldn't even think, let alone speak.

To make matters worse, there was a knock on the door. Gabriella's eyes widened and her whole body tensed up.

"Gabriella Montez what on earth is going on?" Mariana demanded, "Did you leave someone outside?"

Gabriella shook her head. She felt stupid, why couldn't she say anything? She stepped out of the way so her grandmother to open the door.

Mariana opened the door, and her hand flew up to her mouth, "Dios mio," she whispered breathlessly.

"Mama," Maria whispered before she threw her arms around the older woman. Even Mariana, the ever gracious woman, froze. Though she was angry with her daughter for abandoning Gabriella, Lucas and Lily, she was simply overcome with joy to see her daughter again. She hugged tightly back, squeezing her daughter in the long embrace. Pulling back, Mariana let her hand linger on Maria's cheek,

"Oh Mija, come in, come in."

Maria stepped through the threshold cautiously, looking around at her surroundings. Her eyes met briefly with Gabriella's, who quickly averted her gaze to the floor, wrapping her around more tightly around herself.

Maria's hand slightly covered her mouth as she marveled at her, now, grown up daughter. Gabriella looked up at her mother and for the first time, she spoke, coldly, "What are you doing here?"

Maria seemed slightly taken aback at Gabriella's coldness, she took a deep breath, "I was transferred here," she answered.

"No," Gabriella shook her head, "Why are you here?"

"I'm here to see you," Maria whispered, reaching out to touch Gabriella, "and you're so grown up, so beautiful."

Gabriella backed up until she was against the stair railing. Mariana sense the tension that was building in the hall,

"Why don't we sit down at the table?" she suggested, motioning back to the kitchen, "We'll put dinner on hold and just talk about this."

Maria nodded, and began to walk towards the kitchen. Mariana took Gabriella's hand and squeezed it reassuringly,

"Come on mi cielo, this can't hurt."

Reluctantly, Gabriella started walking down the hall.

Once the three were in the kitchen, Gabriella offered to make tea for the group in an attempt to prolong sitting down with her mother. She put the kettle on and leaned against the counter.

Mariana and Maria sat across from one another at the kitchen table,

"Mija, I have so many questions for you," Mariana confessed, "But for now, I just want to hear about how you are, what you're doing."

Maria took a deep breath, before she looked briefly up at Gabriella, and then back to Mariana,

"Well, I started working as a marketing and sales agent for ECO at their branch in New York City. Five years after that, they transferred me to Japan for a year, to try an ease some tensioned we'd been having. Then, after that was so successful, the company sent me to work at the headquarters in San Francisco. After, I worked there for 4 years, they offered me my own branch in Albuquerque, and I accepted," Maria explained proudly.

"Oh that's wonderful mija!" Mariana smiled, "I'm so proud of you."

Maria smiled, "How have you been?" Maria asked.

"Well, recently, I moved to the States, you didn't think you'd see the day that would happen, now did you? But it did and here and I am living with your three wonderful children," she grinned.

Maria's eyes softened, "Lucas and Lily are here as well?" she exhaled.

"Oh course, I could never separate Lucas and Lily from Gabriella, those three are too close," Mariana explained, smiling brightly.

Gabriella heard the kettle click, meaning the water had boiled. She quickly pulled three mugs from the cabinet and placed a tea bag in each one. She carefully poured the steaming water in each of the cups, and then, just for good measure ( though she was almost positive she remembered the answer), she asked her mother how she liked her tea.

"Black," Came her mother's quick reply.

Gabriella felt her heart twinge a little bit, before her mother had left, she been much too young to make tea, but she was certainly capable of knowing how her mother took her tea,

"Milk, with a heaping spoonful of sugar because tea without sugar is like life without love, good, but not as sweet," had been her mother's famous words.

Nevertheless Gabriella, dejectedly, made her own tea as well as her grandmother's with milk and sugar, and her mother's without.

She carefully brought the tea to her mother and grandmother, before she grabbed her own and sat down at the head of the table. She daren't look at her mother, so instead she stared down at the tan colored liquid steaming in her mug. She could feel her mother's eyes burning into her head.

"I just can't believe how grown up you are, Gabriella," Maria confessed, "You've got to be a Senior in high school by now."

Gabriella nodded, "Yeah, my last year of high school."

"Gabriella loves her classes this year. She's very intelligent and extremely driven. She reminds you a lot of you, Maria," Mariana explained.

"Really?" Maria was intrigued, "What's your favorite course?"

"English," Gabriella answered quietly.

"Then it makes sense you work at a book store," Maria smiled.

Gabriella faked a smile. She was uncomfortable with this whole, 'let's pretend nothing happened' thing they had going on here. How was no one else not ready to burst?

Mariana raised an eyebrow curiously, "I didn't know you knew that."

"I ran into her at borders yesterday afternoon," Maria explained.

"Oh," Mariana muttered meekly. Gabriella could tell her grandmother was hurt, she didn't even have to look up; she could hear it in her voice.

Gabriella's mother must have felt it to, because she put her hand over her own mother's, "Oh Mama, I thought Gabriella told you we ran into each other; I wouldn't have brought it up otherwise."

Gabriella's head snapped up. She was a little angry. Her mother was seemingly painting her to be the bad guy.

"I'm sure you had your reasons Gabriella," Mariana implored.

"She didn't recognize me," Gabriella whispered.

"You could have said something to me, mi cielo," Mariana countered, "We could have talked about it."

Gabriella shook her head, "Abuelita, she didn't recognize me."

"I don't understand why that means you couldn't tell me," Mariana responded.

"Because maybe I didn't want to believe it actually happened," Gabriella confessed quietly, looking down at the table.

"Why?"

Gabriella looked up, "Why? Because it hurt so bad the first time," she spoke harshly, tears brimming her eyes.

Maria gripped Gabriella's hand, "I'm so sorry."

Gabriella yanked her hand back, sharply, "No! You were supposed to be there for me," she was standing up now, "you were supposed to be the one who I could come and talk to when I had a boy problem or a friend problem, you were supposed to kiss me every night before bed, " her voice cracked, "you were supposed to hold me and tell it was going to be alright. But no," she clamped her eyes shut quickly, before opening them again, "You left. You left Lucas, you left Lily, you left me." Gabriella's voice then got dangerously low, "You abandoned us."

"I'm so sorry Gabriella. I was young, I didn't know what I was doing," Maria tried to defend herself.

"Young?" Gabriella scoffed, "You were 27 years old. You knew exactly what you were doing." Her tone was harsh and biting.

"Gabriella," Mariana said sternly, "Don't speak to your mother that way. Why don't we just sit down like adults and discuss this."

"My mother?" Gabriella questioned incredulously, "She didn't want us. She thought we were a hassle, that we'd held her back. She is not my mother."

"That's enough Gabriella," Mariana warned.

Gabriella couldn't believe her ears. Was this actually her grandmother? She was acting like everything was perfectly ok. Like her mother had done nothing wrong.

"No abuela," Gabriella started tearfully, "it's not enough. You're acting like she hasn't done anything wrong, like she didn't hurt us all. Why is it suddenly ok for her to just waltz in here and be forgiven?"

"Families forgive each other Gabriella," Mariana reminded her.

Gabriella felt like had just lost the battle, she let her arms fall limp as she shook her head, before looking directly at her mother, "Families don't leave each other."

She was done. She couldn't stand here any longer and defend herself. She was done crying in front of Maria and Mariana. She was done yelling.

"I need to go for a walk," she whispered, before she turned to leave the kitchen. Gabriella heard Maria call after her and then her grandmother hush her.

She wasn't going back into that kitchen though, not while she was sitting there. All those feelings she'd blocked out for months now had suddenly come rushing back. The hurt, the anger. She'd forgotten how much all of it hurt. How deep in cut. She was glad to escape to the outside world as she shut the front door behind her.

And then, she just started to walk.

A/N: So, I'm not sure how much I like this chapter. Hopefully I hit the emotions right, but it was hard, not going to lie. Let me know what you think! Thank you for reading, please review!