disclaimer: i don't own high school musical i wouldn't want to... just troy!

CHAPTER 4- trouble

As soon as I had told the officer my name he paged a different officer. At first I was confused as to why he would do that until I saw Phil Cross pull up in his cruiser. " hello troy, Mr Evans" he said addressing both of us with a stony demeanor "I see we where up to some trouble last night" I was gob smacked. Anger oozed out of every available pour in my body. He had called for my friends dad or , honestly I didn't know what Jason was anymore. I took a few breaths, all getting angry would do is confirm his belief that I was crazy. Right now I was not far off the mark, my shirt was dirty I was hung over with a splitting head ache and sweat had made my hair a greasy mess freaking out about the fact that I would be the topic of the cross family's dinner talk tonight would probably have him on me with a teaser.

" I'll have you know troy" he said sternly " your parents where up half the night worried had me up too" i thought this was all a bit over kill. When did I suddenly become 14 again? They didn't even let me say bye to Ryan who was taken home in the other officers cruiser. I was a little pissed off about that, I tried to keep my mind off of the crap I would have to here from my parents about this whole joke. I had met most of officer crosses talking with silence in the hope that he would stop and just let me stew in my anger and anxiety. " have you thought about what you want to do?" he asked awkwardly looking at me threw the rear view mirror.

" what?" I asked taken aback. I hated when people would ask vague questions like that.

" I mean what you want to do… for the future?" he corrected. I blanked, I had no idea. I looked out the window at the passing houses and decided to ignore the question all together. I acknowledged the irony that I had tamed my anger in order to not look crazy but ignoring him when he spoke made me look equally as crazy. It was like you couldn't win, once you where labelled that's how you are remembered. I felt waves of both relief and annoyance as we pulled up to my house.

My mom rushed out of the door like a frantic case towards the cruiser. After officer cross let me out she cried throwing her arms around me. " oh troy where have you been!?" she wailed

" Jesus Lu!" my dad said " you in the god damn house, thanks Phil I can take it from here" I rolled my eyes and walked towards the door as my father had asked. I looked back threw the screen door at my father and mother talking to officer cross. I could ugly hear what they where saying but it was all just a relay of the mornings events so it didn't phase me. when they shook hands I knew it was the hour of judgement. My dad marched up the front steps followed by my mom who was wiping her red eyes with a tissue.

My dad just looked at me with a look of disgust. " I'm so disappointed in you" I wanted to roll my eyes again but suppressed that urge. This honestly wouldn't be that big a deal if I hadn't just spent a year in the hospital.

" does that ever get boring?" I asked nonchalantly. He clenched his teeth in anger and grabbed the front of my shirt pushing my to the wall.

" jack!" my mom gasped.

" do you think this is a joke troy?!" he yelled in my face. " do you want to get sent back to the hospital, do you want them to take you away today… thank god for Phil.." the anger I felt then drove me to do something I swore I would never do. I pushed my father away from me and he fell to the ground in astonishment.

" it doesn't fucking matter!" I said " because weather I am here or there I still get treated like I'm crazy, everyone wants me to move on with my life to start being me again but no one will let me, I am sorry that I had fun for the first time in I don't know how long and that you are disappointed but i really don't give a fuck, you think you know whats best for me but you keep doing whats worse walking around like I'm made of fucking glass like I need to wear a sigh that says crazy so everyone should treat me the same"

" troy… that's not what we want" my mom said. My dad was still on the ground looking at his lap in awe of what I had just done and I felt the pang of guilt hit me in the chest. I knew I would regret pushing him. I felt the tears welling

" well that's how I feel, that's how you make me feel weather you want to or not" I said with a deep breath speaking calmly " I get it , i'm 19 drinking is illegal I shouldn't have done it but I'm still 19 I should be in school and doing this at some frat but I'm not and that's disappointing too" my dad began to get to his feet " but I'm not a child and I am not better I know that and I realize that I do have some issues that until now i couldn't address but I'm figuring it out"

" staying out all night, public drinking and sleeping in a city park are not the kinds of things regular people do" my mom said. " troy weather or not what you said is true, we still have to punish you"

" OK sounds good" i said " ground me and lock me in a room, have the nurse bring my lunch and dinner, but the little yellow pills are really throwing my head for a loop are they supposed to do that?"

" troy that's not what I meant" she said

" no" my dad said in a defeated tone. " he's over 18, he's an adult he can do what he wants" i looked at him but he didn't make eye contact.

" but jack drinking underage…" my mother said outraged.

" I believe the police enforce that law" he said " they can deal with it if it pleases them" he walked from the entrance way towards the couch and my mother stood there shocked.

" I'm going out" I said walking back towards the door. I wanted to get away from my house but part of it was a test to see what my dad did, but he just lay on the couch with the game on. My mother was to shocked to say anything before I was gone and as soon as I was clear of the yard I saw Mrs. Donahue peeking over her bushes next door.

" oh where has mittens gone now?" she said traumatically pretending to look for her 14 year old stunted tabby who still managed to kill more rats in the neighborhood then most of the other cats. She saw me and smiled warmly which is what I would have thought if she weren't a hoity toity old gas bag. " oh hello troy, back into trouble I see"

" yeah, killed a guy this time" I said statistically " nice to see you're still a nosey bitch" I kept walking down the side walk with a grin that almost made me forget about my pounding head ache. She wasn't expecting that I assume what with me always being the model citizen. I'm sure I will hear about it though from my mom or something. All of this commotion and I had completely forgotten about Ryan. I wondered what he was doing right now, if he was okay or if he was in just as much trouble as I had gotten in.

Something told me he didn't get in trouble at all this morning. If I knew the Evans family at all they probably didn't even notice he had gone out last night. I began to jog down the street once I was well away from my house but the head ache that the gin had provided kicked in after half a mile and I had to stop. I couldn't keep my mind off of Ryan by this point. I had never actually thought about guys before. I never cared about stuff like being gay or lesbian at east high Ryan was the only kid who was flamboyant enough to have people second guess but he had never exposed his preferences to the masses. It was just something that I had never thought I would be interested in, I just never thought about a guy that way

But when I think about Ryan I think about all of the things I don't like about girls, now that I thought about it boobs where just boobs, I had never even gone near a vagina before so I wouldn't even know what to do in the situation. The closest to sex I have ever gotten was dry humping Ryan in the park last night and it felt… pretty good. Did that make me gay? I guess it did.

But then on the other hand if I where gay how could I explain my feelings for Gabi, how could I have been so blind with rage at her betrayal if if I didn't like her in the first place? But I had liked her, I had loved her and now she was halfway across the country living her Stanford dream and I was a mess with conflicting feelings and a lot of confusion as to what I want to make of them. Before I knew it my feet had brought me to green tarries drive in front of the abandoned house. In all of my thinking of Ryan it brought me back to where I first met him, well not met per say but saw him.

I walked up to the door and turned the handle, it was unlocked so I let myself inside. It was dark but the cracks in the bored on the window made it just light enough to make my way. As I crept to the living room I saw the glow of the candles and heard the quiet sound of sniffling. I rounded the corner and Ryan was on the far end of the couch crying. " troy?" he asked wiping his tears away " w-what are you doing here?"

I frowned at the prospect that something had him upset enough to cry. " why are you crying?" I asked gently walking towards him and siting down beside him.

He turned away " nothing" he said wiping his eyes again " its stupid anyway"

I felt oddly uncomfortable. The fact that Ryan was here upset made me feel uncomfortable. I took a hold of his hand and squeezed it lacing my fingers through his. He slowly turned towards me. " I'm an idiot" he said with a goofy smile. I was confused but happy that he was no longer crying.

" whats up?" I asked

" after last night…" he said " I thought you had forgotten, I just I felt… its stupid"

" I remember everything" I said playing with his hand " you had doubts, that's fine i still have doubts its only been a few hours"

" its not just doubts troy" he said " I don't think you understand how much this means to me, how much it has meant to me"

" I think I have an idea" I said

" you don't" he said " you never even noticed me before senior year I liked you since grade 9, then you just left for a long time I had you on my mind all the time and now your back and it just..." i kissed him for to stop him before he could say anything else.

" i noticed you long before senior year Ryan" i said " i just never really understood you until now" i couldn't give Ryan the answers he wanted, i couldn't tell him that i loved him or that i felt the same way he did because this was all so new to me. But when we kissed, when we touched, there was something there. My stomach made an unattractive noise and the realization that i hadn't eaten at all this morning hit me.

" hungry?" he asked " wanna go get some food?" I shrugged,I didn't really have the money to buy it and I had all ready taken advantage of Ryan's money last night at the burger joint.

" I'm okay" I said.

He turned around in my arms so he was facing me " my treat?" he asked, my face contorted for a second and he frowned. I didn't want him to pay for things for me like that just because he could didn't mean he should. I haven't gotten around to finding a job yet but I have picked up an application from the grocery store earlier in the week but for now I would have to do without.

" I don't want you to have to pay for my food again" I said.

" don't be stupid" he said " its not like that, I'm hungry I'm going to go buy food for myself would you like to come?" I thought on it for a second. " troy!"

" sure" I said with a smile. " where too?"

We ended up at the same diner we had eaten at the night before, as it turns out they do up a half decent breakfast, and by half decent I mean delicious. We sat over coffee and casual conversation for the better part of an hour learning little things about each other that we didn't already know. Which turned out to be a lot. Ryan was really into movies which I found weird since he wanted to go into the theater branch of acting. " so what would you say your favorite movie is then?" I asked

" that's like asking how many breaths I think I took today, there's too many good movies" he said brushing off the question. " I have favorites but if I say one I might forget another"

" okay so what is one of your favorites?" I asked between bites of bacon.

" umm" he was clearly thinking hard about this. " stand by me, it's a classic right?"

" I've only scene it once" I said " the part with the leaches" I shudder at the thought.

" yeah but the friendship, the love between the two main characters they care about each other so much even though their only thirteen they know that life can be shitty " a thought of chad crossed my mind, when we where 13 it felt like it was the two of us vs the world " I'm sorry" he said picking up on my gloomy silence.

" its alright" I said rubbing his hand " we should go to the movies… I don't really know whats out but…"

" I have an idea" he said and the excitement was written all over his face. " why don't we watch the movies that came out while you where , you know…"

" in the bin" I said with the light bulb going off in my head, there's got to be at least 20 good movies that came out while I was in the hospital. " the dark knight"

" yes" Ryan agreed " heath ledger won an Oscar from beyond the grave for the joker, the best movie of the year in my opinion"

" avatar?" I asked

" meh, Pocahontas in space" he said nonchalantly. " we can watch it though we can watch other good movies too we have the whole summer"

" we should go camping" I said out of nowhere, the thought just sprung at me.

" um sure" he said confused " random but sure we could do that too" his phone vibrated on the table and he ignored it getting back to his food

" you can answer your phone if you want" I said with a smile. He smiled back but looked concerned none the less. " whats wrong"

" its just…" he said nervously " I cant hang out with you today" I looked at him as he frantically looked at his phone " I have a thing to go to, I mean Sharpay is making me go I don't want to but…"

" its cool" I said not entirely sure what I was going to do with my day now. I mean I didn't know what to expect before I had run into Ryan at the house but now it was a little bit of a let down I guess. I couldn't just expect him to stop his own life just because I don't have one.

" its not that" he said " I didn't want to tell you this, it's an east high thing" my heart sank. Of course, it was planed before graduation, the east high unofficial reunion. " I mean you can go you where a senior right but I wasn't…"

" I'm not going" I said threw gritted teeth, I wasn't really sure what I was angry at or why I mean I couldn't be angry at him for going I cant ask him to throw away his life for me that would be selfish. And I knew I could go if I wanted there was not really an invitation rule plus I had already been invited the year before. Then I knew , and a sudden wave of nausea hit me as I realized this was maybe the reason I was so stuck. It annoyed me to no end that I had just found out about it today, weather I would have gone or not was not the point. it was just the fact that I didn't know, that I was oblivious, I was in a hospital for a year and I was oblivious and it pissed me off and now everything was happening around me. all of the components of my past where making their own futures and I was cut off from all of it.

" i shouldn't have brought it up" he said " I'm not going"

" yes you are" i said " you are gonna go and have fun and I'm gonna go home" i was really angry but i didn't want him to be upset by it. I needed to leave, it would be for the best. I needed to do other things with my time, all i had accomplished so far was this strange obsession to the boy and i had barely done anything else but dwell on it and the world was passing by without me. I stood and Ryan stood as well. " I'm just going to walk i think" i said he deflated but part of me didn't care. " I'll call you"

i don't know why i would say something so stupid, i didn't even have his number we had not even gotten to that point yet. Now he probably thought i regretted our kiss in the park, i didn't want him to think that but there was nothing i could say since i didn't really know if i did or not.

Then as i walked down the street with the new Mexico sun beating down on me i wondered how this had become about him at all. I was mad at chad and Zeke and Jason and all of the people who had abandoned me and took chads side in what i had done, what he had led me to do . I was pissed that i would never see Gabi again that we would never have what we had. I was pissed that Kelsey turned out to be a bitch to, so why did i have so much apprehension about Ryan the one silver lining in all of this mess? I wiped my head and heard a loud car honk. I expected it to be him but was surprised when i saw another familiar face.

A/N: i decided to shorten this chapter by cutting out Ryan's part and just just giving Ryan the whole next chapter, even though its short i really like this one. i haven't really decided how long this story will be posts will be whenever, sometimes i can have one up in a few days sometimes i can leave the story entirely for a few weeks/ months, so i wouldn't expect consistent updates. next chapter is all about Ryan you will see some other familiar faces too but i want it to be clear that this story centers around only four people from the HSM universe so even though others will be scene and brought up you wont really be seeing them unless they cross paths with either troy, Ryan Sharpay or Taylor... oh wait did i say Taylor? oh goodness me... well until next time then.