A/N: Hi, everyone. I'm so so so sorry about the long wait. Writer's block is a bitch. Thankfully I got my inspiration back (mainly in the form of some very persuasive PMs urging me to get back into it!) and planned the rest of this story out so that hopefully there will never be as long a wait as you guys just had to deal with! What do you guys think of this so far? Please R&R to tell me!

Also, since I only got one person who replied to my question from the last chapter, here it is again: if I were to bring back one of HSM's songs, which would you prefer out of Start of Something New, Breaking Free, We're All In This Together, or You Are The Music In Me? Or would there be another HSM song you'd like to see in here? I'd love to hear any views on this.

-

Previously:

Anabela sighed. Late for her first class. This was priceless. For a girl who had been blessed with a perfect school record, on her first day of East High she had managed to get herself completely and utterly lost during homeroom. This was not the impression she had wanted to make. She had wanted to be inconspicuous! She had wanted to just get into class with everyone else, at the right time, not be hurled in front of calculating eyes when she turned up late. She wanted to curl up and die.

This last thought was interrupted, however, when something, or rather, someone, suddenly barrelled around the corner she was standing at and sent her, and all the papers in her hand, flying.

-

Now on to…

Chapter Six

Till There Was You

Mr Rivers talked so much during the Science class that Anabela was unable to introduce herself to the tall blonde guy sitting next to her, however during Spanish, towards the end of the lesson, while Senora Adega was conjugating verbs, the girl beside her, a pale redhead with a smattering of freckles across her nose, turned to Anabela with a smile.

'Hi. I'm Liv. And you're the new girl everyone's talking about.'

Anabela's face dropped. 'What?'

Liv giggled. 'You're exactly the way they're describing you. Big brown eyes, dark curly hair, petite. Basically, so gorgeous they have every reason to hate you.' Anabela opened her mouth, unsure of what to say.

Liv smiled. 'Don't worry, not everyone hates you yet. It's just that when you turn up to homeroom, late, I might add, with East High's resident hottie, you're bound to get the rumor mill started.'

Anabela was genuinely confused. 'Um, what?'

The redhead raised her eyebrows. 'You and Charlie Bolton turned up to homeroom together, late. And then he hugged you.'

Anabela frowned. 'He didn't hug me. He touched my arm. That was all.'

Liv laughed. 'Well, rumors circulate around these halls pretty fast.' She tapped her chin thoughtfully. 'You know, it's good that you came here. I mean, till there was you, the whole school was discussing Felicity Williams' new hair color.' She rolled her eyes at Anabela. 'Boring. The girl changes her hair color like she changes her shirts. No, this "scandal" is much more interesting, trust me. Maybe not for you, granted, but for the rest of the school…' She grinned. 'You've made this place a much more interesting place to be.'

Anabela sat back in her chair, hardly able to believe this. 'This is unbelievable.'

Liv grinned. 'No, this is East High.'

The bell rang, and Senora Adega gave out sheets of verbs to conjugate for homework. Liv took one look at it and asked Anabela bluntly, 'You're Spanish, aren't you?'

'Half-Spanish.'

Liv sighed in relief. 'Thank God. I flunked Spanish all of last year and I need these marks. Could you help me out during lunch?'

Anabela was still slightly bewildered, but she smiled anyway. 'Yeah, sure.'

Liv threw her a grateful grin. 'You are an official goddess, to be eternally loved. Thank you. But, isn't this crazy, I still don't know your name.'

'I'm Anabela.'

Liv held out her hand. 'Nice to meet you, Anabela. Want to go grab some lunch?'

-

'So, dude, what's this about you kissing a girl during homeroom?'

Charlie looked at Connor, confused. 'What?'

'The girl you kissed during homeroom? Who is she?' Adrian looked curious.

At Charlie's still-bewildered face, Jake opened his milk carton, shaking his head. 'Guys, I don't think that Bolton here has heard the rumors.'

'Oh, God.' Charlie began to shake his head, his appetite suddenly gone. 'There are rumors already? It's only the beginning of lunch! On the first day back of school!'

'And what better time to get the rumors rolling? You know what the halls of East High are like, Charlie,' Robbie said. 'It's the ultimate place for gossip to fester and breed. Besides, this is old news. This is what's been talked about since homeroom.'

'Yeah, that's what I'm not understanding. What happened during homeroom?' Charlie asked, trying desperately to understand.

'Apparently you kissed a girl, dude,' Jake said lightly, swiping a couple of Charlie's fries from his plate. 'Which I'm guessing is completely untrue.'

'Well, yeah. Look, I didn't even touch a girl during…Oh, no.'

'This conversation just got interesting,' Robbie said, laughing. 'What the hell happened, dude? 'Cos you know what Danielle Roberts is saying…'

'Could this day get any worse?' Charlie groaned. 'What exactly is Danielle Roberts saying?'

'That you've been cheating on her with this new girl. And that she's going to set you straight.' Adrian was trying not to smile.

'How could I possibly be cheating on her? We're not even going out!'

Jake waved his hands. 'Look, I think the main thing we need to know is who exactly this girl is that has caught East High's attention so rapidly on the very first day of school.'

The cafeteria seemed to get quiet in that moment, and Charlie looked up to see what was going on. 'You can see for yourself.' The guys turned around in their seats to see where Charlie was looking. A redhead was leading a petite brunette to the lunch line. The girl's eyes were fixed on the floor, and there was a pretty pink tinge to her cheeks that exposed her embarrassment.

'She's hot, man,' Robbie said. 'No wonder you kissed her.'

'I didn't kiss her, okay!' Charlie exclaimed a bit too loudly, causing heads to turn from Anabela to the jocks' table curiously. He looked down at his plate of fries only to realise that it was empty. He glared at Jake, who whistled innocently.

'Well, what did you do, then?' Connor asked.

Charlie smiled sheepishly. 'I crashed into her when I was running late for homeroom with Darbus.' The guys grimaced – Darbus was renowned for her tardiness detentions – but Charlie waved it off. 'Her papers went flying, I helped her pick them up, we talked, I walked her to homeroom, which coincidentally is the same room as mine-'

'This is sounding exactly like one of those films Veronica's always trying to make me watch,' Robbie muttered.

'-we talked to Darbus, Darbus let us both off being late-'

'That woman wants you bad,' Adrian interjected unhelpfully at this point.

'-and then we sat at opposite ends of the room until the bell rang, at which point I went up to her and asked her what class she had next. She had Rivers for Science, I said that I didn't, and that was that.' Charlie peeled the lid off his jelly and paused. 'Actually, no. I grabbed her arm and told her that she better sit at the back during Rivers' classes, 'cos you know how he has that tendency to spit when he gets excited and…'

Connor was nodding his head in understanding of this last part of Charlie's story, but Jake shook his head.

'Well, it was the grabbing the arm that did it, dude,' he said, biting into an apple. 'And the coming to homeroom late. Because now every girl who's even half in love with you thinks that you two were having hot sex in the halls before class and that's why you were late.'

Charlie made a face. 'You're not serious.'

Jake put on a sombre face. 'Would I ever lie to you about something like this?' His face suddenly changed to one of pure horror. 'Oh, no, dude, incoming.'

'What?' Charlie turned around just in time to see Danielle Roberts, her cheerleading skirt so short it left nothing to the imagination, walking up to him resolutely.

'Oh, God. Hide me?' Charlie managed to squeak to his friends before Danielle was next to him, hand on her hip, looking cross.

'What was this I hear about you and another girl having sex in the halls before homeroom?' she asked.

Connor stifled a laugh as Jake shrugged at Charlie. 'Told you, dude.'

'Danielle, I have not had sex in the halls with any girl, okay, let alone this new girl! Everyone in East High should know that nothing happened. Just lay off of her, okay? She's new, she shouldn't have to deal with trivial things like whether or not we're an item.'

Danielle's face brightened considerably through this speech. 'So you're not going out with her, then?'

Charlie realised the situation he had just put himself in, and ignored the laughter coming from the opposite side of the table. 'Well, no, but…'

'Great!' Danielle promptly sat in his lap, and Charlie grimaced. 'Well, Charles-' here there was uproar from Charlie's friends '-you made me upset, thinking that you didn't care about me. And you'll make sure it doesn't happen again, okay?'

Charlie stood up, Danielle falling off his lap and pouting. 'Look, Danielle, you're nice. I like you. But not in that way. Okay?'

Danielle crossed her arms over her chest. 'But you still like me.'

Charlie bit his lip. 'Well, yeah, but…'

Danielle beamed. 'Great. See you later then!'

Charlie rolled his eyes as his friends burst into laughter once more.

'That girl is insane,' Jake declared. 'Why she would want a stuttering fool like dear Charles here…'

Charlie glared at him.

'You need to be mean to her,' Adrian advised. 'Rather than fooling her into thinking she still has a chance with you -'

'I wasn't fooling her! There was no fooling involved!' Charlie accused.

Robbie shrugged. 'Delaney's right, dude. Be mean. That's the only way she'll understand.'

Charlie groaned. 'Thanks for the advice. I'm going to go and talk to Anabela.'

Connor nodded. 'Good move. That'd show Danielle.'

But when Charlie looked around the cafeteria, he couldn't see the petite brunette anywhere.

-

As Anabela collapsed into a seat at Liv's table, she tried to let her hair swing forward so the cafeteria couldn't see her flaming cheeks.

'That won't do any good,' Liv told her calmly, chewing on a lettuce leaf. 'You started blushing way back before in the lunch line.'

Anabela leaned over the table, her face anxious. 'Everyone was looking at me! Everyone went completely quiet! And I heard someone say that I was the girl who had fucked Charlie by the left wing lockers.' She shook her head, panicked. 'How did this even happen?'

'Like I said before, he's Charlie Bolton. If it had been anyone else you would've been completely anonymous. But Charlie's the god of East High. And when everyone sees him with a new girl-'

'A gorgeous new girl,' a voice from next to Anabela piped up.

'-they go slightly crazy.'

'I think you're underestimating the crazy factor there by about a hundred,' Anabela grumbled.

Liv reached for her hand over the table. 'Hey, they've started to talk again. You can relax. And meet the other people sitting with you.'

Anabela looked up at the rest of the table, made up of three other girls and a lone guy, all of who were smiling at her sympathetically.

'Guys, this is Anabela,' Liv announced. 'Anabela, this is Holly-' she pointed at a tall black girl with dark hair curling past her shoulders '-that's the twins, Ashley and Maddy-' the two blondes smiled at Anabela '-that guy's Kieran-' he had a nice smile, and dusty brown hair '-and that girl next to you is Georgia.' Georgia had been the girl who had spoken earlier, a small, olive-skinned girl with dark eyes. Liv waved her arms at the group. 'We're a mixed bunch, but we get lumped into the music nerds-' she pointed at the twins, Kieran and herself '-slash the freaky genii.' At this she waved at Holly and Georgia.

Liv turned back to Anabela. 'Are you either?'

Anabela shrugged. 'I don't know. I like to sing, but only in the shower.'

'Good acoustics,' the twins said together.

'Well, let's see if you're towards the genius end of the spectrum. Care to lend a hand with my Spanish homework?'

Anabela nodded. 'Sure.' As Liv searched through her folder for the sheet, Anabela looked around the cafeteria. The cliques seemed to be very rigid. She could easily see the Goth table, the drama table, the cheerleader table, and the jocks' table. She couldn't help noticing there were a lot of people still staring at her. And then she saw Charlie, with a skinny blonde perched on his lap.

'That's Danielle Roberts,' Georgia said, seeing where Anabela was looking. 'She's been trying to snag Charlie Bolton for at least a year. But she's never succeeded. That's why you coming has caused such an uproar. Until you came along, Danielle was the most sought-after girl in school.' Georgia looked Anabela up and down. 'If you don't mind me saying, you're prettier than her, and within your first day managed to get Charlie Bolton's attention.'

'I didn't mean to!' Anabela said, sadly. 'He was just so nice when he bumped into me…'

Liv grinned triumphantly as she held up the Spanish worksheet for all to see. 'Ah-ha!' she declared. 'Okay, Anabela, you ready for my truly spectacularly terrible Spanish?'

Anabela began to feel a bit claustrophobic. 'Do you mind if we go to the library or something to do it?' she asked. 'It's kind of noisy in here.'

Liv smiled knowingly. 'Sure thing. I'll show you where it is.'

-

Up next:

Gabriella laughed, wishing that Ryan was right here beside her, rather than thousands of miles away. She wanted him to be with her, holding her hand. He had a way of cheering her up, of making her calm with a simple reassuring touch, that no one else had ever been able manage.

Except for Troy.

Gabriella almost groaned aloud. What was it with her today and all these soppy thoughts of Troy? Just because Taylor and Chad are here, she tried to reason with herself, doesn't mean that he is.