Hey guys, im soooooo sorry this took so long to post my computer broke down and we had to get a guy to come in and fix it! I hope this chapter is ok, I had writers block after the first bit but once I started I got going again n it seemed to write itself. Thanku so much for all your reviews you guys are incredible: a special mention to pollypocket, you are my most loyal and beloved reader, I love hearing from you, you always seem so enthusiastic about my writing and it's really encouraging! But that's not to say that I don't love hearing from all of you! Heres the chapter, ive got the next one all planned in my head so it will be up in no time: ill post it 2mrw! Xox
"For
everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under
heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to seek,
and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A
time to love, and a time to hate."
It has been said that in all actions there is both hatred and love. As humans we are incapable of loving and living for another, we are all corrupted right from the depths of our very souls, so we are about to be destroyed by our own flaws. As we are unable to know the future, so we act on the present, often believing are actions are largely inconsequential, and never seeming to understand that an act of love, may be later seen as an act of hate or cruelty, in the same way an act of hatred towards someone, may end up being revealed as an unseen act of love. But in all of us there is at once both pure hatred and pure love. No one is freed from this fate, so we walk through life blind, believing that the knowledge of this duality allows us to control it. We seek freedom from ourselves, afraid of both our capacity to love and our instinct to hate. Death is no longer the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive -- the risk to be alive and express what we really are… "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains."
It starts as an act of hatred and spiteful cruelty. But we know not what it is the future holds for us, and even the worst actions can have unforseen consequences, which can reclassify them as acts of love or compassion. In hindsight, we have the clearest view of our actions, but that does not mean we will ever understand.
Troy and Emma began to walk to Darbus's room together. They weren't talking, but it wasn't awkward, it was a comfortable silence. They were almost to the door when a bunch of seniors came up them. A few of them were on the team, a couple of others with them Troy knew only by sight.
"Hey Bolton, we needa talk." One of them said.
"Uhh, can this wait? I'm late for homeroom." Troy answered: he couldn't care less what they had to say.
"Oh, it won't take long."
Troy said goodbye to Emma and gave her directions to Darbus's room. He watched her walk away until she turned the corner and then turned back to face the guys.
"So, what's up?" The guys didn't answer though, one of them grabbed Troy by the arm and they began to march him somewhere. Troy knew there was no use struggling: they were all bigger than him and the guy holding him had an ironclad grip. They walked him into one of the upstairs music rooms that were soundproof. As they threw Troy they came in and locked the door behind them. Troy got up and turned around and saw their faces: he knew they weren't here to talk. Troy counted 8 of them, all taller and stronger than he. 8 vs 1: he didn't fancy his chances.
"So Bolton, think you're pretty good huh?" A guy on the team said. His name was Jhavi and he had cornrows. Troy didn't answer: there was no use really.
"What too good to talk now?" The guy said, getting angrier. Again Troy just stood there saying nothing. Jhavi got sick of this and punch Troy in the jaw hard. Before Troy had time to react, Jhavi had kneed him in the stomach, and Troy fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.
"Get up little bitch! You call yourself captain?" Troy staggered to his feet, but the second he had regained his balanced he was hit with another solid punch, this time to his eye. As Troy fell to the floor a second time, and the second he landed he felt hard kicks into his stomach. He didn't know how many there were kicking him, but it felt like there were hundreds. The pain was terrible; Troy couldn't breathe as one by one he felt his ribs snap.
Troy didn't know how long the beating continued, it seemed like forever. He felt dizzy and weak as he could barely breathe from the pain, every time he tried it felt like he was being kicked again and the air was knocked right out of him. One by one the boys spat on him and walked out. Troy didn't get it, he should have felt sweet relief, but instead he felt nothing. He deserved the pain, and even though every second they had been beating him felt like an eternity in hell, half of him wished they would come back and continue. In the midst of such pain he had forgotten about everything else that had happened in the last few weeks, and that was where the real relief had come.
Troy lay in the music room for what seemed like a lifetime. He could see blood on the floor and on himself, but he didn't know where it was coming from. Every inch of him hurt and was throbbing, but it was nothing compared to how he felt inside: an emptiness beyond hollow that was claiming him, making him want to scream out in pain and sadness. 'How did it come to this? It wasn't supposed to be this way. None of this should have happened. How did I let it get this bad? How come no one can tell? Does nobody care that much?' Troy began to silently cry as thoughts like these flooded his mind and threatened to drown him. For the second time in his life he prayed. It wasn't a prayer like people normally think of them: no words were spoken or thought directly for that purpose. It was a prayer his heart was making, a cry out for help and comfort in the last place it could be found. He didn't know he was praying; he was beyond even considering that. But his hearts desperation for any hope was letting out its own prayer: the souls own last defence against itself, which most never even notice when this comes to pass. By this point all conscious efforts seem in vain, and the heart must try independently one last time to feel again.
Meanwhile: Homeroom. Darbus style.
Emma walked into homeroom and all the faces in the room looked up and stared at her. A few of them she had seen before, but most of them she hadn't. She walked up to Ms. Darbus and gave her her transcripts and everything. Ms. Darbus just put them on her desk and waved her off to find a seat. Emma looked around the room; people were just standing or sitting in groups and talking. She saw an empty seat by the window and went a sat down. She took her ipod out and as she looked out the window and listened to her music she began to draw. She loved to draw, more than anything. It brought her a kind of peace. She felt like even if she was full of ugliness and horrible thoughts, through art she could create something beautiful. And more than that, some of her pain would leak out into her drawing, as though leaving her through the end of her pen. She had mountains of art diaries full of drawings, and thousands of drawings on loose leaves of paper. But she had never shown to anyone. They were hers: everything she was was so deeply riddled into each drawing that the thought of someone seeing them scared her. If someone saw them, they would see all of her, as though the walls of her heart were made of glass, she could hide nothing. There was no one she knew who would understand, or care enough to bare her soul to. So she put it into all her drawings, so that one day, when she met the right person, she could show him all of her, and he would love her for everything she was. Her few minutes of serenity were interrupted by a preppy blonde girl with big hair.
"So, I saw you having lunch with Troy Bolton." Emma quickly hid her sketch under her notebook and took one of her headphones out of her ear.
"Umm, yeh… what of it?" Emma wasn't sure where this was going, nor did she care what the girl had to say.
"Well, I wouldn't associate with him if I were you, especially if you plan on making friends here at East High."
"He seemed perfectly nice to me, he was the first person to talk to me and make me feel welcome. That makes him ok in my books."
"Well he's an absolute joke. He thinks he's really cool, but everybody just laughs at how pathetic he is, and all the stupid things he does. I mean, he fully turned on his best friend!" By this point, everyone was listening to them.
Emma was quiet for a few seconds then spoke:
"Well, in my experience, you get most angry and violent with those you love the most, because you don't have to worry about whether they'll still love you in the end. We vent on those we really need as a way to reach out them when we're in pain, because we assume they'll understand and want to be the one there to comfort us when everything falls apart and you no longer feel like you belong to this world. As for Troy, I'm sorry if he hurt you, or any of your friends. But I'm more sorry for him that while he's hurting so badly and felling so fucked up, that his friends didn't care enough to stick by him to get him through, or even to notice." With that Emma put her earphone back in stared back out the window, hoping the girl would get the hint and leave her alone.
Sharpay walked back over to the group and sat down. She looked around at the gang, who all held the same bewildered and ashamed look on their faces. They were all deep in thought about Emma's words. They all knew she was right: when Troy had needed them the most, and tried to reach out to them, they had all abandoned him. No worse. They had all ridiculed him and been spiteful and nasty towards him, alienating him from their group and turning the student body against him. Each one of them felt deeply ashamed for what they had done, as they sat and thought about all the times Troy had acted out to try and get them to notice he was drowning in himself. Gabriella began to cry. Even though she knew she had tried more than the rest of the group to reach him, she had not tried nearly hard enough and been a true friend to Troy, nor did she ever share her concerns with the group, afraid of what they may think of her. They all just sat in silence, too ashamed to speak, and not knowing what to say.
Back to Troy.
After what seemed like an age Troy clambered to his knees, and then feet, and began to stagger to the roof. He didn't want anyone to see him like this, so he decided to go there for the first time since Gabi had dumped him. Every step hurt, and Troy didn't know how he even made it there. But in times of desperation things we never felt possible come to pass, and before too long Troy had crawled on his hands and knees but the last step and collapsed on the rooftop, breathing heavily. He lay there looking up at the sky through the shade cloth above him. He thought of all the times he had had in this special place, all the beautiful times with Gabi that would always have a warm place in his heart. Then he thought about all the terrible times he had had on this roof. All the times he had come here to get away from everybody, and of course, the fateful day when Gabi had broken his heart and began his spiralling into a world of self-hatred and abuse. This roof seemed to encompass his life in all its aspects. Both the very best and the very worse were right here where he was. Troy was a symbolic guy, but to him, this rooftop was his sanctuary and his hell: it was him, and everything about him. And so, it was the perfect place to leave forever.
Troy slowly lifted himself to a sitting position and grabbed his backpack. The wings he was about to receive as he left this world had cost him $300. But he couldn't put a price on it. Freedom. It is beyond wealth, and all the money in the world.
As Troy stuck in the first needle he thought about Emma. He hoped she would be ok without him, but he was sure she would be. He would probably just bring her down with him anyway. His thoughts of her were quickly interrupted when he realised he had already injected one hit, but he felt nothing. He knew he had finally hit the end of the road; hit rock bottom. When even a big hit could not take his pain away, or even give him a temporary feeling that he was ok. He felt nothing. So he injected again and again, until he had almost pumped $300 of pure heroine into himself. Still he felt nothing, but that was ok, because soon he would be free from it all, and be forever in a state of nothingness: a state that held no pain. The idea was welcoming and brought a smile to his face. Everything was gonna be ok. As he felt his eyes begin to droop he reached into his bag and pulled out the latest set of lyrics, and read over them, slightly singing to himself. All this pain was in this song, and he smiled as he sang to himself the pain he would never have to fell again, until he slowly drifted out of consciousness.
"They've
clipped my wings again
Tore them apart and then
Left me
No
use to fly away to
My yesterday
Of freedom
My eyes died
back that day
Seeing the hurt I may have done
Beat me instead
of them
Pain is my only zen
Of fun
I'll go where secrets
are sold
Where roses unfold
I'll sleep as time goes by
So
hurting here is where I belong dreaming a song
Blood on my hands
to stay strong
The flowers in the graveyard are all gone I don't
belong
There is no right to heal the wrong
Soup's on hot
feelin' like a do or die
I can't throw up don't think i even want
to try
You still can't make me cry
You've pinned this
butterfly
Down
My fire's burning out
Kill my flame without
A frown
And starving hurts the soul
When you're hungry
for
Some love
So if I close my eyes
I can really fly
Above
I'll go where secrets are sold
Where roses
unfold
I'll sleep as time goes by
So hurting here is where
I belong dreaming a song
Blood on my hands to stay strong
The
flowers in the graveyard are all gone I don't belong
There is no
right to heal the wrong
Soup's on hot feelin' like a do or die
I
can't throw up don't think I even want to
Try."
The gang was standing in the empty hallway in silence near Troy's locker. He hadn't shown up to homeroom at all. Usually they would have thought nothing of it; Troy had been skipping a lot lately. But now they were worried, and rightly so. They couldn't just brush off Emma's words. As they stood there, someone came running down the stairs and flew around the corner at top speed. None of them knew his name; they only knew him as one of the people in the science club. There was no one else around so this guy ran straight up to him.
"QUICK GIVE ME YOUR CELLPHONE!" He yelled at Chad. Chad had never spoken to this guy before, so just looked at him weirdly. "CELLPHONE NOW!" Chad didn't argue, something about this guy was desperate so it must have been important. The gang watched as the guy dialled and put the phone up to his ear and began to speak frantically:
"Hello? 911? I need an ambulance right away it's an emergency! There is a boy… He's collapsed on the roof… I'm at East High… I can't tell if he's breathing… He's beat up really bad… There are needles all around him I think he's overdosed… And there are huge cuts on his arms but I think they are old… Please hurry I can't tell if he's breathing!… His name is Troy Bolton…"
The gang heard nothing after that: they just froze.
