A/N: Sorry guys, I was rushing to get another chapter a few nights ago night (I have limited computer time during the weekdays) and I was a little unclear about Troy's confrontation with Chad and Gabriella's arrival. So, it's been slightly altered, I hope it makes more sense! It should be explained a bit more in this chapter, too. -love- Desireé

Chapter Ten, Truth and Logic, Lies and Mayhem

The tension filling the cafeteria nearly suffocated Gabriella as she stared into Troy's eyes. She desperately searched for warmth, compassion, something, something that would tell her everything would be better by tomorrow. But he offered no tenderness, no empathy that could keep her from bursting into tears again. The God-knows-how-many students watching made her self-conscious as she put her hands on her hips. "Well, then," she said in a bitter tone, "I apologize deeply for being another inconvenience. That seems to be a talent of mine lately. Please, forget the last week we've spent. Carry on with your life and I'll carry on with mine, thank you very much." She turned on her heel and stomped away, rushing past the sudden buzz of whispers, resembling the cinematic hum of locusts.

She could hear someone scream her name. "Gabriella! Gabriella!" It was hard not to turn around and look for this voice, something that sounded awkwardly kind in her day filled with hurt. She kept walking, though, marching to her locker where her fingers clumsily tried to enter the combination. "Gabriella!"

"What?" she finally snapped, turning in the direction of the call and closing her eyes. Hopefully, when she opened them, the person would prove fictional.

But alas, it happened to be Ryan Evans. The blond boy caught up with her, panting slightly as he skidded to a stop. "Hi," he said breathlessly. She noticed him looking down at her five-month belly.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," she muttered, finally getting her locker to open. Books tumbled out, and before she could do anything, Ryan reached down to get them for her. "Thanks," she felt obligated to say.

"Listen, you know Troy doesn't mean that," he said, piling her texts together and handing them to her. "I mean, this has been a crappy day for all of us. And it's Sharpay's fault—"

The name alone poisoned Gabriella's insides. She couldn't believe she had at one point befriended the girl. "What about your bitchy sister?" she said with a sneer, halfheartedly regretting it as she saw Ryan wince.

"Well, somehow she knew about… Chad. And you. So she spread it around today." Ryan bit his lower lip and added, "I think she was jealous of you."

Ha! Gabriella had never heard something more ridiculous in her life. "Why would she be jealous of me?" she asked, searching for the excuse note that her mother had written a week earlier; it was, in Theresa's word, for emergencies only, and this was definitely an emergency. "She's not the one carrying around an extra fifteen pounds and some heavy gossip on her shoulders."

There was a small look of sympathy on Ryan's face. "You had—have, I mean. You have Troy," he whispered softly. "Sharpay doesn't have anyone but me and I… And, well, I've been getting around to socializing, too. She's a little lost."

Smiling weakly, Gabriella turned to Ryan and kissed his cheek. "Thanks for the concern, but I've got to go… Um, doctor's," she lied and averted his gaze as she walked down the hall, towards the office. She was achingly shocked to see Troy standing there, leaning over a wastebasket and making wretched sounds as his shoulders clenched, his hands clutching the bin's rim. Maybe he won't see me, she thought. That's ridiculous. Of course he'll recognize my voice. Still, she pushed forward her note to the secretary, hoping it wouldn't require any vocal effort. For once, Gabriella's wishes were granted as she quietly excused herself out to the parking lot.

At that moment, she realized Troy had given her a ride that morning. "Crap!" Gabriella muttered. This meant she would have to walk, call her mother, or stay at school, none of which sounded very fun. Looking around desolately, she began to prepare the trek back into school, making up an excuse for her return to the office ladies. That was when Taylor appeared.

"I thought you needed a ride," she offered, and keys flew into the air. Gabriella blindly caught them, startled. Taylor shrugged. "My car's the silver Saab. Just don't wreck it. I'll get Kelsi to drive me to your house later." And with that, she disappeared.

At that moment, Gabriella didn't feel alone. She felt like she had friends again, and was just completing a particularly solo mission. As she got into the Saab, she felt her hands grasp the wheel and the engine come to life, finally taking her away from the campus. The drive home was a blur, and the objects on the road barely came into focus. Somehow, though, she miraculously pulled into the Montez house's driveway, safe and sound.

Her father was home, to her surprise. He was talking on the phone, leaning against the kitchen counter. Hi, he mouthed. Hi, she mouthed back. Christian smiled at his daughter before turning away, back to his conversation. Gabriella felt herself glow slightly; since she had first found out about the pregnancy, she had built a brick wall between her parents. Even so, it seemed her father could climb high and beam at her from the top of the barricade.

At school, Troy and Chad continue their argument in the cafeteria.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Troy shouted, practically shoving Chad into a meek looking group of ninth graders. The scuttled away as Chad regained his footing, grimacing angrily. "She's fucking eighteen! She's a stranger to you! She's not even your freaking girlfriend!"

A few feet away, Taylor cleared her throat and crossed her arms. "Ex-girlfriend," she said heatedly. Chad glanced at her crossly before turning back to Troy.

"Look, dude," he said with a frown. "I know I thoroughly screwed up; I can say that with no regret because it's the truth. I don't know what I was doing that night at Serena's party—" at this point, Serena and the cheerleaders had their attention on the fight, too "—but I know what it did to all of us. I lost a great girl, you gained another but evidently lost her again, and we're all whispering and gossiping like Gabriella has no feelings! She's a human being—"

"Don't you go freaking sentimental on her," Troy interrupted. "I swear to God, you have absolutely no right to be messing around with words about her." He clenched his fists, resisting the urge to sock Chad. Someone had begun to chant 'fight, fight, fight' and other people were joining in now. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kelsi and Martha apprehensive as they looked around, and Sharpay seemed somewhat confused, as if this wasn't what she had planned to happen. "I'm out of here," Troy finally mumbled, tearing through the thick crowd of students. A symphony of groans and the same buzz of gossip followed him as he charged through the front doors, not caring about his parents' future outrage over his first time playing hooky. This was his emergency.

The office seemed like a haven as the nurse handed him the wastebasket when he told her he felt sick. "You look awful," she commented, her voice worried. "Just lean over this for a while."

As pretty much anything he had consumed in the last forty-eight hours abhorrently cascaded into the bin, he heard the door open. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see blue and white Pumas, and he could smell the Herbal Essences shampoo weaving through her black curls. When hovering over a pile of vomit, this smelled pretty good. But she didn't speak, so he didn't look up as his shoulders clenched again and the nurse clicked her tongue at his misfortune.

Eventually, the nausea passed and he stood up. The nurse handed him two sticks of gum and wrote a sick note. "Sign here, and I'll put it into your file. You need just some sleep and maybe Vitamin C. Don't have any heavy food, and try not to upset your stomach any more. You hear me?"

He nodded and signed his name sloppily on the marked line. Soon Troy found himself sitting in the driver's seat of the Range Rover, trying to think of where to go. Home sounded nice, where his bed waited, a warm comforter and maybe a soundtrack to Linkin Park. But then again, as he pushed the gum into his mouth, he thought about Gabriella. Maybe he could fix this. Maybe he could make her love him again, somehow, by healing the wounds he had cut between them. Maybe.

Somehow, Troy seemed to be able to get out of the car and walk up to the Montez home's door with his chin up and his eyes forward. He would do this. Knocking lightly, he waited. Eventually, Gabriella's father answered, carrying a box of junk. "Oh, Troy!" Christian said, smiling slightly. "Sorry, I didn't hear you knock at first. What can I do for you?"

"Um, hi, Mr. Montez," Troy said, feeling his mouth become listless. He had never really met Gabriella's father before, at least without another person around to keep the conversation going. "Well, I was just wondering if Gabriella was home. I wanted to, um, talk to her."

Christian, to Troy's relief, smiled slightly. He didn't know about the episode at school. "Oh, Gabi is actually sleeping right now. She's pretty exhausted, tells me there was some tough tests this morning," he explained.

A small twinge of guilt seeped into Troy's heart. "Thanks," he said, nodding as he stuck his hands in his pockets. "Just, tell her I stopped by, will you?"

"Of course." Christian closed the door and Troy looked back towards his Range Rover, when he remembered April would be home. When she was around, Troy found his sister to be a better comfort than his parents. Especially compared to his parents, of whom his father enforced basketball and his mother administered grades. April would push aside academics and athletics to see what her brother's problem really was: love.

The blue-haired girl was sitting on the couch at home, flipping through text messages on her phone. She glanced up when Troy entered the room, closing the door behind him. "Hey, little brother. What are you doing home so earlier?" she asked, closing her Razr and scooting over so he could sit on the other cushion of the sofa.

"I'm fucked," Troy groaned, collapsing onto his respective seat.

"Obviously," April replied, "You never swore unless you were super pissed, super miserable, or super in trouble. Which is it this time?"

"Miserable," Troy replied. "And in trouble. And pissed. All three." He rubbed the back of his neck with a grimace as he explained who the father of Gabriella's baby was, where that left him, and what he had said to the pregnant girl.

"Damn, Troy. Hurtful stuff to an emotional gal," April replied, tossing a popcorn kernel into her mouth. Troy's hope that his sister would be understanding would begin to wilt. "I mean—Gabriella's a cool girl, it's not fun to hear her going through all that crap while totally pregnant."

"Thank you, Miss-Point-Out-the-Obvious," Troy grumbled. April raised her eyebrow. "You're my big sister! You're supposed to fix this! I royally screwed up, I need you to tell me what to do and how to right my wrongs."

Smiling softly, April patted her brother's head and stood up. "All right, all right. I'm going to go talk to Gabi. I think she needs a friend right now, and since you're pretty much her only other one, I think I gotta take the reins. Drive me over there, I'll have a sit down with her. She's five months along, right?" Troy nodded as he watched his sister take an extra shopping bag and stack it with random food from their kitchen. It was, he assumed, her junk food diet, 'ready to cure any depression'

Once she finished packing, Troy swallowed, standing up and heading straight for the bathroom again. April grabbed his keys and called out to him, saying she'd be waiting in the car. "Don't go stick-thin model on me!" she called over her shoulder with a grin. It sounded like Troy muttered something in return, but she was already out the door, swinging the key ring around her index finger.

Finally, they were driving through the neighborhood, Troy going as slowly as possible. April piped up, "Were you telling the truth about what you said earlier? At school? You had a big burden of emotion on your shoulders that was Chad's mess to clean up?" She sounded slightly hurt, perhaps on behalf of Gabriella.

There was contriteness in Troy's eyes as he finally pulled up alongside the Montez home for the second time in an hour. "No," he sighed, biting his lower lip. "I didn't. I was just mad that Chad had ignored the situation—and I know that doesn't make my words any better, but I at least know there's another reason for them." He waved to April as she unbuckled her seatbelt and walked up to the house. The door opened and Gabriella appeared, her stare meeting Troy's for a millisecond until he immediately turned and pulled back onto the road.

"You want to talk about it?" April asked, seeing the tears in Gabriella's eyes. The dark-haired girl nodded, her lower lip quivering, as she threw her arms around the other and let her sadness soak April's shoulder. For a moment, she imagined she was hugging Troy Bolton. For now, though, his sister would have to do.

A/N: Yay! America's Next Top Model is on! -goes off to watch it- I hope you guys are enjoying Wishful! It should be a few more chapters, depending on how people like it. -love- Desireé