The Jungle
by Song Birdy
Part Eleven
author's notes: I'm going to try to update in a more timely fashion, seeing how it took me a week between parts nine and ten. It's because I don't have oodles of time on my hands anymore, what with work and everything.
The next few chapters are the main point of the storyline, and I think they're going to break my heart.
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Part Eleven: Caught in a Landslide, No escape from Reality.
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Two weeks back into school, and everything has changed. Two of the most known couples have broken up, and everyone knows Taylor McKessie for who she truly is. She's holding hands with Chad again, but they both claim that they're not back together... yet.
Gabriella Montez is all smiles, even though everyone can see her heart breaking on her sleeve. She walks through the hallway, and for once since she started at East High School, she is alone. Or with just her girlfriends. She and Taylor McKessie have long since fallen out of friendship, and Sharpay Evans has become her replacement.
Sharpay and Zeke are closer than ever - everyone can see it on their faces. They're wearing their hearts on their sleeves too, but it's okay. They'll hold each other's hands so they don't fall and break.
Everyone knows about Kelsi and Jake. Kelsi's falling apart, but Jake seems happy. He seems like he doesn't have a care in the world. At least, that's what he seems like. Underneath, he's crashing further than anyone would have ever expected, and he's falling apart.
He's breaking, and she's not there to catch him. But nobody knows that at all.
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Ryan can no longer look his father in the eye, and he's not certain if his father has even tried. Had he known - had he known what had happened that night.
Ryan had reported that everything had gone according to plan - but his one deviation of hiding the body. He'd been scolded - hit. How could he leave his prints on the body? What a foolish boy he'd been.
When his father's hand had struck his face, Ryan could only imagine what it would be like to hold the weight of the gun in his hand again and hold it against his father's head the way that the man had held it against his - how would his father feel then? When his life was out of his own hands, his body out of his own hands - how could he tell his father?
Shame.
How could he admit to his father that he'd lost so much? Ryan felt in his heart that he could not bear to imagine the way his father's face would contort itself - would he be upset? angry? ashamed? scared? Ryan didn't know, nor did he care to find out.
Whenever he looks at Sharpay, all Ryan sees is pity and it makes him want to scream. She knows, and he knows that she knows. He won't tell her because she already knows and he doesn't want to suffer her the gory details - the primal way the man had growled in his ear while he slammed his face against the brick wall, the way Ryan had tried to scream but couldn't find his voice wedged between a stranger's and his own sins - and he could never tell her that the last bullet he had intended for himself. He could never say -
He found God in the missing bullet.
Maybe not the God of his father, sin without remorse - definitely not the God that his mother believed in, no sin with more remorse than ever - and not the God that Sharpay believed in, fame.
Ryan's God was different than all of theirs - A god that gave him a second chance -
He swigs down another bottle of vodka, and then he begins to see that he is his own God.
And there is comfort in that.
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She's something of a mystery to him - the way that she changes so quickly, a chameleon. Maybe that's why he doesn't trust her anymore. He's seen her many colors, but he's never given up on loving the ones he once loved.
And so there they are, sitting in the park, alone at night, just talking -
Just talking and talking and talking.
He had forgotten how easy it was to talk to her - she was so damn smart, and always had the right advice for any situation. She always knew what to say to get his goat or to make him want to kiss her so hard he'd never forget what she tasted like - she always knew everything.
And on this night, after two and a half months without her - he was beginning to wonder how he ever let her go to begin with.
"You know, Chad," She's saying to him, honest and sincere, "I really don't know what happened to me. I wanted so badly to be the kind of girl -" She stops and laughs, "Never mind."
"No," He wants to hear more, "I want to know."
"I wanted to be the kind of girl that you liked before - and I forgot who I was." She's looking down at her feet in the grass and pulling her scarf around her neck tightly.
Chad smiles wryly, "It's funny that I liked you so much more before then - when you were so nerdy and smart and we had fun doing things like this - coming to the park in the middle of the night just to talk-"
She jumps up, excited, "Me too. I miss this."
She is so close he can feel her, the Taylor he loved, "I miss us," He's saying and when she begins to mouth the words, "Me too" he presses his lips to hers.
When they pull apart she blushes and they both look back to the stars for a moment of brief awkwardness before Chad looks over at Taylor, "Do you want to start over?"
And she nods. And he kisses her again.
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Sharpay Evans has never been the mothering type - she has always been out for her own good and for nobody else's.
She's changed a lot over the past year.
She feels as though she's losing her brother - and she can't possibly know to what. She hears him at night, crying, sometimes screaming out for something that she can't possibly give him. She hears him sometimes raise his voice at their father, but she also hears the loud bang against the wall when his father knocks him into it right afterwards and the quick apology I apologize, sir, that was disrespectful of me that follows - she hears everything but knows nothing.
But tonight - tonight she cannot stand it much longer, he's screaming for the second time, loud, rough, and pained, and she creaks open the door the connects their rooms and whispers his name into the dark, "Ryan -"
Nothing. She hears a bang against the bathroom door and runs to it, "Ryan!"
And what she sees laid out across the counter causes her to fall back against the wall herself to stay standing - a gun, a bag of cocaine, more than she's ever seen at any party, a straw, a knife, and two or three bottles of vodka. She looks into her brother's eyes and it's like he can't even see her, he's shaking so badly and he's looking right through her when he mouths her name, laughing, "Oh hey Shar- Is it time for rehearsals?" He hiccups and falls against the countertop, "Because I don't think I'm feeling so good-"
"Oh shit, Ryan," tears are welling up in her eyes, "Oh shit oh shit oh shit -" She's quickly cleaning things up, throwing things away, and he falls against the floor laughing.
She picks up the bag of cocaine and shudders, "What is this, Ryan? When did you start this?"
He's laughing and crying at the same time as he stands up and pushes her up against the wall, his nose almost touching hers, "You want some? It's good shit - I got it from Jake Cross.."
She's angry, reeling against nothing as she pushes him off of her and opens the toilet and empties the bag and he starts to scream, "What the fuck did you do that for?"
She shakes her head and picks up the first liquor bottle and starts to empty it in the same way before he screams, "Stupid bitch!"
And he throws her against the wall into the bathtub, she's crying and when she looks up at him he's shaking and her face is bleeding, "Oh my god, oh shit, Oh Sharpay -"
She looks at him, and it's all the pity he can handle when she says quietly, "What happened to you, Ryan?"
He's shaking as she stands up and he falls against the wall on the floor, curling his legs into his arms as she pours out the rest of the liquor and flushes the toilet - and then she rests her hand on the gun.
"I never wanted you to see that -" he's crying and looking up at her, blue eyes and tears that were never meant to happen, "I never wanted you to see me like this - I never.."
She picks up the gun and holds it in her hands as she sits down in front of him, the weight of it in her hands feels strange, unreal, and terrifying, "Ryan," she places her empty hand on his shoulder, "It's okay, but please-" She's about to cry now, "Please, let me help you. Because - I need you, you know," and she sniffles a bit and wipes her eyes, "And not just for onstage purposes. I love you a little bit too."
His eyes are still focused on the gun, but she lightly taps his chin up to her face and he falls into her shoulder and says into her ear, "I love you too," And when he pulls away from her, "I never wanted you to know, but there's a lot I need to tell you."
And he begins to tell his story, from the night he first discovered the blood on their father's cufflinks to the night that the stranger had forced himself into Ryan's own body for collateral, and he told her about the alcohol and the drugs and the shame and the dirty money and the whole time he told her, she held him tighter and tighter until he felt surrounded by her - and he reminded himself that she was why he started to begin with.
To save her. And suddenly, Ryan Evans let go, and he forgot about the drugs and alcohol she had flushed down the toilet and he forgot about his father's shame and he held onto his sister, for they shared the same God.
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author's notes: uhm, I love this chapter, okay? Well, the parts about Ryan mostly, but I had always planned to put Chad and Taylor back together, because I do love them together. One of the few cannon couples I support (obviously the other is Zeke and Sharpay). So the poop's about to hit the fan, so to speak. The next chapter should be up incredibly shortly, probably tonight or tomorrow, but it should also be very short.
And then the one following that is a doozy, and I'd be on the lookout for it. Hopefully the promise of the climax is enough for you to forgive me for taking a week to write one chapter. I love you, kids! Reviews!
Ps. I so wasn't joking when I warned you guys about character death. Just so you know. That little incident with Ryan was not it.