Author's Note: Sorry for the late update, but I've been busy. Please review.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
What Is This Feeling?
Chapter 11: Outside Looking In
By music is happiness and –I.Panic.At.The.Crisco-
Last Chapter…
Gabriella scoffed at the last remark. "You don't know me, you don't know anything about me. Get. Out." She raised one finger and pointed to the door.
To her surprise, Troy got up without a fight. "Whatever you say. But I'll be back tomorrow."
"Whatever," she frowned.
Troy turned tail and walked out of the room, leaving Gabriella to wallow once again in her misery.
--
Gabriella Montez, now thirteen years old, walked down the hallway toward English class feeling like an animal at a zoo. Everyone was gawking at her as she walked by, whispering to their friends. She had been able to handle it so far, but she felt that she was just about to her breaking point.
She had been released from the hospital a month ago, but her mother and the doctors ordered her to stay at home for a few weeks after being out. This was he first day back in what seemed like a week. She didn't want to be back here. Every time the horrifying vision on the eleventh flashed back into her mind, Megan pushed it back gently, saying each time, "Gabriella, I'm going to be fine. You've just been watching the news too much."
She sat down in her seat and glanced at the huge calendar on the board, depicting that it was February 11th. The bad feeling in her stomach lurched up and her face turned a shade of puce. She had only two months to convince her sister to stay home that fateful day.
"Gabi?" A voice she didn't want to hear whispered to her.
She sat forward, not looking to her left.
After the unwanted voice whispered in her ear a few more times, her patience gave in and she whipped her head around and hissed, "What?" The one word came out choked by the sight of the person talking to her.
Troy Bolton looked just about the same as he always did, except he was taller. She looked away pointedly, because she saw, behind his face, a pale face with a manic expression, with big dark eyes…She was about to gather her books and go to a free desk, but the teacher, Ms. Williams, walked into the instantly silent room.
Gabriella slumped in her seat, unwilling to bear another day.
Gabriella was walking faster than usual, heading toward her last period, Math. She was a few yards from the door when a hand grabbed her arm and pulled her into a deserted hallway, a rarity at Groves Middle School.
She had her hand up and ridged, poised to hit her captor, hard, in the face. No one seemed to notice that Gabriella was missing. She saw that it was Troy in the half-light coming in from the other hallway. This didn't change anything, but she didn't strike, keeping her hand up, her eyes deadly.
"Gabi?" he asked, still holding the loose grasp he had on her arm.
She continued to glare, saying nothing.
"Gabi, please talk to me," he pleaded.
"Why should I have to talk to you?" she hissed, yanking her arm out of his hand.
"I just can't leave things like we did at the bee all those years ago, Brie. You can not forgive me for whatever I did to upset you, that's fine. I just wanted to try to make things right between us. Just, please, listen to what I have to say."
She glared at the wall across from her, refusing to look into his eyes. "Things can never be right between us, Troy. Not since I saw…" her voice broke and a tear fell down her cheek.
"Saw what?"
His innocent question brought new hatred to her voice. "Saw your psychopath brother kill my sister! In two months!" She shrieked the words; the buzz in the hallway was too loud for anyone to hear them. She sounded hysterical.
Troy's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. "T-that's what you s-saw?"
"Yes." Her voice was clipped.
"But can't you….make your sister not go to school on that day?"
"That's what I'm trying to do! What I've been trying to do since I saw it! But no one will listen to me!"
"Brie, listen to me…" he said weakly, hating to see her in anguish.
"No, Troy. You listen to me!" There were more tears flowing down her cheeks now, clouding her vision. She didn't know why she was going to say what she was going to say, but she did it anyway.
"At one point in time, I loved you, Troy. Loved you. But I instantly hated you when I first saw you, when I moved into the apartment across from yours. And now I know why." Her voice was shaking. Troy was silent.
"These…visions that I have, they are going to come true, whether I want them to or not. When I saw you, my brain was trying to tell me to avoid you, because you were, and still are, trouble. But being a fool I ignored it and got in too deep with you. You can't fix damage like that with words, Troy."
His arm dropped to his side, his expression a thousand different emotions. She ran out of the hallway, tears blurring her path.
The final bell rang and Gabriella rushed out of her Math class, not because she didn't enjoy the material, but because she wanted to leave the school in general.
She was halfway to her locker when she heard her name being whispered behind her back, with words like 'freak', 'delusional', and 'crazy' around it. They didn't bother her as much as the last word, spoken by a voice that was obviously male: 'Loony Einsteinette'.
She whipped around, her brunette curls hitting her tear-stained cheek. And sure enough, there were Ryan and Sharpay Evans, surrounded by her other ex-friends, Chad and Taylor, who were still snickering at whatever one of the Evans' had said.
This, combined with her fight with Troy, pushed her over the edge. She walked a few steps over to them, looking a fierce kind of angry. They all fully expected her to punch them, or something to that effect. But she surprised them all, and maybe even herself.
You don't know my name
You don't know anything about me
I try to play nice
I want to be in your game
The things that you say
You may think I never hear about them
But word travels fast
I'm telling you to your face
I'm standing here behind your back
She didn't sound that angry. Her voice had a mix of anger and maybe some pity. They looked at her, puzzled.
You don't know how it feels
To be outside the crowd
You don't know what it's like
To be left out
And you don't know how it feels
To be your own best friend on the outside looking in
If you could read my mind
You might see more of me that meets the eye
And you've been all wrong
Not who you think I am
You've never given me a chance
After school stragglers were noticing Gabriella now. A small crowd was forming, creating a sort of human wall by Chad, Taylor, Ryan, and Sharpay. She didn't look that them, focusing just on the ones who had hurt her the most.
You don't know how it feels
To be outside the crowd
You don't know what it's like
To be left out
And you don't know how it feels
To be your own best friend on the outside looking in
Well, I'm tired of staying at home
I'm bored and alone
I'm sick of wasting all my time
Sharpay was whispering something to Chad, and Taylor was whispering something to Ryan. Both parties were looking at her strangely, as if she had had another vision episode. The other crowd-goers looked confusedly at someone or something behind Gabriella. She didn't turn and look, still looking at her ex-friends.
You don't know how it feels
To be outside the crowd
You don't know what it's like
To be left out
And you don't know how it feels
To be your own best friend on the outside looking in
You don't know how it feels
To be outside the crowd
You don't know what it's like
To be left out
And you don't know how it feels
To be your own best friend on the outside looking in
Without a word, she gave one last look at her original audience and rotated on her heel to walk to her locker. She twisted the combo with shaking fingers, having to do it over twice. A piece of paper fluttered out of the top onto the floor. She picked it up. It was on a piece of loose-leaf paper, with the name 'Gabriella' written on it in surprisingly neat print. She opened the folded piece and looked at whatever was inside.
In the same neat script, a few words were written.
Gabriella-
Please meet me on the balcony at lunch period, February 14th.
An admirer
She read it over several times, her eyebrows stayingin the same confused line over her face. She stuffed it back into her locker, trying to get it out of her mind.
Author's Note: Please review! The song is Outside Looking In by Jordan Pruitt.