Disclaimer: I own nothing related to High School Musical or Disney, any songs or familiar names/places that may appear are not mine either. i do not own the Broken Wing series either.
Title: Foolin' the World
A/N: please please please tell me what you think and review about this chapter =) i appreciate it greatly. oh and just a fyi the beginning/end structure to this chapter is similar to last chapter's because initially i was going to have them both one chapter but figured i'd get it out faster if i just split it. i'm still not sure if i'm completely happy with doing that but anyways, please review =)
I'm Your's
Narrator
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Troy heard the sound of his heart pounding against his chest repeatedly. A sound he was so unaccustomed to. But when thinking about Gabriella? Yeah, of course his heart would go haywire then. The train crashing, bombs exploding, wires crossing kind of haywire that is.
But overall he was nervous for what he was about to do. Troy Bolton nervous? Nonsense. Troy Bolton nervous about confessing his love and not taking a "we can't do this" as an answer from Gabriella Montez? Self-explanatory.
Troy was waiting in the girls bathroom for Gabriella, whom Sharpay had previously informed him was taking a shower to escape whatever drama went down in their room. Girl after girl had come in and gone out. They had either threatened to bust Troy or had come on to Troy. Neither had affected him, all he could think about was Gabriella and what she would say. How hard would it be to make her open her eyes to what they had? And his greatest fear, was it just impossible to do so?
"Troy!?"
Instantly Troy's anxious body turned to face a towel clad Gabriella Montez. "Gabriella, hey, listen, I need to talk to you." Troy said rushing over to stand a foot away from the girl who conquered his mind. He didn't even notice her exposed body, as he was too excited and nervous to finally see her and finally be able to talk about everything on his mind. He went over everything in his head, went over every word and hopefully every response that she would have. Something he never did. Troy Bolton was never thoughtful before doing something. Yet the word 'never' didn't have much meaning when Gabriella was involved.
"I'm in a towel!" Gabriella exclaimed, clinging the towel closer around her wet body.
Troy's eyes widened and lowered to her body to see if this was true, before quickly returning to looking at her irritated, shocked face. "Well under any other circumstances, I'd be freaking and being a perv and jackass and whatever. But right now I need to talk to you."
It was Gabriella's coffee orbs that widened in surprise this time. "No." She defied.
"You owe me one moment of fun."
Glancing toward the door and then back at Troy, Gabriella sighed, realizing once again he was blocking her only exit. "Fine, talk. But talking counts as the fun. Nothing else is gonna happen." She said, giving him critical eyes.
Troy couldn't help but smirk, even though he assumed that was her least favorite trait of his. "I know nothing like that is gonna happen."
"The second you even make me want to call you Jack, you're gone."
Behind his usual smirk, Troy was secretly smiling a genuine smile. In just that brief encounter with Sharpay, Troy had missed being insulted and criticized by Gabriella. Just talking to her, and her proving to be everything Troy saw about her, made him astoundingly elated about his decision to give up. He was elated to encounter the possibilities their feelings, his new, unfamiliar feelings and her explosive, yet locked feelings, could bring. The possibilities were endless and so...unpredictable.
"Troy…?" Gabriella continued when Troy's thoughts carried him away, "You said you wanted to-"
Suddenly he placed his hands on Gabriella's bare shoulders, making her jump a little at the feeling of his skin on hers. "We are going to get to know each other." He abruptly exclaimed.
"What?" She asked, shrugging his hands off.
"We're going to get to know each other so well it scares the world." Troy declared, "And we'll be the closest of friends knowing practically everything about each other but not so much that we get boring," Gabriella didn't know if she should laugh at his joke or worry about his earnestness, "Then you'll finally admit you're love for me, despite all the thoughts in your head telling you, you shouldn't love me," Gabriella started to worry, "Then," he smiled, "in the end, we'll live crazily ever after."
"Troy…" she shook her head in disagreement and bewilderment, "I-"
"I'm giving up, Sunshine," he interrupted.
"What?"
"I'm done trying to fight this power that chose us as soul mates."
"Soul mates!" Gabriella laughed in disbelief.
"And you should stop to," he went on ignoring her disdainful tone, "Just give in for once. Stop running from your feelings, stop running from this power, and stop running from me."
"Troy," she replied now serious instead of laughing at his ridiculous comment about soul-mates, "Out of everything I'm running from, you are not one of them."
"Really…" Troy said this time in his own disbelief, "Do you like me, Gabriella?"
"What?"
"Do you care about me?"
"I tolerate you, Bolton," Gabriella said in the same mocking tone as before.
Troy shook his head much like she had a moment ago, "But you need me, right?"
"Troy…"
"If you care about me, honestly have these feelings I have for you for me, then I really want to get to know you. I think…" he paused closing his eyes for a split second and then opening them with so much passion Gabriella was sent around the world and back, breathless, "I think we could be meant to be. I think I could really, really love you. I know you're scared of me," he said with a slight smile showing, "But shit, Gabi, I've never felt this way before. I've never felt anything before, until you walked in that door." Troy finished, his voice filling the air with such intensity a balloon would burst just from being in such climate.
The intensity built as Troy waited for Gabriella to speak. And finally, she managed to open her mouth and say, "You called me, Gabi."
Troy wanted to scream. It was hard enough for him to say these things but with Gabriella having responses like 'you called me Gabi?' This was going to be difficult.
Troy sighed instead of screaming. "I'm scared too, Gabi. I'm scared of getting close to you, of doing something about this love that I already feel, and then having you ripped away from me. I'm scared of what feelings that'll bring. But this fear isn't holding me back. I'm so afraid, but I'm here."
Gabriella nodded at his last words and he could've sworn she said, "I'm glad."
"I'm falling in love with everything about you, Gabi." He said encouraged now, "Your smile, your laugh. Your beauty that you don't even seem to care about having. The way you scrunch your face when you're thinking. How you bite your bottom lip when you're nervous. How…" Troy took a breath, calming his raging thoughts, "Even when you are nervous you're still so brave. How you can be so brave yet so in need of help. I'm falling in love with the way you're so sweet yet so strong. So strong, yet so vulnerable. I'm falling in love with you." This time Troy stopped because he saw Gabriella needed a breath.
"Gabi, if we decide to do this, this love thing. If you let me, I could really, truly love you with everything I am for everything you are. The handholding, two straws, dancing in the rain kind of love. I already feel it happening, and I don't need years of experience to know that this is the best feeling I'll ever feel in a thousand lifetimes. And I'm not going to let that feeling go wasted."
Again Troy waited for Gabriella to find the breath to speak. And when she did he was again exceedingly disappointed. "You keep calling me Gabi."
"And I'll call you bitch if you don't say something other than that." Immediately Troy slapped himself figuratively for his words.
"Thanks, Bolton. Way to ruin everything sweet and caring you said in just two seconds."
"You think I'm sweet and caring?"
"I think you're full of it."
"And?" Troy pursued, knowing there was more she wanted to say but wasn't sure she should say it.
"And, maybe, I-" She stopped, realizing she was falling for his trap.
"Maybe, you…"
Gabriella didn't know what she was thinking. She was trying all her might to turn her heart against Troy Bolton. And maybe it wasn't just because he was reckless, maybe that was just an excuse she found to make reason for her fear. Gabriella was too scared to open her heart again, to anyone. And Troy counted as someone. "Maybe I," she said, now her determined even stubborn self returned, "Just don't like you."
"Fine." Troy replied quickly, relieved to hear her at least say something relatively relevant to what he was talking so passionately about, "You don't have to like me."
Gabriella's back stiffened, "You're so confusing."
"As long as you love me." Troy finished.
And Gabriella felt a push inside her. A surge of emotions that wanted to break free with the strength of a waterfall, the power of a volcanic eruption, "Bolton, you're insane!" She started, taking a step back, "How am I supposed to love you!?"
Blue eyes rolled and a bronze arm lifted to run a hand through its chestnut hair. Exasperated with Gabriella, yet falling for her harder every second she resisted him, Troy replied in an incredibly low, sexy voice. "I'll say it again, then," he took two steps forward, "You make me feel, Gabi. You make me feel alive. The things I did to get me in this place, I did them because I get this rush, this excitement when I do. I feel and I'm human when I do those things. But with you…" Those same blue eyes peered into Gabriella's, if it were possible, lightning would be surging from the gaze, "I get those incredible feelings ten fold just from talking to you. Just from being with you I feel excitement, anxiety, nerves. I get rushes, I feel everything and more. So what's the point of doing those things when I have you? What's the point of doing anything if I don't have you? I'm not a guy running from his fears anymore. I'm not lost and conflicted. I'm just left with me. I'm just me when I'm with you, and I like it, a lot. I'm scared to be so free and so vulnerable. To be me but feel so unfamiliar with me at the same time. I'm afraid to be able to love you so much. But I always will, because the thing I'm most scared about?" Troy took another step forward, and while experiencing the excitement and nerves he just described, he hesitantly took Gabriella's almost paralyzed hands into his, "Is going a day without you with me."
If Gabriella hadn't been stricken unmoving before, she was utterly paralyzed now. Her eyes refused to leave the blue oceans they so absolutely loved, strength like the force of gravity. It was like his words created a gust of wind that blew every thought from her head and every action from her body. Everything about Troy that she reasoned was bad and figured as blatant warnings to stay away, now looked like lovely invitations. Inviting her to jump in headfirst, eyes closed, heart in her hand. Open to be loved or destroyed.
Troy moved even closer and held Gabriella's hands tightly in front of them. "Say something, Gabi."
And she did. She said the only thing that came to mind. She said it without thinking, without weighing consequences of saying such a thing. She said it because it was the truth and she was done lying to herself.
"You give me a reason to live, Troy."
It was as if his world literally imploded. At least that's how his heart felt when he heard her words.
It was as if a light was spreading its way through his entire body. At least that's how he felt from the gleaming grin on his face.
It was perfect, meant to be. That's how it was.
Gabriella felt it too. She was more scared than ever, for the truth being exposed to him and herself. She didn't know what was going to happen next.
And that's why she ripped her hands from Troy's loving grasp and took three frantic steps back, her eyes seeping fear into Troy's body. His amazing feelings never left, but fear did seem to overpower them for a moment as well. Was she really still being this stubborn?
"Gabi…" He tried to get closer again, closer by stepping forward and closer through their hearts.
"No! This can't be happening!"
"Why not?"
"I…I don't even know your favorite color Troy!"
"And I don't know your favorite food, Gabriella! It doesn't change the fact that I have these…indescribable feelings for you!"
"Stop it! That's my point! Things are moving so fast! I don't even know you and we're…"
As much as Troy wanted to protest instantly to Gabriella's repetitive worries, he waited for what she was about to describe them as.
"Everything is so strange, Troy!"
"Well, me and you…" Troy said, sending blue fire to Gabriella, "Everything about us is so strange. Why should something being strange matter?"
"Because I need things to be normal! Because we're so…" Again Gabriella stopped from finishing her statement.
"Second time you've done that. We're so what?"
"Stupid! How can we be professing our undying feelings for each other when we don't even know each other!?"
"Because that's the way things have to be!"
Gabriella's voice calmed, "What?"
"I need to know you care about me. That you do have feelings for me before I get to know you, before I get too close to you."
"But how would I know I feel that way when I don't even know you? How do I know that this isn't just a lie?"
"Because you're strange." He answered with a sly smirk.
"Troy, I'm serious. We're doing everything wrong, we're…"
Troy smiled. He knew he had her. She had already pretty much admitted everything he sensed about her feelings. Now her attempts were purely amusing.
"How could you possibly be smiling?" She asked with an impatient tone to her voice.
"You really are very strange."
"That's getting old."
"You do love me."
If Troy got paid for throwing people off, he'd be richer than her family.
"I'm sorry, what!?"
"That's why you're so scared," Troy explained confidently, "Why you're freaking. Because you love me and you don't know me. What you don't know scares you, right?"
Gabriella opened her mouth to protest but closed it slowly as his words settled in her mind. He was absolutely right.
"Well Jesus Gabriella," he continued smirking, "I'm flattered. I gotta say it's gonna be a great adventure loving you. I say no to a wedding, none of that rice throwing, aisle walking, cake cutting crap. Instead, skip that, and go straight to the honeymoon. And not in cliché Hawaii or Fiji. Let's go to Australia. Or we don't even need to do that. An old motel by the road would work. Hell, the road would even work."
Gabriella was slowly giving in. Maybe it was how he could make her laugh so easily that her wall was gradually crumbling. "They don't throw rice anymore."
"No?" Troy's lips slowly shifted from the smirk that seemed planted there and formed the breathtaking, heart-stopping smile that finally pushed Gabriella over the wall she built for herself to keep her safe and in control. Her feelings were now free. And her demons were now free.
"No. It got to be too strange."
Troy's smile grew at that. "Huh. No kidding. Well then if we did have a wedding maybe we should do the rice throwing."
He took a step forward and although Gabriella had reached a resolve and given in, she still took a step back.
"You really are scared, aren't you?" he asked in the most caring voice Gabriella had ever heard. Not even her father had such a caring tone perfected like Troy surprisingly did.
"You said it yourself," she practically whispered, "What I don't know scares me, Troy."
In a matching hushed voice, Troy replied, "There's not a reason to everything Gabriella."
"There has to be. Without them…" Gabriella started to breath roughly, "I'm…" She paled slightly, "He's…" The face that conquered her dreams and turned them into nightmares took over her thoughts. That dark face that turned her world so equally dark, was managing to effortlessly send her back to the darkness now.
And Troy noticed.
And Troy stopped it from happening.
And Troy saved her from depression once again.
"Black." He said suddenly.
Gabriella's thoughts snapped back to Troy at his one word. The word that was the name of her ex-boyfriend. The name that haunted her relentlessly. "What?" she choked out.
Troy shrugged, no smile evident on his face, "Black's my favorite color. Maybe gray…" Troy stopped to think now. Truly pondering what his favorite color was, the funny look on his face steadily bringing a burst of light, just like the one that broke through the darkness out in the field, into Gabriella's vision. "Brown? No definitely gray now that I think about it."
"I thought I was the depressed one." She smiled, the light now sweeping over the darkness like wind carrying away leaves.
Troy frowned at that, not liking to think of Gabriella as 'the depressed one.' "Well what's yours?" He asked in desperation to change the subject as well as curiosity.
"Red."
Troy silently laughed at her quick reply and nodded, that fact already being stored in his brain dedicated just to her, as was his heart. "Ok. Can I ask something?"
"You're asking permission?" Gabriella's smile grew in amusement. It was strange being around Troy, she was right about that. She had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder months and months ago. It had ruined her. Yet being with Troy. It was a quicker change of moods than she's ever experienced and it made her feel…good. As he would say, it made her feel alive. He made her feel amazing.
"You feel it don't you?" Troy asked quietly, as if he was reading her thoughts.
"Feel what?" She asked, pretending to be confused even though she was pretty sure she knew what he was asking. She was just thinking about it after all. She was constantly experiencing it after all.
He took two steps closer and they were back to being in breath-mixing distance from each other. The electricity surfaced, as usual.
Blue bore into brown. Gabriella was so transfixed by his eyes she didn't even realize he parted his lips to speak. His answer to her question filling her ears like lightning piercing the ground.
"This." He said, referring to the euphoric wrenching Gabriella's and his insides were doing from being so close to one another.
A few seconds passed of Gabriella just studying Troy's blues, while focusing on her feelings, something she promised to never do again. Until finally she took a couple deep breaths and gave her answer. Another one of truth. "Yes. I do. I feel it and it scares me."
"I know." Troy replied without hesitating, "But sometimes fear is just keeping you from something great. Sometimes," He paused, "Its just there to fool you."
Gabriella, instead of looking away like she would have any other day, just continued their stare, not knowing what to say.
"Another question," said Troy.
Gabriella, instead of holding back her soft laugh like she would have done any other day, just let it out, not wanting to fight any emotion that entered her when around Troy anymore. "What?" she giggled.
"Aren't you hot?" the smirk returned and so Gabriella instantly prepared to roll her eyes, "'Cause feel free to take that towel off. I won't feel uncomfortable."
Immediately a deep red shaded her face. She had completely forgotten she was only in a towel. The only thing she was focused on was Troy and his unbelievable words. She almost got lost in thought of everything that was said that day, but her flaming face reminded her to stay focused. Gabriella instantly marveled at the feeling of heat on her cheeks. Before she had admitted her love for Troy, blushing was never an issue. But now, now that she gave in to her love and Troy did as well, she was finding herself blushing around him a lot. Still, she wouldn't let such obvious evidence of the affect he now had on her stop her from showing the strength Troy admired.
"We'll get to know each other starting tomorrow, then Jack." She walked past Troy, not daring to glance at him for fear that glance would turn into hours of gazing.
"Aw! Don't be like that!" he cried to his love's retreating figure.
She turned the knob and opened the door. "Bye Bolton."
"Gabi! Be nice! You love me remember!?"
"Get back to your room before we're in trouble."
She smiled and took a step out of the room and closed the door. Her love's parting, "C'mon Gabi!" being the last thing she heard before taking the seemingly brighter walk back to her room.
That was the first time she'd hear him say that. That miraculous phrase "C'mon Gabi." That was the first time she heard it, right after her decision to act on their love. It seemed fit that, that's when she'd hear those words that saved her from everything she was afraid of. The moment she decided to fall in love with her greatest fear.
And Boom. Boom. Boom.
Gabriella heard the sound of her heart pounding against her chest repeatedly. A sound she knew so well. But out of love? Yeah, she figured she was in love. The forehead kissing, moonlit walks, balcony climbing kind of love that is.
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