"Hey, can I ask you something?" I'm sitting on Valerie's nook thing by her window staring out looking at her neighbor's house.

Yes, Troy Bolton's ex girlfriend. HOW CREEPY.

Valerie emerges from her closet carrying two white dresses and a black one. "Yeah, sure. But I need your advice first. Which dress do you like better? I have my friends birthday dinner tonight and it's at this fancy place. And I can't decide between all of these. I think I'm leaning more towards these white ones."

She holds them all up for me to see and I think I like the black one the best. But she wants white so um... "I think I like the long sleeve white dress better."

"Same," she says throwing the other ones on her bed and going over to her long mirror to hold the winning dress up against her, "I think it might be a bit cold in there so I think this one will be perfect. And the other one's kind of short."

"Yeah," is all I really say, keeping me eyes on this girl's house, hoping she comes out of it. Actually, I don't know what I'm doing watching it, to be honest.

Valerie goes back in her closet to put the other dresses away and then comes out and sits at her desk, "so what's up?"

Oh right. Umm. "Who's that girl you live next to?"

"Taylor?" she scrunches her nose a bit, "Taylor Holt? You haven't seen her around before?"

"I mean, yeah, I've seen her but I saw her at In-N-Out yesterday and she was um, she was looking at me like she wanted to kill me." I wasn't gonna go into detail of why I wanted to know, but I have no other choice. "And I don't know, just kinda wanted to know what her deal was or whatever."

Valerie turned to me from looking at her computer and gave me a weird look. "Who'd you go to In-N-Out with?"

Yep. It has to come out now. "Troy."

"That's where he was? He didn't go to homecoming because he went to In-N-Out with you?"

"It's not a big deal," I try to shrug it off as nothing, but maybe it is, ya know? "I mean, this Taylor girl obviously didn't go to homecoming either so..."

Val rolled her eyes and got up to grab her phone from her bed, "Taylor Holt doesn't go to our school. She goes to a private school. That's um. Wait. Are you and Troy dating or something? Do you guys have something going on?"

"NO!" I almost say too soon for her to actually believe, "I mean, no. It wasn't a date or anything. I just never tired it so he wanted to take me."

"On homecoming night?" she questions me as she sits on her bed, "I mean, yeah, sure, it's a casual thing. But everyone goes to homecoming. Including Troy Bolton. This is actually the first year he hasn't and we were all wondering where he was and now I know. He was with my cousin at In-N-Out on a date."

"It wasn't a date, Val," I roll my eyes and close the blinds so I don't look creepy, "it wasn't even planned."

And then a smile emerged on Valerie's face and she shrieked.

What? What is going on?

She got up and came over to where I was sitting and grabbed my shoulders, "Troy Bolton is so into you and you're so nonchalant about it. Oh my gosh. The guy everyone wants is into the new girl. That's major. You should be ecstatic right now."

Should I? Maybe I would be if it didn't seem like a game, you know? I am into Troy and him being into me too is so ideal right now but I don't want enemies.

"I mean, he's cool. I like him, but I don't know, Val. I don't want enemies. I'm new here. The last thing I need is girls hating me."

"They won't hate you," she scoffs, "they'll just be jealous of you. Troy Bolton NEVER dates anyone."

What is she talking about? "Um... Taylor?"

Valerie rolled her eyes and got up and went back to her desk where he computer was, "okay. Taylor was an exception that didn't end well. And that was a few months ago so whatever. But seriously, every girl wants him and Taylor has been his only girlfriend. You should feel proud of yourself right now."

"Maye he's just being nice to the new girl. Maybe he just feels bad for me."

"Nah," she shakes her head, "there was a new girl last spring. He made no effort to get to know her and she's really pretty."

Okay. Umm. I'm coming to terms with the fact that he does seem into me and that's frightening. Intimidating. How in the world did I land the most popular guy here? Sure, in New York, it's a different story because that's my world. But here. I'm not from here. I still think plaid is hideous and I still wear my boots from Chanel and Valentino, you know? I'm not different. I'm still a New York girl... I'm just living in Texas now.

"So why did they break up?"

"Troy and Taylor?" she turned her attention to me for a moment, "he broke up with her, but it was pretty ugly, I think."

"You think? You don't know what happened?" I really want to know what happened. BADLY.

Val shook her head as she scrolled through something on her computer, probably Facebook. "No, I mean. I'm friends with Troy, but not close enough to where he'd tell me why exactly. No one really knows, actually. Just that it wasn't pretty and he hates her or something like that. Maybe she hates him, too."

Gah. WHAT HAPPENED? I thought Val would for sure know since I didn't want to ask Troy about it. "Oh. That's weird. Doesn't seem like a guy who would hate a girl. Or anyone for that matter."

"Exactly. I mean, I heard she maybe cheated on him, but it's not for sure."

What the fuck. Who would ever cheat on Troy Bolton? Not only is he beyond gorgeous, he has a great personality to go along with it. Very charismatic and outgoing. Friendly and nice. And really funny. He's always making me laugh. So like, why would anyone ever take that for granted? Maybe she did cheat on him if he hates her, right? That's the only logical explanation here. Because I don't think I could ever hate him.

Poor Troy. If that were true. I can't imagine being cheated on. That must really suck.

"Do you honestly think it would be a waste of time if I maybe wanted to pursue something with Troy?" I ask Val for her honest opinion.

She looked over at me, closed her laptop and gave me a smile. "I don't think so. He's really popular, but he's also super nice. You don't really find that combination too often. So, like, he's a good person. I really like him as a friend and stuff."

That makes me happy since she knows Troy and she's my cousin. Sure, Emily told me to go for it, but hearing Val think it wouldn't be a waste is nice.

Now all I gotta do is find a way to keep hanging with him.

Another Friday night, another party.

But this time, I really did not mind being here. I actually wanted to be here.

Probably because it's being held at Jackie's house and over these last few weeks, we've really gotten to know each other in class. And I like her. She's my friend and Emily's my friend. And Leah. And they're all here. And they're all so nice to me and I love it.

"You're spending the night, right?" Jackie asks me as she hands me a drink she made for me, "or is Val gonna give you a ride?"

"No, I'm spending the night," I tell her with a smile.

Yes. Can you believe that? I'm SPENDING the night at Jackie's house. In TEXAS. I have a friend in Texas whose house I'm spending the night in. And I can't get over it. I don't know why. It's so bizarre to me. But I want to spend the night. I want to be here. And I just want to party with these people.

Valerie mentioned that Emily and her friends are really nice girls and they're all so cool, so I trust them. I trust spending the night here will be just fine.

Plus, I wanted to drink and not have to worry about a ride and make sure my DD was actually not drinking, you know?

"Cool, your first sleepover in Texas," she laughs as she puts some hair behind her ear, "but just so you know, I'm probably not going to cook you breakfast because I'm the worst cook, ever, but I WILL drive us to get breakfast."

"Fine by me," I laugh, taking a sip of my drink, "no, but really, thanks for letting me spend the night."

"Of course. We're happy you're here."

And strangely, I'm kind of happy to be here, too.

Jackie tells me she'll see me in a bit because she was going to go grab some more alcohol and bring it to the bar or something.

I continued drinking the drink she made me and then made my way outside where everyone was at. People were playing beer pong, other people were playing flip cup or something like that. And the rest were just standing around, mingling, listening to music.

"Heads up, Trevor Leal is going to ask you out," I hear out of nowhere behind me.

And when I turn around, I see Troy standing there, with a small smile on his face. What? Trevor Leal? "How do you know?"

He chuckled a bit and looked around the place, probably scanning the place for Trevor or something if it were true. "Because I know everything. And I know that he's going to approach you in a bit and ask you if you want to grab some dinner, so thought I'd warn you. You know, so you could be prepared with an answer. If you don't want to seem too excited, or if you want to find a way to let him down easy..."

"I don't even really know him," I tell him, honestly, "he's just in my art class."

"Well, I'm just telling you what I know. That he's going to ask you out," he tells me.

And I'm honestly really surprised by it. Trevor's cute, but no. I don't really know him or care to get to know him.

In fact, he kind of annoys me in Art. Always making really annoying jokes. Playing the penis game, where you gradually increase the volume of your voice while saying "penis" or something like that. It's really annoying and he could be a really cool person to hang out with, but I don't really think I want to.

"Great, now I'm going to spend my whole night trying to avoid him rather than having one moment where I didn't know what was coming and I could have just said no and gotten that over with."

"I'm sorry," Troy holds up his hands in the air like he's defending himself, "thought I was helping you out a bit. Unless you just wanna tell him yes..."

It seemed like he was fishing for an answer. Even though I pretty much just gave him one? Doesn't me saying I'm gonna try to avoid him imply that I don't want to go out with him? Gah. This is way too complicated. Troy either likes me or not and I want him to tell me RIGHT NOW.

And why he is really telling me about Trevor Leal? Would he care if I went on a date with him?

Hmmmm. "Should I just say yes then? Save him some embarrassment?"

"You want to?" he asks, looking around the place again, "I mean, sure, you can do whatever you want, but Trevor Leal is kind of annoying."

Yeah, I could definitely see that, but by him telling me that, ah, maybe he does like me. Maybe he doesn't want me to go on a date with him. "I don't want to go out with him so maybe you can go tell him that so he doesn't ask me? Saves us both some time."

A small smile emerged on his face and once again, I'm confused about everything. "Just ignore him. I'll help you."

"You'll help me?" I laugh, taking a sip of my drink really quick, "what does that even mean?"

"It means that he's not going to ask you out if you're with me all night. Or with my friends. He's way too much of a chicken to ask a girl out in front of people. He won't take rejection too well."

"Well, can't he just pull me aside?" I question. How will me hanging out with Troy all night actually stop him? "He can pull me aside and then ask me?"

And then I get it. Me hanging out with Troy will imply that Troy has me or whatever. That I'm with Troy. And that Trevor Leal can't ask me out. And I don't know if I like that or not. I don't know if I care for Troy using that against Trevor. Even if it does help me out. It just feels a bit weird.

Troy stares off to God knows where, looking at God knows who and once again, here I am, taking him in.

He then turns to me, "he could pull you aside and ask you."

Suddenly, I'm nervous. His blue eyes are looking into mine and that's enough to make me nervous. It's enough to get me feeling all giddy inside.

But it's not enough to where I don't want to be around hi. I want to hang out with him. and talk to him. And stare at him. So I take a look around the place, see Trevor Leal from afar talking to some friends, drinking a beer, and decide that yes, I'll hang out with Troy Bolton tonight... I mean, he is offering.

"Let's play beer pong," I tell him, downing the rest of my drink, "yeah?"

"What?" he looks a little surprised. I've never taken initiative to hang out with him, really. "Okay."

And off we went to play beer pong.