A/N: Hi guys! No update for 3 months and then 2 in 2 days! I just wanted to apologise for the lack of updating, my lifes been really crazy at the minute with exams and my computer got this horrible virus and I lost everything so I kinda had to start from scratch again, even with another story I was planning on posting some time soon! But I've got some personal stuff going on at the minute and writings my way to vent about it all so I hope you don't mind. Just wanted to let you know that there is only going to be 3 chapters left after this one, I am aware that this is darker and alot different to anything I have written before but hopefully some of you have liked it? And I am aware that maybe it hasn't been my best work but I've enjoyed writing this story even if it had taken alot out of me! So thanks again and I hope you all had an amazing Easter!!

The first day back was always going to be the hardest.

That's what Gabriella kept telling herself and had kept telling herself that all morning, ever since her alarm woke her up that morning. She had kept telling herself that as she took a shower, brushed her teeth, as she ran the curling iron through her hair and applied little make up. Her therapist had even told her that no matter how much she told herself she couldn't go back to school. She could. It couldn't be that hard could it?

"Stop it." She muttered to herself as she stared at herself in the mirror. "You can do this. You can do this."

She was dressed simply in a gray knitted jumper, two necklaces around her neck and some baggy black pants, with black sandals. "Stop being a baby." She mumbled to herself again, as she took a deep breath.

"GABRIELLA!" Her mother yelled. "Sweetie!" And then there was a knock on the door.

"Come in..." She mumbled, which was followed by the door opening and her mother walking in with a cup in her hand.

"I brought you some coffee." She smiled. It had been hard for Gabriella to spend time with her mother without feeling like she was being suffocated. Of course it was hard for her, her daughter had nearly committed suicide but there was only so much babying Gabriella could take. "You want?"

"Um, no I'm good thanks." She said quietly walking over to her closet to pick out her bag for school and started to get her things together.

"You have that meeting with a tutor at lunch right Gabi?" Maria asked, slipping that one in there as Gabriella bit on her bottom lip out of annoyance. Because of when Gabriella was on her downward spiral she had missed out on so much work when she either hadn't bothered to do anything or just hadn't bothered to turn up for class. So to get her life back on track she had to meet up with a tutor to catch up on the work she had missed. Otherwise she would be flunking and repeating the full school year. And she really, really didn't want to do that.

"Yeah mom. And yes I'll call you when I'm finished." She announced as she breezed past her mother and down the stairs towards the kitchen, grabbing a glass of orange juice and taking a small sip.

"Gabriella you know it won't be that bad.." Her mother attempted to calm her down but what the hell did she know? She hadn't been to high school in what forever?

"Yeah whatever." She mumbled.

As if on cue, the doorbell rang, and Gabriella knew that her mother was about to say something and she thanked god that somebody had decided to come to the house at that specific time. She breezed past her mom and opened the door and was surprised and a little taken back to see Chad standing there. "Hey..." He greeted but then seemed to pick up on Gabriella's bad mood. "Everything okay?"

"Yes! Perfect!" She beamed sarcastically. "I'm sorry. You um, wanna come in?"

Gabriella didn't wait for an answer she turned her back and then when she heard the echo of the door shutting she realized Chad had decided to follow her in. And she could almost sense the confusion that was beaming from him. "You do know we start school in like 20 minutes right?"

"Relax Danforth it's not like we're going on your bicycle." She playfully joked as she took another sip of her orange juice ignoring her mom sat with the baby on her lap. "We're not going on you're bicycle right?"

"No!" He exclaimed. "Actually I haven't ridden my bicycle in years. Maybe..."

"Shut up." She laughed.

"Um Gabs.." Chad called her name with a frown on his face.

"Yeah?" She responded.

"You are coming to the party tonight right?" Chad asked probably seeing that she only had the one bag resting on the floor.

"Party?" She pondered completely clueless.

"You're kidding me!" He exclaimed playfully. "Kelsi's Birthday party?"

And then realization dawned on her, her mouth fell wide and her eyes too. "Oh my god! I'm so sorry I totally forgot. Um, yeah I'll be there."

"Um Gabriella are you sure you wanna be..?" Maria asked whilst rubbing her hand up and down the baby's back.

"Mom it's just a party. I can't be stuck in this house where you can suffocate me..." Gabriella finally blew up and then released her annoyance in a sigh.

"Maria if it's any consolation. I'll bring her home straight after. I mean Jack and Lucille are gonna be there, it's kinda an adult thing too. You know Kelsi..." Gabriella turned her coffee eyes to stare at Chad who had an almost devious smirk on his face. In which she then had one too. She knew she was best friends with him for a reason. Guilt tripping Gabriella's mom had to be the oldest trick in the book.

"Well if Jack and Lucille are gonna be there. Okay, um, make sure you're home by midnight okay?" Maria asked smiling at her daughter.

"Um okay." She responded a little confused. Thinking her mother wouldn't let her go. "Thanks, I guess."

"Now go on go to school and don't forget to call me okay?" Gabriella rolled her eyes at her mother's babying, but her mother's eyes were drilling into hers, sending the message that she wasn't there to be tested at that time.

"Fine okay." Gabriella smiled whilst walking over to her baby sister and tickling her stomach earning a giggle. She quickly pressed a kiss to her forehead and turned around to see Chad standing looking around the room awkwardly, causing her to chuckle. "Come on. You have to come to the mall with me so I can buy her a gift; you're such a shit friend for not reminding me." She joked.

"As long as you don't max out your credit card." Chad joked, and Gabriella halted her movement on the steps and her coffee eyes met his almost back. He then bit his lip in terror. "Too soon?"

And then Gabriella burst out laughing uncontrollably. "You're lucky I like you. You should have seen you're face!"

Gabriella could handle whispers. Before she had her melt down she would hear people saying that she was hot or they liked her clothes or something like that but never did she imagine that she would hear the whispers that she was hearing as she walked down the corridor that morning. She was alone too. Everybody had disappeared to their classes and she had to endure walking from English all the way down to Physics which was across the school. And the pressure was building inside of her from the whispers. She slyly turned her head to the side to hear two junior girls not being remotely quiet about what they were saying about her.

"I heard she had a complete nervous breakdown and she slit her wrists." The blonde girl commented holding her hand up to the side almost shielding her mouth.

"No that's bullshit. She ran up to this camp site and jumped into the water." The whispers were too much. She knew it was going to be hard but she didn't know it was going to be this hard. She felt like the weight of the world was on her shoulders and it was all going to crash down as these three girls whispered about her. But yet, they weren't really whispering were they?

"Yeah it's because Troy apparently said that he hated her." All she had to do was keep her head held up high as she walked, but it was starting to droop. She knew people were going to whisper about her. She knew they did. But as she continued walking heads turned to stare at her. But not in the good way. They were all staring at her, looking her up and down.

"Look how skinny she's gotten..." Another girl commented.

"Psycho."

And that was the turning point.

Gabriella's eyes were wide. Chad had promised that he would ask to get out of his gym class, just to come and get her and walk her to class. But she had told him not to. She had said that she wanted to do it alone. And now she was regretting that decision. Chad had walked her to her first class and she had sat in her usual seat at the back so it was hard for people to stare at her. And as she was leaving her teacher had offered her a few words of wisdom saying that she shouldn't have been afraid to be back in school and what she was doing had been a really brave thing. But that was a lie wasn't it.

Gabriella felt helpless. Like everybody was out to get her, like she was in a jungle and she was the dear and the rest of the animals were cheetahs and lions and they were all out to get her. Because she was vulnerable. She didn't know where she found her strength from But she found it from somewhere, but it wasn't the strength that she should have to scream at all of the ass holes that were being awful to her. She started to run, her shoes clicking against the ground and she kept running.

And running.

And running.

She felt like she could keep running until it was silent. Until the whispers were gone. She didn't know how long she had been racing through the hallways for but she felt tears rushing off of her face. And then she found herself somewhere odd. Totally odd, somewhere that she didn't think she would ever run to. Gabriella stopped herself from running as she became breathless and placed her hands on her knees to gain oxygen in her lungs. Then she glared at the bench, as she walked to sit down on the bench. She folded her legs up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them hugging them close to her and placing her head on the top.

She sat there for a while. Not realizing how long she had really been there until she heard an echo of footsteps and cheers and laughs around her. And then all went silent. It must have been a millisecond later when she felt a hand on her left arm. And then another on her right arm. This was it; she didn't even have to think. She knew that they had found her and they just wouldn't leave her alone.

"Gabriella, what is it?" A concerned, caring voice asked her. And she didn't even need to look up to know who the angelic voice was even as he touched her arm she could feel sparks flying around her body. Then realization dawned on her. It was the day of the state championship. Everybody was still in silence, and then she knew that the entire basketball team was standing in the locker room witnessing the scene unfold.

"Gab I love you and all but do you wanna tell me why you're sat in the boys locker room. Miss me that much?" A deep voice joked which she knew belonged to Chad and he placed one of his hands on her right arm. "Gab come on your trembling."

She hadn't even realized she was shaking. She sniffled slightly to stop herself from crying even more as she lifted her head and saw Troy and Chad sat at either side of her. And then to the door where the other guys on the basketball team were standing. Either looking at her like she was a complete loony tune, or with genuine concern or confusion. Gabriella looked to the two of them again and then to the team. And the two of them seemed to pick up on her uncertainty.

"Guys can you give us a few minutes, please?" Troy asked, all seeming to understand and nodding and turning away and walking out of the door. "Come on talk to us..."

Gabriella finally took a deep breath and ran a hand over her face, not caring whether she had smudged her make-up. "People were just staring and talking and saying all of this mean stuff..." She had to stop herself to let a squeak of a sob erupt from her throat. And then she felt Chad's hand rub soothing circles on her knee. "And I just couldn't take it anymore. I thought that I could but I.... I couldn't. And I just ran." She sobbed, hot tears streaming down her face.

"Come here..." Troy beckoned as he pulled her body towards him, her head resting on her shoulder and she felt his chin rest upon her head. She wasn't stupid she could tell that Troy and Chad were having a conversation above her head and miming the words to one another.

"Gabs you know..." Chad began, Gabriella lifting her heavy head to stare at him. "Even if people are talking about you, at least you're on their minds."

Gabriella's eyebrows rose as she stopped herself from slipping into hysterics for one minute as she stared at him. And then Troy began to laugh. "Dude seriously. Is that the best you've got?" Troy asked nodding his head.

"That's the best I could come up with yea." Chad joked with him as Gabriella giggled. "See I made you laugh!" Chad triumphed.

Gabriella smiled. "I'm sorry. It's just hard." She was beginning to calm down. And she ran a hand through her hair brushing the curls out of her face. "I'm sorry..."

"We didn't even have to do anything..." Chad exclaimed as Gabriella's head fell back into contact with Troy's shoulder. She shouldn't have been doing this. She didn't want to confuse him, they weren't together and yet she was leaning on him, gripping to him like her life depended on it.

"DANFORTH!" The door slammed open and there she saw Jack Bolton standing there with fury locked into his eyes, his face rigid like stone. His arm stuck to the door like glue." Oh hey Gabriella." His eyes narrowed as he must have seen her crimson eyes. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah I'm fine." She responded, smiling sweetly to her second father. "You were shouting at Chad?"

"Oh yeah um..." He replied, and then cleared his throat. His stern face returning. "Danforth. I didn't have you down as a thief..."

Chad's eyebrows furrowed however there was a slight smirk on his face. "What are you talking about?"

"You know if it this wasn't just a little bit of fun playing again before the school years over I'd have your ass suspended! I've got scared teenage boys out there because one can't find his towel. Jimmy's towel. Where is it?" If Gabriella looked close enough she was sure that she could find slight amusement in Jack's face. But Chad's bottom lip was quivering as if he couldn't hold the laughs in any longer. And then Troy broke the silence by laughing. Laughing too hard making Chad laugh. The two laughed until they couldn't contain themselves any longer. But Jack's expression didn't falter.

"Where is it Chad?" Jack asked, he glanced towards Gabriella and he sucked in his bottom lip to hide his amusement. Gabriella doing the same.

"Fine.." Chad mumbled grumpily, standing up and searching inside his bag. He finally pulled out a snow white towel and extended his arm to give it to Jack but Jack shook his head. "What?"

"I want you to give it to him yourself. See what everyone's so mortified about..." Jack instructed. Chad's almost black eyes were wide with surprise, shock and horror.

"What?"

"You heard me. Get your ass moving!" Jack shouted, instructing Chad who stood up and skulked over to the door, Jack's face still rigid as he stared over to Gabriella who had to control her laughter.

"Not a word!" He mumbled before Jack slammed the door.

And then there were two.

"Troy I'm really sorry for bothering you. I just started running and..." She rambled, finally calming down and realizing that she had been a fool for running. She knew it was going to be hard but... not that hard and she knew she had to grow up and face the music but she didn't think she could.

"Hey don't worry about it. This is the thing, you've got to talk to us when something's wrong. I'm glad you're here." He wrapped his arm around her and squeezed her tightly to his body. "Hey how about this. You don't go anywhere alone huh? I mean we'll assign people to walk everywhere with you and that way you won't have to listen to what people are saying."

Gabriella smiled. He was trying hard, he really was. She inhaled deeply and rested the front of her face on his shoulder affectionately. It wasn't quite romantic but it wasn't innocent either. "Yeah. Thanks. I really appreciate you and Chad and everyone else being there for me. It means alot."

"Don't mention it." He responded his chin resting on the top of her head. If anybody walked in on the two of them they would think they were dating. Gabriella even had to reassure herself that they weren't dating. "So you're gonna be at the party tonight right? I didn't know if you'd be there because of..."

"Where else would I be?"

It was just a barbeque.

A family barbeque. Where friends were together too.

The sun was beaming brightly down on the big garden and the smell of food filled the air. Everybody was sitting outside, around tables and there was music playing in the background. Troy wouldn't have exactly called this a party. He would have called it something like a get together. But Troy's idea of a party was completely different to what Kelsi's was. Alcohol and loud music was what Troy considered as a party. But Kelsi was always the one to do things low key and she wasn't really an alcohol and loud music kind of girl. She was more a glass of wine and the classical music TV channel. But Troy liked her all of the same.

"So how's she doing? I heard people were giving her a hard time today. Someone even came over to me and asked if she'd shaved all of her hair off." An almost feminine voice asked him. As he turned to the owner he saw Sharpay's twin brother Ryan standing there. If anybody would have looked at Ryan they would have thought he was gay. But he just liked to look after himself and express himself in other ways to which he and Chad probably would. Troy would like to express himself in basketball where he could bring out his personality as well as get fit. However Ryan liked to keep fit by practising yoga and expressed himself in music. He was Kelsi's best friend. But as Troy told himself each to their own.

But to this comment Troy did have to laugh a little. This was one of the more extreme ones that he had heard. Today had been hard on Gabriella and it showed. She had cried a little at lunch after she had had her meeting with her tutor as she learned it was going to be alot harder to catch up on work she had missed than she had originally thought. She had walked out of one of her classes crying but luckily Jack Bolton had been walking by so he calmed her down. But now she seemed happy. Well content. However people had been approaching Troy all day to ask him questions about Gabriella. He would have said that he was getting annoyed with it. But he knew it was just day one, and it wouldn't get much worse than it had been on that day.

"Um, she's better. I think. We've had some tears but I think being here with people she cares about is finally doing her some good." Troy explained as he picked up a sausage roll, not bothering to put it on his place and putting it straight in his mouth. "Gotta say I'm glad it was Kelsi throwing a party tonight and not your sister. Gabriella upset and drunk is not something that I think any of us are ready to deal with yet."

"Yeah I guess so. You're mom seems to be cheering her up..." Ryan commented as Troy's azures turned to look at the bench that was on the grass to see Gabriella sitting with Lucille and Jack and Lucille must have been telling her something funny because Gabriella was laughing, alot. As she held her juice in her hand. Gabriella had been responsible in choosing not to drink tonight.

"Yeah moms probably telling her some horrific story about me." Troy explained, picking up an assortment of food, putting it on his paper plate and carrying it over to where his mom and dad and Gabriella were sitting. He had to admit, it tugged at his heart to see Gabriella laughing and her talking to his mom and dad, it was like they were dating again. Throughout their relationship Gabriella had been extremely close to Lucille and Jack, they had always considered her one of the family. "Are my ears burning?" He asked as his mom turned her head to look at him. Her red hair glowing in the sunlight.

"You're mom was just telling me a story about you coming home drunk and telling her aliens had landed and you had to flee the country because they were gonna get you.." Gabriella had to stifle a giggle as she told the story.

Troy's cheeks immediately flashed pink as memories of the story had flooded back to him. He had indeed been grounded for coming home in such a state, but he hadn't received his punishment until he had walked into his mother and fathers room that night drunk thinking that it was the bathroom and puked all over their new cream carpet.

"You were right man..." Ryan chuckled.

"Always am." He nodded cockily.

"Yeah I gotta admit Gab, we thought we'd lost you back there." Jack informed her. It wasn't often that Jack got sincere but ever since Gabriella had gone on her downward spiral even though he didn't admit it that often he had been insanely worried about Gabriella. Everyone had.

"That's over now. I'm slowly but surely getting there."

That was exactly what Troy needed to hear.

Troy didn't know what time it was but it was dark and chilly outside. And he Gabriella, Chad, Taylor, Sharpay, Ryan, Kelsi and Jason were all sitting on garden chairs in the garden still. Alot of people had left, including his mom and dad and he had informed them that he would drive home and stay off the alcohol. There was a melody playing in the distance. It wasn't freezing, it was just bearable. For Troy anyway. Sharpay had nagged and nagged and nagged for Kelsi to get her a jumper which had ended up too small for her anyways. Gabriella was laid on Chad, and his arm was wrapped around her with Chad's huge black sweatshirt that buried her, but she seemed to be content because she was fast asleep.

Troy would have been lying if he hadn't said that he was jealous that Gabriella was asleep on Chad and not him. But she had told him that she needed time. And he was going to give her it, and she and Chad were best friends. So it wasn't like she was laid on Nathan from West High was it? Because then he was sure he'd have a problem.

"Taylor I don't know how you do it.." Sharpay commented lightly as she held a glass of wine in her hands. Kelsi's mother had come around and offered some drinks to the gang but everyone else except Chad Troy and Gabriella had taken the glass. Troy wasn't in the drinking kinda mood. And Chad was on driving duty.

"Do what?" Taylor commented, her eyes closed as her head rested on Kelsi's shoulder. It must have been late because Taylor was falling asleep and Troy was finding it quite hard to keep his eyes open too.

"Share you're guy with another girl." Troy had to let out a laugh at Sharpay's efforts to get on Taylor's nerves. But Taylor didn't seem to be bothered. Sharpay however was pointing at Gabriella and Chad. Everyone could tell that Sharpay was wasted, but then again it didn't take alot.

"Oh my god Sharpay. Seriously, you've gotta come up with something better to get me angry. Because this one's really old babe." Taylor exclaimed with her eyes still closed.

"Yeah she knows I love her. Don't you babe." Chad commented candidly. Smiling lovingly at Taylor.

"Yeah I know." Taylor replied smugly, opening her eyes and then glancing towards Gabriella and then Chad. "She's been sleeping a while. Must be two hours now."

"Yeah um, her mom told me yesterday that the medication she's on literally just knocks her out and she took some after her dinner so." Chad explained causing the rest of the gang to go quiet. "Speaking of, what time is it?"

Troy quickly glanced at his watch. "Its 11:45 man, why?"

"Shit. I've gotta get her home. Her mom said midnight and I'm the dedicated driver so..." Chad gently turned his body and began to rub his hand up and down Gabriella's arm. "Gabriella..."

Gabriella barely faltered. Troy knew how hard it was to wake Gabriella up once she was out cold.

"Maybe you should just carry her to the car..." Troy began.

"Nah I like waking her it's fun." Chad joked while patting Gabriella's arm. "Gabs..."

"GABRIELLA!" Sharpay screamed.

Gabriella immediately jolted from her sleep and screamed. "What what?" And then she whimpered without opening her eyes causing Troy to smile at her.

"Nice one Sharpay. Really." Chad joked while he aided Gabriella in sitting up.

"Oh whatever. Take her home." Sharpay giggled obnoxiously. "Gab I'll call you tomorrow okay."

Chad placed his arm around Gabriella and helped to stand up as she was still half asleep. "Yeah whatever I'm gonna call you at 5am to wake you up you bitch. I'll see you later everyone."

"Bye Gabriella. Thanks for coming, oh and thanks for the gift." Kelsi stood up and hugged her friend politely. And then Chad lead her out of the house after everyone had said bye.

After Gabriella and Chad had left, everyone became involved in conversation, about college about life about relationships. It had returned back to how it used to be there was no conversation about worry about Gabriella or how things had affected her or what she was going to do next. Sharpay had brought up the prom again, which had became her favourite subject. But it must have been 20 or 30 minutes later when Troy felt his cell phone vibrate loudly in his pocket. He assumed it would have just been Chad telling him that he was home and everything was okay.

But Troy was in shock when he saw the name on the screen and he re read the text 3 times before it actually sunk in what it meant.

I know this is out of the blue. But can you come over? We need to talk xx