Gabriella stares at the blank paper in front of her, pen in hand, eyes closed tight in concentration. It's the same position she's been in for the past fifteen minutes, and nothing has changed. No words have found their way onto the paper; no "magical inspiration," as her mother called it, has hit her yet. Sighing, she opens her eyes and tosses the pen on the desk in front of her. She stares at the empty page before glancing over to see her mother standing in her bedroom doorway.
"No luck?"
Gabriella shrugs in response, offering a half-hearted, "No."
Her mother steps into the room and puts her arm around her daughter's shoulders consolingly. "Maybe this just isn't your time yet. It takes time and practice, you know."
"Mom, come on. I'm sixteen – I'm old enough. I just don't know what I'm doing wrong…"All her friends managed to figure out the trick back in freshman year. At this point, she's so sick and tired of hearing them talk about their soulmates. If you concentrate hard enough, you can write whatever your soulmate is thinking right now. What a load of crap. She's been concentrating, and it hasn't been working.
Her mom squeezes her shoulders gently. "Sixteen is still young, mija. Plenty of people can't transcribe until they're nearly twenty – you know that."
She does know that; she just doesn't like thinking about it. It sucks to be the only one out of all her friends that can't write her soulmate's thoughts. She just wants to know something – anything – about him. Then maybe she won't feel so left out all the time.
"This is stupid," Troy says. He doesn't mean for anyone to hear it, alone in his room after all, but his mother pokes her head in from the hallway.
"What's stupid?"
He looks up from the blank sheet of paper in front of him, looking annoyed. "This soulmate stuff. I think I'm doing something wrong," he says, a little more to himself than to her. "I haven't been able to write anything."
His mother steps further into the room and smiles softly to him. "Troy, sweetie, you're sixteen. You don't need to be worrying about your soulmate at your age."
Troy rolls his eyes at this. "It's my soulmate – of course I'm going to worry about her."
"You know what I mean. You'll meet her when the time is right – you don't need to be out trying to find her right now."
Troy's eyes widen at how unconcerned his mother seems. "Mom, what if I meet my soulmate tomorrow and don't know because I know nothing about her?"
She smiles at him sympathetically. "You know hardly anyone meets their soulmate at your age. And if you do and you somehow miss her, you'll have the chance to meet her again. That's just how fate works – you're not going to miss out on your soulmate."
He sighs at his mother's attempt at comforting him. He knows she's trying to make him feel better, what with her logic and all, but can't she understand that he wants to connect with his soulmate now? He doesn't want to have to wait until fate decides for him. Still, he clicks his pen shut and sets it down on his desk, then humors his mother by going to the living room to watch TV together. At least for the time being, the subject is forgotten.
Once again, Gabriella sits at the desk in her room, pen in hand, trying to figure out how to connect with her soulmate. She took her mother's advice and tried to give the subject a little breathing room the past couple of weeks, and now she feels more ready to forge a connection with her forever partner.
The first step is concentration, though she isn't entirely sure what to concentrate on. She thinks vague thoughts of a future with a nondescript man alongside her. She imagines a warm, comforting feeling enveloping her, not unlike the feeling she gets when her mother cooks her a warm batch of chicken noodle soup, or when her young cousins snuggle around her come Christmastime. Those are the feelings she hopes will welcome her in her future with her soulmate.
Slowly, she moves the pen to the paper subconsciously. She feels it happen and bites her lip to hold back her excitement. She's been trying on and off for months if not years, and now something is finally happening! Her eyes stay closed tight; her mother told her that watching the words appear can throw off the process – an old wives' tale, she's sure – but Gabriella isn't about to tempt fate now.
It takes a strange amount of effort to not fight her hand movements while still staying focused enough to continue transcribing the thoughts. She loosens her grip on the pen slightly, going with whatever feels natural.
After less than a minute of writing, her hand comes to a stop. She waits a minute, unmoving, hoping perhaps for more. When her arm remains stationary, she realizes the moment is over. She sets the pen down but keeps her eyes closed for a minute longer and allows her mind to finally wander. What could he be doing? What has he been thinking about?
These thoughts are supposed to give her insight on how to find him someday – that's how it's always been explained to her. When Gabriella's mother wrote the thoughts of her own soulmate many years ago, she learned the city he lived and the company he worked for, and he learned her favorite flower and her dream marriage proposal. She moved cross-country to be with him before they ever met, and he showed up on her doorstep two weeks later with a bouquet of daisies in hand – the rest, as she's been told – is history.
Gabriella gets lost in her thoughts of her parents' love story, hoping hers is as romantic as theirs someday. Now that she has her soulmate's thoughts in front of her, it must be only a matter of time.
Excitedly, she opens her eyes and looks down at the paper in front of her.
Dinner sucked tonight.
Her face falls immediately.
This is fate's idea of a cruel joke, that's what it is. Gabriella's sure of it. All that work just to come up with this? Dinner sucked, yippee. That gives her literally nothing to work with. She doesn't even know what dinner was – at least then she could say she knows what not to cook him for dinner. She slams her notebook shut in frustration and lays her head down on top of it, bemoaning her life.
Troy sits at his desk in the morning before he has to leave for school, a pen held tightly in his hand and his eyes screwed shut. He hasn't tried connecting with his soulmate lately, since clearly none of his attempts were working, but when he woke up this morning, something just felt right.
Focus, Troy. He's not sure what exactly to think about – the only advice ever given on the subject is "concentrate on your soulmate," which has always seemed ridiculous to him. How is he meant to concentrate on someone he doesn't know? What's he supposed to think about? He can't picture her, he can't imagine the sound of her voice, none of it makes sense to him.
But still, he keeps his eyes closed and tries to imagine a happy feeling inside, tries to imagine how he'll feel the day he meets her face-to-face. He imagines excitement more than anything. Knowing that someone out there is made just for him, and he for her, it's a thrilling thought. He thinks of it like riding a rollercoaster – simultaneously exciting and terrifying.
Suddenly he feels his hand move. All thought that was running through his head seconds ago stops, and his pen stops with it. No, no, no, that's not what he wants. He forces his brain to start working again, though he's more than a little worried that he just blew his chance. He comes back to that rollercoaster feeling, imagines seeing his soulmate smile at him for the first time, tries to envision how it will feel to smile back at her for the first time.
His hand begins to move again. He impels himself to keep thinking, keeping those same thoughts on repeat, until finally he stops moving a minute later. He keeps the thoughts running through his head, hoping maybe there is more to come, but nothing happens. That rollercoaster feeling is still there, and he doesn't even have to imagine it now. Just the thought that he's about to read his soulmate's mind for the first time – forge that unparalleled connection with someone so uniquely his – it excites him beyond measure.
He slowly opens his eyes and looks down at the page before him.
Green shirt or purple shirt?
Wait, that's it? Deciding what to wear today? When his parents talked about it, it always seemed much more… impressive. This unbreakable connection between two people that are destined to be together forever. But this? What exactly was he supposed to do with this information?
He just about throws his pen across the room in response.
Gabriella picks up the pen again. She had a talk with her mother a few days ago about her first experience, and she's been reassured that mundane thoughts are all a part of the experience. If anything, they're more common than the insightful thoughts. She can't help but think it would've at least been nice to know that ahead of time so she didn't get her hopes up so high.
That being said, the more she's thought about it, the less upset she is. At the end of the day, she still has finally had that breakthrough development – she's finally gotten into her soulmate's head. She even finds it comforting that he has boring thoughts like that; it shows her that he's just a regular person like herself. It also has her wondering what his first transcription of her thoughts was, or if he's even had one yet. Or maybe he's been writing her thoughts for years, and she's only now just begun.
She refocuses on the task at hand. She opens up her notebook – her mother gifted her this notebook when she turned twelve for the specific purpose of writing her soulmate's thoughts. She flips past the first page, which she has since gone back and labeled with the date, and sets her sights on the second page. She's not really sure how often she should do this, but the feeling struck her earlier in the day, so she figures she may as well try her hand.
She closes her eyes and relaxes her body. Her pen moves sooner than it did the time before, and she's pleasantly surprised by that. She seems to write a little more this time. Once she's certain she's done, she opens her eyes tentatively.
I wonder why Mom even watches these shows. A bunch of people dancing with celebrities? Is there anything more boring?
She smiles at this cute little tidbit of information (even though Dancing with the Stars happens to be one of her favorite shows). It makes her ponder what kind of shows he does like, if maybe she and he like any of the same shows.
"Gabby!" her mother calls up the stairs, "You're missing the show!"
Oh! Duh! She didn't even make the connection. She runs downstairs to catch the last half of the program.
He can't take it anymore. He tries to be a good son and watch TV with his mom, but sometimes he just can't take her shows. He excuses himself to his room and pulls out a pen and his notebook, hoping maybe he can capture more of his soulmate's thoughts. After he finally brought himself to talk to his parents about his less-than-insightful transcription, they told him not to worry and that those uneventful thoughts are a lot more common than anything else. That did make him feel a little better, so he's tried his hand at it again a few more times. No luck so far, but the fact that it's happened once gives him a lot of hope.
And so here he finds himself again. He holds his pen just above the paper and closes his eyes, trying to think of something, anything about his soulmate. That excited feeling he had the first time worked then, but it hasn't worked since then. It's not like he know anything about them, so what exactly is he supposed to do? All he knows is she owns a green shirt and a purple shirt – real helpful. But, well, he figures it can't hurt to picture a vague woman standing beside him, wearing an emerald green shirt. Her hair is a vague, muddy shade of dirty blonde, nondescript enough that it could pass for any color. He imagines reaching out and holding her hand, and his heart skips a beat at the mere thought.
His hand starts to move, and this time he knows better than to freeze his thoughts. He pictures himself holding her close to him, as she lays her head on his shoulder. He slips an arm around her waist and savors the imagined moment.
He realizes he's been savoring the moment longer than necessary when he notices his pen has stopped moving. He's pretty sure he's done writing, since he stopped while he was still concentrating on that vision pretty intently, so he glances down at what's in front of him.
Wow, Mario and Karina look better and better each week. This is an impressive dance, and her dress is so gorgeous! I don't think I could ever bring myself to do something like this.
Mario and Karina? But… aren't those the names of some of the contestants on his mom's show? His soulmate is watching the same show he just was? Suddenly the show doesn't seem so boring anymore. He shuts his notebook and goes back to the living room to finish the episode, and he pays a lot more attention this time around. A smile breaks out on his face when Mario and Karina make it to the next round.
Gabriella tries her hand at it again days later, wondering if she'll find any more insight into his thoughts. No matter how small, she enjoyed learning his distaste in a random television show. The second she found that tidbit of information, no longer was he a complete mystery. It thrilled her, the thought of learning him detail by detail, like putting together a puzzle blindly one piece at a time.
The writing comes more naturally this time around, though Gabriella doesn't feel like she's changed her method of concentration. When she finishes writing, she looks down before her and feels a mix of emotions.
She has written his thoughts about how stressed he is, how much pressure he feels to be the perfect son. It's quite a few sentences this time around, and she feels his frustration and anguish with every word.
Her heart aches for him. She hates that she can feel his emotions herself, without even knowing the details of what's troubling him. It's almost physically painful, an ache deep in her soul. A small part of her loves it, though – not his pain, but the connection between them. She's never felt such pressure from her own mother, but somehow she knows exactly what he's going through. She wishes she could do something, anything to comfort him.
Sitting on the couch watching romcoms with his mom has Troy bored out of his mind. He really, truly does love her, but he still has his limits. Even working on homework sounds more fun than this, so he excuses himself to his room to work on some. He's distracted by the notebook on his desk, though, the one earmarked for his soulmate's thoughts. He opens it, reading the only two entries he has, and decides it can't hurt to try.
He grabs a pen and opens to the next blank page. He focuses his thoughts again, and his hand moves of its own accord. He only writes for a brief period, and he isn't quite sure if he's done when his pen stops. He pauses to make sure nothing's left to come, then opens his eyes to glance at what he's written.
Oh my gosh, this is so much fun! I can't wait to do this again!
He grins at the sheer excitement before him. He finds it somewhat strange seeing such eager happiness in his own handwriting – not that he's much of an author himself, but he can't remember the last time he's written out actual exclamation points. They hardly have much place in the English essays he writes. But seeing her excitement? His grin widens. He knows nothing of what has her so elated in this very moment, but from the writing, she seems like such an upbeat and cheerful person. He thinks he'd like to get to know her, soulmate or not. The fact that they're destined for each other is just icing on the cake.
He rereads the short passage again and tries to imagine what her voice might sound like, squealing those words in excitement.
Saturday afternoon, Gabriella lies out in the hammock, her soulmate notebook in her lap. It's not the most natural position to write in, but she figures since she doesn't need to see the page anyway, it can't make much difference. The wind blows peacefully and rustles the autumn leaves in the tree above her, providing a calming atmosphere as she puts her pen to paper. She tries leaving her eyes open – since she's looking up at the sky and not at the page, it shouldn't spoil the results. She finds the swaying tree branches relaxing, and she concentrates on that soothing feeling. She imagines a similar feeling will wash over her throughout her lifetime with her soulmate.
It suddenly registers that she's been writing this whole time, and the realization halts her focus and stills her pen. She sighs out of mild annoyance – she knows she could have written more if she hadn't jolted out of her concentration – but she's glad she got any words out at all. A month ago, this feat seemed all but impossible; now it's becoming more natural each and every time.
She pulls the notebook up above her head so she can read what she's written, and her eyes widen in alarm. She sits up a little and glances around the perimeter of the backyard.
Man, I wish we had a hammock on days like this.
Once she's made sure no one's watching her from over the fence, the alarm she felt starts to fade away. It's still eerie to her that his thoughts are so close to home – she wonders if fate somehow timed his thoughts to her lying in that hammock. Being on the same wavelength with him is… nice. It's all still a little bit strange to her, but she might almost even call it a comforting feeling.
She bites her lip and smiles softly. She lies back down in the hammock and relaxes again, fading in and out of sleep.
Troy lets the gentle Saturday afternoon breeze push him gently on the swing. He's not sure why he brought the notebook outside with him. He normally keeps it in his room, and while his parents have always respected his privacy when it comes to his soulmate, he still rarely takes the book with her thoughts out of his room. But he's home alone today and thought maybe he could concentrate better with a change of scenery. It's such a nice day out – it'd be a shame to let it go to waste.
He uncaps his pen and lets her thoughts flow freely onto the page. He's not looking, but it feels like only a few words appear before he's finished. It doesn't worry him so much anymore – the brevity of his transcriptions – his mother reassured him a sentence or two is normal until long after two soulmates meet face-to-face.
He opens his eyes and looks to the paper, surprised and just a touch unsettled by what she's thinking about right now. She's enjoying a nice, tranquil afternoon in the breeze laying in a hammock. Just ten minutes ago, Troy was wishing for a hammock of his own to enjoy the afternoon. A smile finds its way across his face from him knowing she's enjoying her afternoon. Oddly enough, he doesn't feel the slightest bit of jealousy about it.
Gabriella decides she wants to see if she can figure out what her soulmate is up to today. It's been over a week since her last foray, and she decides that's been long enough. She grabs a fresh pen to replace the one that's been dying on her – she doesn't want to miss a single thought – and opens her notebook to the next clear sheet. She concentrates deeply, envisioning her first meeting with her future partner, and the words flow out with ease. She opens her eyes and checks out what she's written.
I'm so tired of Ms. Darbus's class right now. Can't she realize that the next school musical is not everyone's top priority right now?
Gabriella freezes as she stares at the words in front of her. People don't meet their soulmates until well into their twenties, statistically speaking – she's done all the obsessive research on the topic. Her own parents didn't meet until they were both nearly thirty; she always assumed her life would take a similar route. She's always pictured her soulmate as living in California, hoping she'd meet him when she attends Stanford. With all their moving around, nowhere else has ever seemed stable to her.
Until right now.
"Darbus" is not exactly a common name. And a "Darbus" in charge of school musicals is surely even less common. She wonders if her soulmate be someone she goes to school with right here in Albuquerque. Is it possible she's been that close to her future partner this whole time and never even knew it?
She chuckles a little. She's just getting ahead of herself. Sure, every girl dreams of meeting her soulmate at a young age – it's a classic fairytale romance- but it's just not something that happens every day. She knows the statistics; she knows her chances. Knowing her luck, Gabriella's soulmate probably lives in middle-of-nowhere Arkansas, where there's another Miss Darbus that's just as obsessed with musicals as the one here in Albuquerque.
She shakes her head in an attempt to clear her silly thoughts, trying to force that sliver of hope down. The last thing she wants is to get her hopes up only for them to be dashed next time she writes.
However, despite her best efforts, those thoughts don't leave her alone all night and all through the next day.
Not long after the last time, Troy sits at his desk again to write his soulmate's thoughts. It's almost addictive, the way he can learn her like no one else, how he can maybe catch a glimpse of the future he'll someday have with her. No one can fault him, though – it's a joy everyone experiences when they first make that connection. He doesn't even close his eyes this time, instead watching his hand move while taking extra care not to watch the words as they appear. He doesn't want to spoil the surprise, after all, or worse yet, break his concentration as he sees her sentences form.
Once his hand ceases its movements, he takes a glance at the words in front of him with a quizzical gaze. His soulmate is upset about a cancelled pep rally at school.
Huh.
That alone wouldn't give him much pause, but the next portion does. She's mentally chastising her school's football team for egging the staff's cars and being the reason the pep rally was cancelled. And oddly enough, that's the same thing that happened just earlier this week at East High. It could happen at any school he supposes, but his mind starts to cling to a little thought – could his soulmate be another student at East High? Someone he already knows?
It doesn't seem all that strange to think his soulmate could go to school with him. He's lived here his whole life, and according to the life that's been planned out for him, he'll be here all through college too. And he's never really believed his dad's dream that he'd make it into the NBA – he knows the statistics, after all, but he never really considered what that would mean in terms of his soulmate. It really isn't that unbelievable, he thinks, that his soulmate could be here in Albuquerque; he just never imagined it. She could very well be right here in Albuquerque, and this passage he's written gives him an odd hope he didn't realize he needed until now.
The next time Gabriella picks up her pen, she's more apprehensive than the last. What she writes here could be a make-it-or-break-it point. This could be the moment of truth – she could find out today that her soulmate is someone that lives right here in Albuquerque, someone she sees every day. Or it could be the moment she finds out that last time was a fluke, that there really is another Ms. Darbus that lives halfway across the country – across the world, even – and her life will be upended, once again, in order to meet him.
She writes, and she glances down at the words before her.
Wow, these dark chocolate truffles are seriously the best thing I've ever tasted. Maybe Mom was onto something.
She throws her head back and laughs, half frustrated, half amused. Okay, so maybe not every interaction will be a big, life-altering clue. Maybe sometimes she'll get something as inconsequential as dark chocolate truffles, and she'll just have to be okay with that. She tucks the information into the back corner of her mind – it can't hurt to know her soulmate's tastes.
It's Christmas day in the Bolton household, and Troy and his immediate family have the wonderful privilege of hosting this year. He made nice for as long as he could, but all he's wanted all afternoon is a moment to himself. Troy feels like he's been the center of attention all day. He's the oldest grandchild by a longshot, and talk of basketball, summer jobs, soulmates, and scholarships has monopolized all conversation while the younger kids play with their new toys. The thing that bothers him, though, is that despite being the center of attention, he's hardly said a word all day. He may as well not be there at all, what with the way his parents tell their version of his whole life story.
That's why Troy has hidden himself away in his room to avoid the suffocating atmosphere. He's sprawled across his bed, and he can't help but find himself wishing that he had someone to commiserate with – someone that wouldn't speak for him, someone that wouldn't just tell him to be thankful for the attention, someone that could understand his desire to speak for himself, to decide his own choices.
He bets his soulmate would understand.
He wonders what she's up to today. It's Christmas, after all. He hopes hers is going better than his. Maybe she doesn't even celebrate Christmas, he thinks.
Well now he's curious.
He pulls out his notebook and writes for a bit, then looks to see what she's thinking about.
I'm so glad we could get together with everyone for Christmas. My aunts make the best food, I swear. And I'm glad the cousins liked all the gifts I helped pick out. There's nothing better than seeing a kid's face on Christmas day… Oh, and this bracelet Mom got me is beautiful. Christmas really is the best time of the year.
Wow.
That's the most he's written in a single sitting. He thinks that must be a good sign that he's learning to be in tune with her thoughts.
He realizes he has a smile on his face. He's quite thankful that his soulmate is enjoying her day so much, and suddenly his own day doesn't seem so bad either.
School has been stressing Gabriella out more than usual today, and so she transcribes his thoughts to try and clear her head.
Ugh, I can't stand Sharpay. I really hope she's not my soulmate.
Her eyes widen. He's thinking about his soulmate. Well, not really – he's thinking about Sharpay – but still. She wants to scream at him, "No, she's not your soulmate! I am!" But of course life isn't that simple.
That name, though – Sharpay. That's not a common name, and she knows it. She can't help but be aware that a Sharpay goes to school with her. She also can't help but think that – if that is, in fact, the Sharpay in question – she could understand why her soulmate can't stand her. She's quite the personality.
Gabriella even dares to think that, just maybe, her soulmate thinks they go to school together too. It's a longshot, she knows, but why else would he explicitly think about wanting someone to not be his soulmate? She supposes it could be a regular thought – one she's probably thought herself, if she's being honest – but she also entertains the possibility that it's not, and that he just might have the same inkling she does. And that thought excites her.
Troy writes that afternoon to clear his head again. He's been doing it more frequently now, and he finds that it relaxes him. He doesn't often learn much of substance, but he's learned some of her favorite (and least favorite) foods, that she's good at chemistry, and how she's comfortable skipping makeup on lazy mornings. He's begun to love the trivial details – they paint him a picture of the girl he'll spend the rest of his life with, and it excites him to think about it. He knows that someday when he manages to find this girl that he'll already be falling for her.
This afternoon isn't much different; he writes how she's worried about her upcoming exam on Shakespeare's Hamlet. He's sure she'll do fine on the test – she seems to excel in her other subjects; he's sure English will be no different.
Gabriella sets the paper aside, wanting to focus on something else. She just can't believe she got an A- on her Hamlet exam. Minus! Ugh! She cracks open her soulmate notebook – it's become her favorite distraction. Who could fault her for wanting to connect with her soulmate? It's simultaneously calming and thrilling, and she lives for the afternoons after school so she can transcribe his thoughts in peace.
Today she writes about sports, apparently. She knows his soulmate is a basketball fan. She's caught him watching games a few different times. This time, though, she learns that not only does he watch the sport, but also that he plays it.
Thank God the season is over. I love playing on the team, but the Wildcats put so much pressure on the basketball team. I'll be glad to just focus on my schoolwork.
Hold on.
Ms. Darbus.
Sharpay.
The Wildcats.
That's just too many things to be just a coincidence. She could overlook Ms. Darbus; she could explain away Sharpay; but honestly, what are the chances her soulmate plays for another set of "the Wildcats?"
Her soulmate goes to East High with her; he just has to. There's no way around it. Not only that, but he also plays on the basketball team. That narrows it down to, what, ten, fifteen possibilities? Maybe double that counting junior varsity?
In just a few short months, she's gone from "my soulmate could be anyone" to "my soulmate is one of twenty-five people."
She slams the notebook shut and walks to her bed, flopping back onto it to stare at the ceiling. She's suddenly overwhelmed by the gravity of this knowledge.
Troy storms into his room, angry at the world. He's tired of all the stress he's under, and he just wants to talk to the one person that he knows would be there for him. Unfortunately, he has no way of talking to her, not that he even knows her name. So he settles for the next best thing and transcribes her thoughts at this very moment.
Our rematch against West High is in a couple of days. If Taylor can't get it together, we're going to completely fail at our scholastic decathlon meet.
Suddenly all the stress he felt moments ago is forgotten. His mind goes blank at those two words.
West High.
He already had the slightest suspicion that his soulmate goes to school with him. Adding West High to the mix only adds to that. Sure, he supposes that's a common school name. Wherever she goes, she's on a decathlon team. Now, Troy will easily be the first to admit that he doesn't exactly follow the school's decathlon team, but starting tomorrow, he's going to be checking the schedule for their matches.
If it turns out East High's team is about to face off against West High…
He stares blankly at the page in front of him for minutes, hours, who knows how long, simply lost in thought. He's pleasantly overcome with the possibility that his soulmate could be right here with him in Albuquerque.
A couple days later and Gabriella is back to writing. With basketball season being over, she hasn't been able to scope out the members of the team the way she wants to. As a student at East High, she really ought to know who's on the basketball team, but she's never been one to follow sports. She knows a few of the boys by name and appearance, but that's the extent of it – she knows nothing more.
All she can do at this point is focus on his thoughts and see what happens from there. Today she ends up writing that he's planning to go to "the competition" this Friday. She groans, wishing that information could be more helpful.
Troy sits in the back row and tries to act like he belongs. He's never been to a scholastic decathlon competition before – he's never had reason to attend one before now. However, when he checked the schedule and saw that the team was, in fact, facing off against West High today, he felt a pull to attend. Taylor McKessie's name on the list of competitors adds to his confirmation that his soulmate is on the team – whoever his soulmate is, she thought the name Taylor the last time he wrote her thoughts.
He watches as the competitors file in and take their seats. He recognizes Taylor and another member of the team, but everyone else is just a familiar face, nothing more. He knows he's seen them all around school before, but he doesn't know any of their names.
Still, the longer he sits there, the more sure he is that his soulmate is in this room. Something about being here gives him a strange feeling, like a literal tugging on his heart. The competition goes on, and East High apparently excels at these events. Troy never knew – he's never followed the decathlon team in the past, but he just may have found a reason to.
He hopes that one of the competitors will stick out to him somehow, that he'll magically know who his soulmate is from his seat in the audience.
Luck isn't in his favor, though. By the end of the competition, all nine members have taken their chance at the board, and none of them stick out to him.
Still, when he leaves at the end of the match, he finds himself a lot more hopeful than when he came in.
Gabriella writes how her soulmate is struggling with his math homework. He's taking trig, she thinks. She wishes she could step in to help him with the problems.
Troy takes a break from his math homework to clear his head, and he writes that his soulmate wants to help him with his trigonometry homework. She's thinking about me. He blushes.
Gabriella's last few writings have provided her no insight, but she has a gut feeling today will be different. She picks up her pen and writes his thoughts easily this time. She even continues to write as her mind drifts back to her first few futile attempts at transcribing her soulmate's thoughts. She chuckles at how difficult it seemed then, and how easy it seems now in comparison.
She writes this time about how her soulmate is frustrated with his father – a theme she's seen a handful of times before. But the words in front of her today carry much more meaning thanks to one key phrase.
I hate that Dad just had to be coach of our basketball team.
She reads those words over more than once, ensuring she isn't misinterpreting the meaning.
She's sure she's not, though. Her soulmate attends East High – this she's confident she already knows. And if his father is coach of the basketball team…
That means her soulmate is Troy Bolton.
The thought Troy writes later that night is simple, but it's the most shocking one he's written.
My soulmate is Troy Bolton.
He merely stares at the paper. Is this supposed to happen? It feels like a glitch in the matrix – is he supposed to know she has it figured out? She's figured it out and he hasn't, and that amazes him and frustrates him all the same.
He desperately wants to know more. He concentrates on her harder than he ever has, and for the first time, he manages a second transcription in one sitting.
How am I supposed to just walk up to the most popular guy in school? What if I have the wrong person?! He'll laugh in my face!
He prays she changes her tune, and soon. He wants to reach through the page and shake sense into her. How could he laugh in her face – he's her soulmate for God's sake! If he only knew who it was, then he'd happily make the first move. But as it stands now, the ball is in her court.
Gabriella writes how her soulmate – Troy, she corrects herself – is so proud over his 93% on his trigonometry test. She's seen him in the library studying – she knows how hard he's worked for a good grade. She beams with her own pride for him.
Troy's soulmate is watching Dancing with the Stars reruns from the looks of it. He rolls his eyes and smiles at the thought. He knows from earlier thoughts how she pretends to hate the show to her friends, but get her home alone with her mom, and it's all they watch. He chuckles and turns his own TV on to catch the end of the episode.
Troy's thoughts tonight catch Gabriella off guard. She feels as though he's speaking directly to her. (In a way, he is, she supposes.)
I wish she'd come up and talk to me. I know she knows who I am. I wish she didn't feel like she has to be nervous.
Oh, wow.
She'd be lying if she were to say that the thought of walking up to Troy and announcing herself as his soulmate hasn't crossed her mind. Every time she works up the courage, she chickens out, though. A little voice in the back of her head constantly reminds her that there's no guarantee Troy is her soulmate. In her heart, she knows it's him, but her brain tells her she could be wrong.
Her heart is so sure of it though – all the things she's written are too much to be simple coincidences.
And so, she resolves herself to track him down come Monday. She'll risk the humiliation, take the chance that she could have the wrong person, and lay her heart on the line for the chance of meeting her soulmate.
Troy stands at his locker, rearranging his books for his next class. He's running late and the hallway is nearly empty. At this point he doesn't care – a tardy is a tardy – so he lets himself get lost in his own thoughts of an upcoming lab in chemistry. The class has to partner up for this experiment. Normally, he'd choose to pair up with Chad, but the teacher told them–
"Um, excuse me?"
Troy whips his head around to see who's interrupting his thoughts, and it's someone he doesn't recognize. It's a classmate, a girl he's pretty sure is in his homeroom class. She's a good few inches shorter than himself, with her hair in long, dark curls. She has her bottom lip pressed between her teeth and she can't seem to look him in the eye.
"Uh, yeah?"
She looks up at him and quickly looks away again. "Hey, um, your dad's the basketball coach, right?"
He nods as she looks at him again.
"You're Troy… right?"
He quirks an eyebrow at her. Her questions are beginning to weird him out, but something about her sticks out to him. He wishes he could put his finger on it. "Uh, yeah."
"Oh," she says simply. She nods her head slowly, almost like she now understands something that's still eluding Troy. And with that, she ends their conversation. She turns away from him and leaves him alone at his locker once again.
He stares after her in confusion as she hurries around the corner and escapes his view. That was certainly odd, he thinks. He wonders what that was all about. It seems like she garnered a lot more from that conversation that he did, judging by the look he saw on her face.
What bothers him the most, though, is that he recognizes her from somewhere. They're in homeroom together, he's pretty sure, but he doesn't remember her in his other classes. And yet, he swears he knows her from more than just that.
He goes back to digging through his locker and racks his brain to try to remember.
And then it hits him.
He knows where he's seen her. She's on the decathlon team with McKessie. He watched her compete that day. She aced every question that came her way, at least if he remembers correctly.
His heart misses a beat as he pieces this together. He desperately needs to know why she just came up and talked to him. There's a reason, and he doesn't want to assume he knows it.
He can't help it though.
He's pretty sure that girl is his soulmate.
Wow.
If that's his soulmate…
Wow.
She's beautiful. An understated beauty, one he didn't recognize at first. Her warm, inviting smile that he remembers from the decathlon meet, and those deep, brown eyes he caught just a glimpse of just now.
Wow.
He hopes that girl is his soulmate. Something in his heart tells him she is. He isn't sure if he should trust a fleeting feeling like this, but he's never felt anything like it before.
He has to know if she's his soulmate. He doesn't care if he makes a fool of himself – he needs to find her and ask her.
Too bad that will have to wait. His chemistry teacher pokes her head out and sees him in the hall, staring blankly after his mystery girl. The teacher clears her throat and taps her watch, a subtle hint to hurry to class. He sighs audibly and walks to the classroom. The teacher marks him tardy as he walks in, but that doesn't concern Troy right now.
Troy's mind is anywhere but that chemistry lab right now.
Gabriella lies on her bed after school that evening staring up at her ceiling. She fights back tears, angry with herself for backing out from talking to Troy.
In her defense, she did talk to him, she just didn't tell him what she set out to tell him. Just talking to him for those few, brief minutes gave her a high that lasted the rest of the day – she just isn't sure if that's only her imagination or if it's something more. Either way, it's something she's never felt before.
She brings her arm up and lets the back of her hand fall across her face. Stupid. She feels so stupid.
She prefers to be one to blend into a crowd, to stick with her few friends and never branch out beyond that. Troy is the captain of the basketball team, though. She has never once talked to him, or anyone else on the team for that matter. She just couldn't help the voice of doubt in the back of her head that she might have the wrong person. If Troy isn't her soulmate, she'd be making a fool of herself. The math nerd from the decathlon team deluding herself into thinking the most popular boy in school is her soulmate? She'd be the laughingstock of the school.
Of course, by chickening out, she still made a fool of herself in front of Troy.
She groans as she sits up and makes her way over to her desk. She stands there a moment debating if she even wants to bother – does she want to know what her soulmate is thinking right now? She sees two possibilities – either her soulmate is Troy, and he's thinking about how he never wants to see that weird girl at school ever again, or her soulmate is someone else, and she'll realize she embarrassed herself in front of Troy for nothing.
Slowly, she pulls the chair out and sits down. She ultimately decides she doesn't have anything to lose at this point; what's done is done.
She struggles to concentrate the way she usually does, and the words come more slowly as a result. Eventually, though, she starts to write. When she finishes and looks down at what she's written, her heart skips a beat.
She's my soulmate – she has to be. Why else would she come up and talk to me? I know she's on the decathlon team with Taylor – I saw her that day.
Gabriella's torn between wanting to strangle herself for chickening out earlier, and wanting to grab Troy and yell, "Yes, yes I'm your soulmate!" Why did she back out earlier? It's killing her now. The next twelve hours before she sees him again just cannot pass fast enough.
Troy hops off the bus the next morning and, ignoring Chad and the rest of his teammates, makes a beeline for the school's main entrance. Where this girl is, he isn't sure, but he doesn't want to wait until homeroom to find her. There's still almost fifteen minutes before class starts, and he intends to make the most of them.
Most of the juniors have their lockers on the second floor, so that's where he heads. He checks his own locker on the off chance she's waiting there for him, but when he sees she's not there, he continues his search.
(He briefly wishes he would have enlisted his dad's help. Working at the school, he could have looked up the locker numbers for all the members of the decathlon team. Something about doing all on his own feels right to Troy, though.)
He scans the students at every locker as he makes his way down the hall – a lot of students still have yet to arrive, and he's sure his girl will stand out if she's here, so he only spares a brief glance each direction as he goes. This hallway is a bust, it seems, and he debates left or right as he approaches the T-shaped end of the hall. He looks to the left toward the foreign language hallway, then glances to the right toward the mathematics hallway.
He freezes.
That's her.
His soulmate, he's sure.
He hopes she is, at least, or he's about to make a fool of himself.
She's standing at her locker, rifling through her bookbag. He can't bring himself to look away from her – he doesn't think he could even if he wanted to. He makes his way to her, mesmerized as he walks. He didn't have much chance yesterday to appreciate how beautiful she is, but now he sees it clear as day. The shape of her face as he sees from her side profile, the way her lips are parted ever-so-slightly while she searches for something in her locker. She tucks some loose curls behind her ear, and the gentle movement endears him.
If this isn't his soulmate, he understands now how people can fall in love with people who aren't their perfect match.
He closes the gap between them, though she doesn't notice right away. He stands there a moment watching her, and if anyone saw him, they'd certainly label him a creep. After a moment, she pulls away from her locker, apparently having found whatever she has been searching for. She jolts a bit when she sees him standing there, and she looks briefly confused before her eyes go wide and her cheeks turn red.
To her credit, she doesn't turn away from him. Whether it's from pure shock or something else, he doesn't know.
"Hey," he says. Hearing his own voice makes him realize he's still catching his breath after his frantic search for her. He stands there a moment, panting a little, and when she doesn't respond right away, he continues. "You came up to me at my locker yesterday before seventh period." He meant it as a question, but it comes out as a statement.
She offers a small nod in response but makes no move to speak.
"Why?" His eyes are locked on to hers while waiting for her answer.
"Um… I, uh–" She takes a deep breath and visibly swallows. Her eyes shift from shocked to worried, but not once does she look away from him. "I, uh, think you might… be my soulmate."
He pauses a moment to make sure he heard her right, and then his face lights up like it's Christmas morning. She just confirmed his own thoughts. Soulmates! He's never heard such pretty words come out of such a pretty mouth. He wants to hear that voice over and over again. He sees her grin back at him, a mix of hope and worry in her eyes. Once he catches that look of worry, he also notices her arms wrapped tightly around herself.
He suddenly realizes she can't read his thoughts – at least, not right here like this – and explains that he believes she's his soulmate as well. He tells her all the things he's written – about the cancelled pep rally, the decathlon team, the mention of Taylor, and how they faced West High in their competition. As he continues talking, a smile breaks out on her face. He could get used to seeing that smile, he thinks to himself.
He finishes his explanation and isn't sure what else to say. He's happy, though. Every second with her could be complete silence, and he thinks he'd be happy. Forget his earlier thought – now he thinks that anyone who settles for less than their soulmate is crazy. He doesn't even know her name, but he still–
He doesn't know her name. He should probably know that, he thinks as he breathes out a small laugh. She furrows her brow at him, and he asks her name.
She giggles at his question and then answers him. "Gabriella."
Gabriella.
A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.
"I'm guessing from yesterday you already know my name?" he says mirthfully.
She nods. Then she segues into her own explanation of why she thinks they're soulmates. It's weird hearing his thoughts repeated back to him. He doesn't even remember thinking half of them, but they're plausible enough for him to believe. When she quietly mentions, "some of the… tension you've had with your dad," it gives him the strangest feeling. Every time he has stressed over the pressure his dad places on him, he's taken solace in the knowledge that there's someone out there that he won't have to pretend for, someone that will take him as he is without all this extra pressure. And when she says that, it hits him that he's looking at that person. She's standing right in front of him. His soulmate. He always has known what the word means, but seeing her standing before him, putting a face to the concept, it gives the word a whole new meaning.
"We should do a confirmation test," she says.
He's confused. "Confirmation of what?"
"To make sure we're really soulmates."
Troy cocks his head at her. They just established they're soulmates. Not a doubt remains in his mind, not with the pull he feels in his heart, not with the way he heard her recite some of his innermost thoughts. No one could do that but his soulmate. He didn't realize she might feel different.
She draws back from him slightly, also looking confused now. "It just seems like a good idea to me." She sounds unsure, and Troy doesn't like that. "We have a strong hypothesis with good supporting evidence; now we do an experiment to prove it."
He looks at her blankly for a second before he pieces together what she's saying with the other information he knows about her. He smiles when he realizes it. She's on the decathlon club with smarty-pants Taylor McKessie. She's not in any of his classes, so he'd wager a guess that she's in higher level or AP classes. That academic side of her must bleed into other aspects of her life; now it kind of makes sense why she wants to test their connection, just to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. If it'll humor her…
He nods eagerly, anything to make her happy. The worry in her eyes dissipates just like it did earlier, and she beams at him again. It amazes him that he already finds so much joy in making her smile, when ten minutes ago he didn't even know her name.
"So, how do we test it, exactly?" he asks.
"I'll write your thoughts while you're there with me, and we'll make sure it matches what you were thinking. And then you do the same for me."
Troy nods – easy enough. "'Kay, so do you want–" The warning bell cuts him off, signaling them to make their way to homeroom. He ignores it. "Do you want to test it now?"
"We'll be late."
"It's just homeroom."
She raises her eyebrows at him. "I– I've never been late to class, Troy."
Surely, she's joking. This is more important than homeroom.
The look on her face tells him she's not joking and that the thought of being late to homeroom actually worries her. Right here, the way he feels now, he'd do anything to keep her from worrying, so he shrugs and offers to walk her to class.
She smiles and agrees. He wants to reach out and hold her hand as they walk, but he isn't sure if that's okay. They're soulmates, but also strangers. He keeps his hands to himself, gripping the strap of his backpack tightly. They plan a lunch meeting to carry out their confirmation test.
Gabriella's never been up here on the rooftop before. A tiny part of her worries they aren't allowed to be up here, but Troy swears he has permission. She's never had reason to place trust in Troy Bolton before today, but then again, she didn't know he was her soulmate before today. No longer does she have a sneaking suspicion he's her soulmate; now, she's positive. He matches the description of her soulmate perfectly, and from the sounds of it, she matches the description of his just as well. What are the chances that there's someone else out there who a) is on an academic decathlon team, b) has a teammate named Taylor, and c) faced off against a West High the exact same week as her?
Well, the chances, as she realized this morning after their conversation, are about one out of eight. Theoretically, his soulmate could be anyone else on the team here at East High, and hers could be some other basketball captain at some other school with a Wildcat mascot where his dad also happens to coach the team. Unlikely? Most definitely. But there's still the tiniest sliver of doubt.
She just has to be sure of this before she lets herself get caught up in him. Already, she feels herself falling for him. He was never on her radar before the thought crossed her mind that he could be her soulmate. He was always just "one of the popular kids" and she never expected them to cross paths. After just a few weeks of daydreaming and one actual conversation, she feels herself falling.
It scares her – she's not sure if she's falling because he's her soulmate or because she thinks he's her soulmate.
That's why she needs this confirmation.
"So how do you wanna do this?" Troy asks.
She's shaken from her thoughts. "Oh, uh, I guess we can just do it whenever." She digs a pen and paper out of her bag. This is the first time writing in anything other than his dedicated notebook – she hopes it doesn't throw off her concentration. "Just… think about something, I guess."
He nods and leans over the railing at the edge of the roof. She sits on the bench – it comforts her that there's a bench up here; maybe they are allowed to be up here after all – and she draws her legs up in front of her, resting the paper on her knees.
Troy looks over his shoulder at her, eyebrows cocked, and she nods. "Um, just let me know when you're ready," she tells him.
He smiles and nods and looks away out over the front courtyard. "Ready."
She watches him for a moment. She hopes their intuitions are correct; she hopes they're soulmates. She's seen Troy in the hallways hundreds, thousands of times, but she never noticed how handsome he is. And talking to him this morning, seeing his confident smile and hearing the sound of his voice – she thinks it all may have made her fall in love, soulmates or not. She finds herself wishing it was still basketball season – she bets seeing him play is pure magic.
She blinks a few times and shakes her head to herself. She needs to concentrate. Except, when she looks to the paper she has on her lap, she sees she's already written something.
Here I am, standing on the roof with the prettiest girl in school, hoping she's my soulmate.
"You think I'm pretty?" she blurts out.
He whips his head around to look at her, and a grin breaks out on his face. His smile right now is even bigger than the one she saw on his face this morning.
He nods in response to her question. "I do."
She ducks her head and blushes. If that's really what Troy was thinking just then, that means–
"You read my thoughts."
She looks up at him and they lock eyes. A smile breaks out on her face to match his own.
"So that means we're soulmates," he says excitedly. He crosses over to her and flops on the bench beside her, not taking his eyes off hers. "Right, that proves it?"
She bites her lip, still grinning beneath it. Any doubt she had has vanished. She knows he's all hers, forever and always, and she craves him. Talking to him, sitting closer to him, holding his hand. She craves it all.
However, the experiment she laid out required him to transcribe her thoughts as well. It's only fair. She wants to know what it's like to witness her soulmate writing her own thoughts right before her. And she knows just what thought she wants to plant in his head. She tells him cheekily, "Well, technically, you need to do my thoughts now. Otherwise, how do I know you aren't just going along with whatever I say?"
He sees the grin in her eyes and thinks he already loves having her as a soulmate. That cheeky smirk tells him there's a lot more to this girl than just a straight-A decathlon member, and he wants to know everything he can about her. So he plays along with whatever game she's up to – plus, he can't deny that he wants to read her thoughts now while she's here in front of him like she did to him just before.
He grins back at her, catching her eye the same way she caught his. He pulls a pen and a sheet of paper out of his own bag and shoos her away, instructing her to think of something good.
He stares at her looking out over the open courtyard, not closing his eyes, not thinking of anyone but Gabriella. He already knows she's his soulmate from the way she read his thoughts just now, so he doesn't need to concentrate on this elusive concept of "a soulmate" – he just concentrates on her.
His pen moves for a few brief moments, and then he stops. For a split second, he worries that something went wrong – he didn't write much, and his concentration should be better than ever – but then he remembers that smirk on her face from mere seconds ago and says to her, "Not much on your mind?"
She turns to look at him with raised eyebrows. She doesn't have quite the cocky grin anymore; instead, she looks expectant as she glances between him and the sheet of paper in his lap. He looks down to see what she's thought, and his heart fills when he reads it.
I want you to kiss me.
He looks at her and then sets the paper aside and walks to her, stopping only a few inches from her. Suddenly he feels nervous. He should feel nothing but calm, he thinks – this is his soulmate, after all – but he wants everything to be perfect with her. It's their first kiss – he only has one shot at this, and he doesn't want to mess this up.
But then he sees her biting her lip softly, and he realizes they have their whole lives to make perfect moments. Every moment will be perfect because it's with her.
He brings his hand up to her face and cups her cheek gently. He's never had the privilege of feeling such soft skin before. She's stopped biting her lip, and she's looking up at him doe-eyed. He takes in that look on her face, one of such innocence and sweetness, as he leans in and gently presses his lips to hers. If he thought the skin of her cheek was soft, her lips are even softer. He wants to kiss her for hours, but he pulls away all too soon so he doesn't come on too strong.
If Gabriella's reaction is any indication, lips still puckered, leaning after him as she opens her eyes, that thought couldn't be further from her mind. Now he's the one biting his lip, smiling softly at her. The only thought running through his mind is that he gets this for the rest of his life, and he couldn't be happier.
He pulls away further and asks her, "So, think we're soulmates now?"
She smiles at him, dazed, and nods. "We're soulmates."