Chapter Six: Busy much?
The sweat might as well have been dripping into a big reservoir, piling up as a giant symbol of all the work he was putting into practice and all things basketball. His teammates, on the other hand, didn't find the constant late night practices very fun-- in fact, they'd been at this for about a half a month now and were sure that soon they were either going to drop flat on their backs or flat on their faces. Or flat on just about any body part that wasn't already sore. This particular night Troy had talked his dad into letting them use the gym a little while longer than usual, but after a couple hours and some minutes of everyone struggling he sensed the change in atmosphere and announced the end of practice. Thankfully, everyone split off into groups, staggering towards the locker rooms and chugging down as much water as they could muster.
Chad approached Troy, his shirt drenched and a hand on his side. Together they started to walk towards the locker rooms. "Troy-- now, you know better than anyone I am for 100 basketball 100 of the time. But er... any reason we've handed over our souls to you?"
"Look, if you don't want to win--" Troy snapped back irritably, and Chad interrupted by throwing his hands up in peace.
"I never said I didn't want to win. I just don't get why you're getting so intense about practices," Chad replied, getting a bit irritable himself. Troy was supposed to be his best friend, and he was acting all sorts of strange lately and not giving any explanation for it. This whole basketball boot camp was getting way out of hand. "Is there something going on?"
Troy seemed to deflate now. "No, nothing is wrong," he muttered, lying through is teeth and hoping he was a good enough actor. "Sorry about snapping, I just have a lot going on right now."
They entered the locker room now, the smell of dirty gym socks strong in the air. He opened his locker and pulled out a change of clothes. Chad did the same at his own, only a couple down from Troy's. "I know the practices seem a little... much," Troy continued, pulling his shirt up and off over his head. "I just think we should... get... focused."
Chad shook his head, raising an eyebrow at his friend. "Focused? Troy! Man! We've won every game we've played since the championship-- we're in with Lady Luck, my friend."
Troy's expression darkened, but he didn't dare say anything aggressive. "I know all that, but just luck isn't going to help us win against Hillside."
His friend was about to answer, but Troy was suddenly struck with a realization. Oh shit. He was going to be in for it now. He was definitely never going to be forgiven for this one. Turning around swiftly, he banged his head on his locker in defeat-- shoot shoot shoot.
"Woah, dude, what's wrong?" Chad's voice came from his left.
"Date. With Gabi. Forgot. Completly. Dead." It was about all he managed to sputter out before he swiftly changed the rest of his clothing and just about ran towards the parking lot.
When he finally arrived at her house, he parked his truck in the driveway and for a while he just sat there in the driver's seat contemplating his next move. He really didn't know what to expect. Would she be mad? Probably. Irritated? Most likely. There was really no positive way he could look at this so gathering up his wits he exited the vehicle and made his way to her front door. With his hands nervously at his sides, his arms feeling like two big hunks of nothing, he reached up and rang the doorbell. After a few moments, the door swung open-- on the other side, a rather irritated Gabriella Montez. Immediately she crossed her arms, and he cringed inwardly, knowing full well she only did that when she was especially mad at him (and that hadn't been for awhile).
"Gabriella, I'm so sorry-- I was at practice, I didn't realize what time it was and..." he trailed off, not really sure what else he could add to an already terrible apology. He looked at her, noting with a pain that she was still all dressed up and ready to go. Her hair was up in a ponytail, a small white skirt on that went to just above her knees, and a pretty blue sweater. The only thing that wasn't looking very pretty was that frown that was still on her face.
Instead of telling him he'd forgotten and he was a horrible person for it, like he'd expected, she said something he hadn't. "Is everything all right Troy?" she asked with concern, although trying her best to look mad. "I mean, you've never forgotten... you just seem so, like you're not even here lately..."
He should tell her. He should just open his mouth, let the name Damien Sullivan come out-- and tell her everything. What was stopping him? That's just it, he didn't know-- he didn't know what the hell was wrong with him lately. It just felt like this was his, and he needed to deal with it. After a long pause, he swallowed thickly and took a step forward, lightly taking a hold of her hand with one of his. He intertwined his fingers with hers, and as she didn't resist, he couldn't help but feel a little better. It hadn't taken him any time to get used to the feel of her hand in his, and now it was almost as natural as breathing.
"Gabriella..." he breathed softly. Her eyes read all sorts of concern, and he tried his best to avoid them by looking at their hands. "You trust me, right?"
She frowned a little, shaking her head. "Of course Troy, you know I do."
Smiling, he reached up with his free hand and lifted her chin up towards him gently. "Then everything is all right, okay?"
Leaning down, he pressed his lips gently against hers-- a butterfly of a kiss, but a kiss nonetheless. Soon after that, she ushered him into her house-- with the promise of pizza and a movie. Life was making sense again, at least for one night.
This wasn't how she'd planned her Senior year to happen. The truth was, she thought that maybe she'd spend it-- well, you know, she didn't know. But it wouldn't have been like this. Then again, just about everything in her life was far from anything she'd ever planned to happen. The musical, however, was taking over her life. With Mary Ellen at the head of the project (at least one aspect of it), Clara was fairly sure that her head was going to explode at any second. Either she wasn't cutting right, or she wasn't gluing right, or God forbid she was painting something in a way that Mary Ellen didn't think proper. The thing was, here she was again, another late night in the auditorium-- another late night of rehearsals.
She'd taken to listening a lot though. Listening to the singers perform behind her that is, and now she knew at least half of the songs by heart, often finding herself humming to them as she painted some new contraption. She'd also taken to the story of this modern day Romeo and Juliet-- Henry and Priscilla respectively-- and knew when people were supposed to move, when a table was supposed to be put in, when a backdrop had to be changed. Despite all her best efforts, she was starting to enjoy it-- and she didn't like that one bit. Of course, there was still a good month left before the musical would be performed and although it hadn't given her many new friends-- she'd at least started talking to more people. Within the set design group, she'd discovered that a certain Jessabelle was a willing model for portraits and paintings (although just a tad vain), but it didn't really matter because the girl was willing and Clara was always looking for new faces to paint. A couple other kids really weren't as bad as she'd made them out to be, except for Larry. Larry would always be as bad as she made him out to be. Troy had taken to giving her a ride home every time her mom was late, and the car ride over was always a lot of fun-- a lot of talking, too. At least, for her.
Tonight the crew was making their way out, calling it a day, and most parties had already left the auditorium. She still had a lot to accomplish before the next day, and she didn't want another lecture from Mary Ellen if she didn't. Anything but that. Heaving a big sigh, she waved her last farewells to her fellow set painters and took out the large buckets of paint she had to put on a few large planks of wood. Nothing spectacularly difficult, but it took one too many coats of paint to cover it all than she would've liked. With a brush in one hand, and a paint bucket in the other-- she dipped. A long line of dipping was sure to ensue.
"Staying late?"
Now, usually she would have jumped out of her skin, but she'd gotten used to Troy's fantastically terrible entrances. Without so much as missing a blink she started to paint the wood board in front of her. "If I don't want slave-driver Barbie on my back tomorrow, then yep."
He laughed and approached her, hand in his pockets as usual. She wondered if he had some sort of secret weapon in there that she didn't know about. Still, he fascinated her most every time she saw him-- not that they saw each other loads. Just during rehearsals and whenever she needed those rides (as well as the occasional brush when they were down at their miserable lockers), still, rehearsal enough made her wonder. Him singing? She still couldn't get over it.
"Need any help?" he asked, in accordance-- she supposed-- with the gentlemen's rule book.
Shrugging, she bent down and picked up an extra brush, throwing it in his direction. "Be my guest."
He grinned and took the brush, dipped it in some paint and started to work away at the big wooden board. Clara Bryant wasn't really as bad as everyone made her out to be, then again most people didn't know that she actually spoke to anyone outside of glaring. They'd been spending a lot of time together (relatively) in the past weeks. That is, when he could squeeze in some free time between basketball practice, the musical, Gabriella, his Dad, and er... well, the list was starting to make him depressed again-- so he choice to ignore every outside factor for the remainder of the night.
"So, how's this working out?" he asked, conversationally.
She merely shrugged, and he couldn't help but grin. She did that a lot-- and sometimes he couldn't tell whether she was truly disinterested, or just looking like that because she was supposed to. "It's not as bad as I thought I guess, but don't ever let my mom know that-- she wouldn't stop gloating for ages." She seemed to physically shudder, and he gave a short laugh. "So," she continued, still diligently painting. "How is the life of Bolton? If you don't mind me saying, lately-- when you sing-- you look like half your brain is in the building, and the rest is off somewhere else. Before you ask, yes, us mere set people do notice these things."
He hadn't really been expecting this, although he should have. He still hadn't gotten used to Clara's brand of bluntness. It made talking easier though, he supposed, since at least he knew whatever she said was always what she meant-- most of the time. It sort of made him mean whatever he said too, in an... odd way. "I don't know, I guess I have a lot on my mind..." he replied, trailing off and unsure of what direction he should take.
"Hmmm, sounds like you could use a work out." She paused for a moment, then seemed to recover and continued on-- this time dipping into a different color. Looking very much at ease with the task at hand, he supposed is how he'd describe it. "I used to have this friend, she was very against having things on your mind. She said they weighed too much, and your head couldn't handle it and that eventually you'd tip over and never be able to stand back up. So, whenever I was worried about something she'd tell me 'Clara, tell me what's on your mind! It'll get it out of there, lose some weight-- a work out, you know? Even brains like to work out!'" This time she laughed out loud, and even from where he was standing he could tell she was enjoying the memory. "Oh she sure was something... I don't know, it helped though. Makes you feel a little lighter the more you talk about it."
He really couldn't understand what possessed him to say the things he said next, but when she threw him an encouraging smile after her short speech-- he couldn't really stop his mouth. "She sounds like she knows what she's talking about..." he muttered, hesitant at first. "I just, well... I have something coming up, something pretty big. I have to confront someone who used to be the closest friend I had-- and now, well, now we hate each other. I mean-- I don't know, I don't hate him. I don't think so. We have a game coming up against him, we... have to win? I just... I don't know, things are a pretty big mess right now." He could feel his face burning, knowing full well that he wasn't making any sense and that seeing as Clara was only a few steps away from a stranger-- he was also probably terrifying the daylights out of her. "Have you ever had that? Ever felt like you needed to win to make things better?"
Ok. Now he really wasn't making any sense. He also couldn't help but feel guilt pull away at his stomach as he realized what the hell he'd just said and who he'd said it to and who he hadn't said it to. He put the brush back down into the bucket as he muttered his apologies and made to leave. "Troy-- woah, wait up a minute." It was Clara again. He was surprised she hadn't spit on him yet (or worse).
"I haven't had that feeling... exactly, but I can understand it," she continued, cautiously. (Afraid of sudden movements now, you know the deal.) "Look, just look at it this way-- forget everything that's happened in the past. Life is too serious a subject to be taken seriously, you get me? If you're always looking forwards, then you don't have any reason to look backwards-- and that's the difference between winning and losing."
After a long pause, he sort of just stood there awkwardly. She was making sense, but he still couldn't help but feel a little bit odd about the situation. I mean, where the heck had that come from? Wasn't Clara Bryant supposed to be the world's greatest pessimist? Everything pointed in that direction, at least. He didn't have much time to consider it though, because before he knew it he suddenly felt a hard smack against his chest as a paint brush collided against it. It had been dipped in paint, he might add.
Paint and a chest smack could equal only one thing-- a temporarily ruined shirt. He heard her snort in the background.
"Now get back to painting!" she managed, looking as though she was trying to wear a serious expression and laugh all at the same time. "You offered, which means you have to finish."
That's when he got it-- that glint in his eye that suggested many a terrible fate. Dipping his hand into the nearest paint bucket he took a step towards one Miss. Bryant. "Oh, I'll finish!" Without another word, he flung a handful of paint in her direction-- watching contently as it collided against her face, coating it all a neat uniform blue. What ensued next could only be described as chaos, as various buckets of paint ended up on the other (not to mention the boards behind them). In the end, after viewing the mess they'd created of themselves as well as a small part of the backstage area, the two could agree on one thing.
Mary Ellen was going to be pissed.