Don't own it. Don't really care, either.

"Troy?" Gabriella came into the room, her face damp from tears and her eyes red and puffy. "How're you holding up?"

"I just can't believe he's gone." Troy's voice sounded strange to him, high-pitched and scared. Because he was scared. Troy had never had to deal with anything this serious before. He didn't know how he was going to do it. Going to keep living.

"I would get him into so much trouble. But I was always there to pull him out." Troy uttered a strangled laugh. "One time, Chad decided that he would be the gym teacher. He had a whistle and a hat and started ordering everybody around. God, he was crazy." Troy said this with affection. More tears welled up in Troy's eyes and he blinked them out.

"You know, you can cry." Gabriella said. "Taylor and I have been crying our eyes out, and we only knew him for a few months. You knew him for years. He was your best friend."

"He was so much more then that." Troy whispered. He remembered it-everything they had done. The pranks, the laughter, the games. That was all gone. Forever.

For the first time, Troy realized with a sudden understanding that Chad wouldn't be coming back. This wasn't a movie. It wasn't one of those stories that he hated where people came back to life. Chad was dead.

And when he realized this, he started crying freely, his shoulders shook and he looked at Chad's body. It had once been so full of energy and spirit and it struck Chad that he had never seen Chad this still before. Even when Chad had been sitting he was moving. "A never-ending supply of energy." As Zeke had put it.

The energy was gone now. Sucked out of the body in death, never to return. The life and soul of Troy's best friend, of Troy himself, was gone.

Troy leaned against Gabriella and croaked. "He didn't deserve to die. He was so alive, so carefree. He didn't deserve it at all."

Gabriella wrapped her arms around Troy. "Does anybody deserve it?" she whispered.


So, yeah, he really is dead. One chapter to go (I think, I don't really plan these things out) Anyway, it'll be the funeral chapter.

The number of reviews I get determains how fast you'll get the chapter.

Happy Easter!