AN: Wow! I've never gotten that many reviews for one chapter before! And for such a short chapter too! Thanks!

I'm warning you, though: this story is very sad. Very, very sad. Why?... you'll see.

Anyway, read and review again:)

Oh, wait. And I said on the Prologue that there were 6 chapters + a prologue and epilogue, but it's really 7 chapters. Sorry for the mistake.

Title: Time Will Tell
Rating: T
Author: MadiWillow
Summary: Gabriella is raped in senior year and falls pregnant. Without telling her friends about it, she and her mom move to Florida. Six years later, she sees an old friend... and it all goes downhill from there.
Genre: Romance/Tragedy
Chapter: Chapter 1

23-year-old Gabriella Montez hopped into her car after a long day of teaching Physics to high school kids. Physics was always a fun subject for Gabriella herself, but she didn't like the kids who took the class but didn't make an effort. What was the point in taking it, then, Gabriella would ask herself.

She was driving along the streets of Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she had ironically been transferred to from her old job in Santa Fe. She'd been there – teaching at West High, ironically – for a little over a month now and luckily hadn't run into any of her old friends. She wasn't quite ready to face them, since she'd moved away in their senior year with only a couple of day's notice and made it very obvious that she didn't want to talk to them when she hadn't returned any of their calls, text messages, or e-mails. But it was for their own good.

On the first day of school in Gabriella's senior year at East High, she'd been cornered in the girls' room after school and raped by a guy who knew her name and knew who she was dating, but she didn't know who it was because he'd worn had his hood on the whole time.

After that incident, she'd discovered she was pregnant and begged her mom to let them move. She'd promised she'd tell her friends about it, but she never did. It might've made them understand a little bit better, but she didn't want them to have to carry that burden.

Luckily, her mom had been nice enough to hire a private tutor for her senior year until the baby was born, so she didn't end up even going to school her last year. She'd gotten her high school diploma, went to Rollins College, so she could still live at home and have her mother help out with caring for her beautiful daughter, Eva.

Gabriella had prayed, all through the pregnancy, that her daughter would look like her, and she got her wish. Her five-year-old daughter had the exact same curly, dark brown, almost black, hair as her mother, the same brown eyes, and same tan skin. She had the same smile, the same voice, same everything. It was as if there hadn't even been a father involved in the process.

She pulled into her daughters elementary school, where she had Eva stay after school at the day care when she needed to work late. She parked, locked the car, and proceeded into the kindergarten room, where the day care was held.

Entering the room, she looked around for her daughter. She spotted her, drawing a picture with a little boy who look unfamiliar to her. She smiled and approached Eva.

"Hey honey," she said when she reached them.

"Hi, mom!" cried Eva excitedly as she looked up. "This is Zack. I met him today."

She smiled at the little boy, Zack, who had bowl-cut blonde hair and blue eyes. "Hi Zack. I'm Eva's mommy." Gabriella held out her hand to him. He grabbed her fingers and shook his arm enthusiastically.

"Hi Mrs. Eva's mom!" he cried.

"Come on, sweetie, time to go," she said to Eva when Zack let go of her hand.

"Okay," Eva slid off the chair and stuffed the piece of paper she'd been drawing into her backpack. She threw the bag over her shoulder and said, "See you tomorrow Zack!"

"Bye!"

Gabriella waved at Eva's kindergarten teacher, who ran the day care, and led Eva out to the car. She settled herself in the car as Gabriella climbed into the driver's seat. "So how was your day?" Gabriella asked as they started to drive home.

"It was really fun!" exclaimed Eva. "We played with the baby chickens in the morning, and then we took a nap, and then we had lunch, and, um, then we had free time, and that's when I met Zack."

"Oh, so you just met Zack today?"

"Yeah. I was, um, playing with the blocks and he, um, came over and started to play with me. Now we're best friends."

"How sweet," Like kindergarten...

When they got home a few minutes later, Eva ran into the house while Gabriella locked the car and entered after her, at a slower pace.

"Mommy, why don't I have a daddy?"

Gabriella stopped what she was doing, which was opening up the fridge. She froze, the fridge halfway open. I don't know why I'm so shocked, she thought to herself. Eva was bound to ask someday.

She turned around to face her daughter, who was sitting at the counter, on one of their two bar stools, chewing on a banana. "What?"

"Zack was, um, telling me about his daddy today and then he asked what my daddy was like," said Eva. "I told him I don't have a daddy."

"Oh,"

"How come Zack has a daddy and I don't have a daddy?"

"Um..." Gabriella sighed and went to sit next to Eva at the counter. "Honey, there's something I need to tell you." She didn't know why, but she decided to tell Eva the truth.

Well... a form of it, anyway.

"You don't know how babies are made, do you?"

Eva shook her head.

"Well, to make a baby, a boy and a girl have to... play a game," explained Gabriella. "Not all the time, but sometimes this game makes a baby. Well, a long time ago, I was at school and a boy whose name I don't know made me play the game with him, but I didn't want to.."

"Why didn't you just tell him you didn't want to play?" questioned Eva, her face contorted with confusion.

"I did. But he really, really wanted to play it with me. And that's how we made you."

"Oh. Was my daddy happy to have a baby?"

"Um, well... your daddy doesn't know," said Gabriella apologetically.

"He doesn't know?"

"No. I never saw what your daddy looked like."

"Was my daddy a nice guy?"

"I don't think so, sweetie,"

"...oh,"

"I'm sorry," Gabriella leaned in and embraced her daughter. When they pulled apart, Gabriella said, "Now, honey, I don't want you to tell Zack about that."

"Why not?"

"Because it's private. Only you, me, and abuelita know about it."

"Okay, mommy,"

"And don't tell anyone else in your class, okay? Or the day care. Or any of your classmates parents, alright?"

"Yes, mommy,"

"Good girl," Gabriella kissed her daughter on the forehead and tucked a piece of dark, curly hair behind her ears. "Do you have homework?"

Eva shook her head.

"Okay, so you can go play in your room or watch TV," said Gabriella. Eva slid off the stool and tore out of the kitchen, after quickly throwing away the banana peel.

Gabriella sighed deeply and ran a hand through her own curly hair. She hoped she did the right thing, telling Eva about the rape. The only thing she was worried about what Eva telling the whole world about it.

A few days later it was Friday, and West High got out at 1. Since she didn't need to pick up Eva that day (Eva and Zack had become pretty good friends, so Zack's mother was going to take Eva home) and she didn't need to stay after school, she decided to do her grocery shopping.

She made a quick mental list as she was driving to only get what she needed, no extra snacks. She and Eva were a little tight on money. They had a pretty small house, but she was working on a teacher's salary, which wasn't all that much.

Gabriella got a shopping cart and wheeled it through the store, picking up various things such as milk, potatoes, apples, carrots, bananas, and so on. She had just placed a carton of eggs in her cart and turned around to get another and smacked into some guy that was carrying a bag of peaches.

"Oh!" she screamed and fell back, hard, on her tail bone. "Ohhh..." she breathed out in pain, rubbing her back, too embarrassed to look up at the man.

"Oh my, God, I'm sorry!" The guy held out his hand to her, which she took reluctantly and let him pull her up.

"It's fine," she mumbled to the ground, brushing her hair out of her face.

"Wait, Gabriella?"

Her head snapped up and she found herself staring into a pair of gorgeous blue eyes. Her mouth dropped open.

"T-Troy?"