DISCLAIMER: I do not own High School Musical or any of the related characters.
A/N: Here's the next chapter, I hope you all like it! I seem to say that a lot have any of you noticed that? Anyway, enjoy!
Saving Me
CHAPTER 5
NOBODY'S HOME
Gabriella pushed open the heavy doors that led to the theatre; she had been right when she had decided to label Miss Darbus as theatrical. As it happened she was the school drama teacher and apparently the drama club needed some extra hands at the theatre. This meant that she was going to be spending close to an hour in the theatre, a place she didn't particularly wanted to be, at the current moment Gabriella thought that spending time with her mother would be better than spending time in the place her father loved. How was it that the one class that she chose to be late for, happened to have detentions in the one place her father had only ever been healthy enough to go to? Gabriella seriously considered turning around and walking out but she realized that would only mean spending more time in the theatre than she wanted to. Sighing she placed her bag in on of the seats and headed up to the stage where Miss Darbus stood directing everyone with a flourish. She ignored the looks she got from everyone that had been in her English class.
"Uh Miss Darbus? I'm here" she said interrupting the instructions Miss Darbus was giving the boy who had protested when Troy was put on detention, Gabriella cast her mind around in search of his name and it landed on Chad.
"Ah Miss Montez, welcome to detention" Miss Darbus turned around and Gabriella gave her a strange look, who said things like that? It sounded incredibly evil, when Gabriella knew that it wasn't.
"Um, thanks?" she asked weakly, unsure whether or not Miss Darbus wanted an answer.
Miss Darbus continued as if she hadn't heard her "You will be painting this with Miss McKessie, I want it all done within the hour, the paints are over there" she pointed and Gabriella nodded and than froze, she had to walk past Troy to get the paints, she considered it good fortune that he seemed to be having trouble with the staple gun.
Walking quickly she sped past him; head down, as she did her mind returned to the questions that she had been asking herself ever since he had asked why that song and she had given him the only answer that she could think of. You don't know what it's like. How was that even an answer? Should she have said more? Or should she have just kept on walking and pretended that she hadn't heard him? Why did she even care? It wasn't like he was going to purposely seek her out just so he could hear a different answer. Did she have a different answer? Or was that the only one that she could think of? It didn't matter now, she had said what she had said and if he wanted to know more about her than it was up to him to seek her out, because there was absolutely no way that she was going to seek him out. And if she did, what would she say? She couldn't talk to her own mother, how was she going to talk to a complete stranger?
"Miss Montez, are you going to stand there all day or are you going to paint the moon?" Miss Darbus' voice snapped her out of her thoughts and Gabriella knew she went an intense shade of red.
"Sorry" she mumbled and headed over to the moon head down, as she walked past where Troy was working her head came up and she looked at him in time to see the curious expression on his face.
Gabriella worked silently with the African-American girl who had said the sarcastic comment about Chad. She didn't know if she should break the silence or not, as she stood painting aimlessly, the girl broke the silence.
"Are you Gabriella Montez?" she asked curiously.
Gabriella looked up at her and than nodded slowly, hoping she would get asked the same question she had been asked all day or anything about the song. It seemed that those things didn't matter to the girl as Gabriella watched her face light up.
"As in the Gabriella Montez? The girl that led her scholastic decathlon team to victory four years in a row?" she asked excitedly and Gabriella went pale.
"How do you know that?" she asked hoping this conversation was going to lead where she thought it was going.
"I know some people on your old team" and Gabriella, if possible went even paler, surely this girl didn't know why she moved.
"Anyway, I'm the head of the team here and I was wondering; would you be at all willing to join our team? It would seriously boost our performance; Kyle sent me some of the questions that you answered and half of them I don't understand, I'm Taylor by the way" the girl said it all so fast that Gabriella felt her head spin and she blinked a couple of times to clear her head.
"Uh, did Kyle tell you why I moved?" she asked hoping desperately that her ex had kept his mouth shut about why she had moved and why she had broken up with him.
"Um no, but that's beside the point, would it be at all possible for you to come for a practice session at least?" Taylor asked pleadingly, Gabriella was vaguely reminded of her mother and that was what caused her to speak without thinking.
"I'd have to think about joining, but I will come to a session" she replied and Taylor clapped her hands in excitement and she reminded Gabriella of a child at Christmas.
"That's brilliant! Thank you so much! I have to go, so I'll talk to you tomorrow" Taylor bounced away before Gabriella could comprehend exactly what had happened.
Gabriella sighed as she continued to paint the moon, which found rather odd, mainly because it had a face and last time she'd checked not even kindergarteners painted faces on their moons. But she could be wrong. Gabriella sighed again as she realized that she had just been pulled into doing something that she didn't particularly wanted to do. All because Taylor had reminded her of her mother, Gabriella knew she had agreed because she wouldn't have been able to handle hurting someone else, even if she barely knew them.
"You know you've painted the exact same spot around fifteen times" Troy's voice cause Gabriella to snap out of her thoughts and she stared at him.
"Huh? Why are you here? I thought you were stapling leaves" she blurted out and he grinned, Gabriella felt her stomach flip and looked back down at the spot that he had been talking about. She blushed when she realized he was right.
"I finished stapling the tree, Miss Darbus wanted me to look after the camel but I think that the Drama Club can take care of that one" he informed her conversationally and Gabriella looked back up at him, to discover that his blue eyes were twinkling.
"What's wrong with looking after the camel?" she asked and he nodded towards it.
Gabriella turned around and for the first time in four months, burst into laughter. The camel looked ridiculous. It was covered from head to toe in materials Gabriella had never thought existed, in fact it didn't even resemble a camel just a great big lump of ribbons.
"Miss Montez, Mr Bolton, as much as I can tell you two are enjoying each others company, the sad fact remains that I have to leave. Some emergency with your father Mr Bolton, which means that you two have to leave" Miss Darbus said as Gabriella calmed down.
"Okay" Troy said and Miss Darbus walked away as Gabriella realized that she had to go home to her mother, the smile vanished from her face and it was replaced with a sad look as she remembered that her mother wasn't talking to her.
"So, are you walking home?" Troy asked as he jumped off the stage.
Gabriella walked down the stairs that were the proper way to get on and off the stage and nodded.
"And you don't look happy because? We just got off detention, like half an hour before we were meant to and you look like you'd rather be watching Miss Darbus launch into one of her lectures" he said and Gabriella didn't reply she just walked past him and picked up her bag.
"I'll see you tomorrow Troy" she said in a dead voice.
Gabriella walked out of the theatre her mind completely blank, she felt like she had betrayed her father somehow by laughing. But how did that work? She hadn't exactly felt the happiness that came with laughing like that, but still she had laughed. Her father had always been the only that had made her laugh and it had been one of his special traits that he had been so proud of. Gabriella knew she had barely smiled since what had happened and here she was with a boy she barely knew and he had her laughing. If that wasn't betrayal than she didn't know what was, but why Troy? Why did it have to be him? Why did it have to be someone she didn't know? Why couldn't it be someone she knew well? Why did it have to be Troy Bolton, most popular guy at East High and the only person who had been nice to her since she had arrived? She'd known him for two days, not even that and she barely knew him.
"Gabriella! Wait up" she heard him call but she kept on walking, she didn't know if she wanted to talk to him, she didn't know if she wanted to ignore how she really felt, or didn't feel. But, what if she stopped and talked to him? Would he be able to cause the constant circles of questions in her head to stop again?
"Gabriella!" he called again and Gabriella took a deep breath and stopped.
"Yeah?" she asked turning around and waiting him for to catch up to her.
"Can I walk you home?" he asked with a grin and Gabriella cocked her head to one side as if pretending to think about it, almost instantly the questions had stopped and Gabriella had forgotten all about her thoughts of betrayal.
"Well, only if you insist upon it" she replied and he nodded.
They began to walk in silence, Gabriella staring straight ahead and Troy glancing at her every now and than. Gabriella didn't know what to say or do, so she just kept on walking. She had no idea how to break the silence, even though she felt completely at ease around him talking would just be way too hard.
"So you never really answered my question" Troy broke the silence and Gabriella glanced at him, they were outside now and it was still fairly sunny.
"Which question?" Gabriella asked biting her lip even though he had only asked her one question.
"What's your favorite colour?" Troy replied with a smirk and Gabriella let out a breath.
"Blue, you?" she said.
"Uh-huh, green for me, what about movie?" Gabriella went red.
"Oh come off it, it can't be that bad" he exclaimed when he saw her blush.
"It's not, but Troy Bolton star playmaker of East High would probably think that the movie is lame" she said and his grin faded slightly at her words.
"What?" Gabriella asked seeing the slight fade in his smile.
"Nothing, so tell me about this movie" he asked shaking it off and Gabriella shrugged and let it go.
"Um, I have to answer this don't I?" she asked and he nodded.
"Yep and than I'll tell you mine" he grinned and Gabriella couldn't help but smile.
"The Lion King" she told him wincing slightly at how childish it sounded, it was true to she and her dad used to watch it all the time, she hadn't watched it in ages, it had been the movie she was going to watch that night. Don't go their Gabriella, she told herself firmly and she pushed away the thoughts and turned her attention back to Troy.
"Whoa, that one, I could lie and tell you mine is something like 'The Bourne Identity' but I have to admit Disney movies do something for me, I happen to like Peter Pan. But don't tell anyone that, not even Chad knows" Troy said with a grin as Gabriella cracked up again.
"I thought I was bad, so when someone asks you that question what do you say?" Gabriella asked curiously as she recovered.
"I might tell you a different movie every time" he replied and Gabriella shook her head grinning.
"That's sad, I normally avoid the question" she said as they came to her house.
Gabriella stopped and Troy turned to face her. He grinned at her and Gabriella smiled back.
"Well, you never actually answered my question did you?" he asked turning serious and Gabriella sighed her smile disappearing.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Troy" she replied as she landed back in her reality, it didn't matter that he was standing there the questions had started again, but there was something different about her reality. Some of the pieces that had littered her life, the ones that Gabriella hadn't thought she could pick up, had slowly joined back to together; well some of them and Gabriella didn't know how.
"See you" he replied as she slowly walked up the pathway.
Gabriella shut the door and closed her eyes and leaned against it. Something was happening to her and it had to do with Troy and the way he managed to make her forget her past and her questions, her memories. How could he do that? It was something that she thought no-one could and he had accomplished the feat. And yet he had no idea why she was the way she was. He didn't know why she had chosen that song. Gabriella climbed the stairs tiredly and her thoughts kept on going in circles. All leading back to the same question how? Why was it that question and not why? Was it because they were new questions and about a totally different person? Gabriella sighed and opened the door to her room. She walked in and turned on her stereo.
I couldn't tell you why she felt that way
She felt it every day
And I couldn't help her
I just watched her make the same mistakes again
What's wrong what's wrong now?
Too many too many problems
Don't know where she belongs, where she belongs
She wants to go home but nobody's home
It's where she lies broken inside
With no place to go, no place to go to dry her eyes
Broken inside
Open your eyes and find the reason why
You've been rejected and now you can't find what you left behind
Be strong be strong now
Too many too many problems
Don't know where she belongs, where she belongs
She wants to go home but nobody's home
It's where she lies broken inside
With no place to go, no place to go to dry hey eyes
Broken inside
Her feelings she hides
Her dreams she can't find
She's losing her mind
She fallen behind
She can't find her place
She's losing her faith
She's fallen from grace
She's all over the place
Yeah
She wants to go home but nobody's home
It's where she lies broken inside
With no place to go to, no place to go to dry her eyes
Broken inside
She's lost inside, lost inside oh….oh
She's lost inside, lost inside oh…oh yeah
Gabriella stood still as the song faded into the background. Was she still broken inside? Two days ago Gabriella would have said to herself that she was broken, her life shattered into a million pieces. She would have said that there was nobody home, because two days ago that was true. She would have said that she was all over the place; she would have said she was numb. But that was before she had met Troy Bolton. It was before two of the million pieces found their way back to each other. Gabriella knew that she still had those questions to answer and she knew that she still had to protect her mother and she knew that she still had to deal with picking up the rest of the pieces. But something was happening to her, something that Troy was contributing to; Gabriella hadn't realized what it was up until a few moments before. She was thawing.
A/N: Finis! Well that chapter is done anyway! I still have a long way to go before it finishes. But I'm not sure I like this chapter, Gabriella's thawing, but there was a lot of talking going on or so I thought anyway if you guys like it than I'm happy! I'll update soon!