ET: Chapter 4: Partners?
Two whole weeks have gone by, the late autumn coming closer and closer to early winter with the weather dropping and holiday's seasons arriving soon. The days came and gone, and soon they were back to Monday again, the Wildcats reaching the end of the day with their last class.
Troy bit his lip hard, trying to swallow his wince, as a searing pain shoot through his head. For talking back to his dad at practice, his training went from being three days a week to everyday, with Sundays being an expectation only because his dad watched sports all day long that day. Not only was that, but now everything in his training routine doubled. Doubled the jump roping, double the push ups, double the running, double everything. This morning he made a huge mistake telling his dad his head was spinning, and, "fixing the problem", his dad smacked his on the head with his heavy tin water bottle.
He managed to cover the bruises, but the pain was still searing, too raw to ignore.
"You okay?" Taylor whispered. She was seated to him.
"Yeah." He smiled. Though she took notice and nodded, he could tell she didn't believe it. Luckily she didn't have time to question further because the final bell rang, cuing classes to start.
"Alright students," said Mr. Cummings. "All of you to your seats."
Creative Literature was Troy's last class of the day. It was a combination of between English, Film, and Creativity Writing, where they watch films and read recommended books and discuss them and where they also write short stories and poems. It was a very popular elective, but only a dozen were selected for the class each year. As hard it was to be in the class, it was ten times harder to stay in the class.
Mr. Cummings was one of the toughest teachers, a hundred times tougher than Darbus and somehow twice as stern as Troy's dad, which Troy never believed could be possible. He was a tall man, about 6'7, with a body of a stronger bodybuilder, which always made him look like he was bursting out of his suits, the wrinkles and gray mustache of an old man, and the stern voice and steel ice-blue eyes of someone of a commanding officer in the army. Rumors swirled around he was a distant relative to the famous poet E.E Cummings because, besides his last name, the way the man was so passionate about Literature. He lived, breathed, and ate it.
He wrote a couple of poems for the New Yorker, which are amazing and eaten up by his fans, and already published more than several books that quickly became best-sellers.
The classroom was small, almost the same size as the homeroom, but decorated in a different style. Ceiling length bookshelves were at every wall, a station of computers in the back with two typewriters from Mr. Cummings' collection no one uses, posters of famous quotes plastered on the wall and cut outs of famous figures standing by each corner, and, instead of desks, they were seated in three long tables.
"Now, students," the teacher said. "I'm sure, as all of you recall, we've been studying for the past few weeks-"
It was that moment Gabriella Montez decided to make her appearance. Unlike most devoted rebels, she doesn't cut classes. She comes to them, but takes her sweet time getting there, often arriving either ten minute after the second bell rang or when they were ten minutes left in class. She wore a white and black shoulder-off top that had billowy loose sleeves but was tight around her chest, fiery-red tight jeans tucked into her black leather boots stubbed with sliver, and her black shades masked her face.
Sunlight streaming from the window hit her glasses, deflecting the light.
She waited for a moment, waiting them while brushing her loose hair back, and took her seat at the empty chair by the far left corner in the first table.
Sitting right in front of Troy.
"Thank you for joining us, Ms. Montez," Mr. Cummings said.
A shrug and a smirk were her responses.
No one had any idea how Gabriella managed to be in this class. Only a handful of seniors with the most outstanding grades in English through the first three years of high school were gain admission. There were a few rumors that she was a genius, a creative writer whose stories put others to shame, but that seemed far-fetched.
"Now, as I was saying," the teacher carried on. Most teachers would love the chance to humiliate a student for coming in late, but for Mr. Cummings, who hated wasted class time more than anything, he let the tardy people in and continued on with his lesson. "Since September, we've been studying and discussing different genres. Last week, for S, we talked about the supernatural and written short stories. This week we are now on R and shall be doing, a romantic's personal favorite, Romance."
The girls may be mature and poised, but they did little containing their excitement for the new topic, squealing and talking among themselves. Even Taylor was thrilled, grinning big.
Gabriella was the only one, Troy noticed, who kept quiet.
Mr. Cummings clapped his hands together to get his attention. "Yes, yes, I know. It's very exciting, ladies, but please control yourself."
Troy found himself only half-listening, something he never done before in class. His mind told him to pay attention to the teacher, but it was so hard to focus with a wicked, tempting angel perched in front of him.
Her hair was so long, it touched his table. It smelt sweet, too. Not the usual strawberry scent from shampoos, but instead smelled like jasmine and honey-suckle rose. Two flowers mixed together to make such an exotic aroma.
The smell was so intoxicating, he had such a surprising but strong urge to grab a handful of her hair and bury his nose into it.
Focus Bolton! Focus!
"Romanticism was a very interesting, popular era that occurred in England soon after the Enlightment. It also challenged it, believing emotion should be superior to reason. According to the era, we'd be nothing but robots if we analyzed everything we did."
"All you need is love!" sang a pony-tailed guy in the track team in the back row. Everyone, saved for the teacher, couldn't help laughing.
"Thank you, Mr. Sanders. But this is school. I highly suggest you save the karaoke when the next Glee audition opens up." If the class was laughing before, they were howling now. For someone usually very stern and humorless, Mr. Cummings can, when he wants to, crack a really funny remark. "Getting back to Romanticism. Instead of assigning books or writing short stories, I've decided to something a little different. We may read, but I feel some of you are slugging through the novels. And when I assign short stories, most of you want me to throw up while very few manage to help keep my stomach down when I read them."
Though the comment was crude, Troy hoped he was still one of those very few.
"But for this one you'll be doing something different: a project. I will you into a pairs, of my choosing, then you come up with an outline I expect to be typed by next Friday, each pair will do a twenty-five paper, and a visual display of any couple of Literature with an interesting love story. I, of course, will need to approve them. For the visual, and I cannot urge this enough, be creative. You may do a video, PowerPoint, anything."
There was an even number, six boys and six girls, so it wasn't going to be too tricky. Mr. Cummings handed out the guidelines and called out the groups.
"Zoey Matthews and Chase Brooks. Jade West and Leo Thomas. Brenna Barnes and Colin Davis,"
With each pair he called out, they quickly went to their parent and became planning on what they were doing. Troy noticed the rest of the remaining students left unknown were growing thinner and thinner. Gabriella was one of them unpaired.
"Lola Gracisas and Duce Rashawas. Taylor McKessie and Jordan Sanders. Gabriella Montez and Troy Bolton."
No, no, NO! This proved there was no God; this proves fate just loved to torment and toy with him till he was nothing. He was paired with the most...most…unruly girl in the whole school.
Everyone turned to look at them, the girls looking astonished and pity-like, and the boys jealous. It was so unfair the dull, boring jock had a chance to be close with the new hottie. While Troy sank further and further into his chair, falling onto the floor, his partner looked downright bored, as if she couldn't wait for classes to be done and over with.
Oblivious to Troy's discomfort and Gabriella's silence, Mr. Cummings carried on. "I expect the best and only the best from these projects. I expect to be wowed, people, not bored to tears. And since Valentine's Day is the most romantic day of the year, according to most romantics, that shall be the deadline for the project. This week and this week alone, I'll allow you class time to get started on your projects. Am I being surprisingly generous? Yes. Which means I hope you will take this seriously. It's worth more than half of your final grade for the term and I will put your project grade into the final grade for the overall year. You do well, then I believe you should be at ease throughout the year. Now let's get started."
The East High library was impressive, not to the mention large, even thought only less than a quarter of students actually go there willing besides for studying. Thanks to funds and generous donars, there were more than dozens of computers, more than twenty round tables and desks used for studying, and every shelf was filled with books with a ship-load of new ones coming every week. It was there Mr. Cummings' class was getting to work on their projects. Some were logged onto the computers, researching. Some were looking through shelves to find the particular, some were at the desks and writing down ideas.
Everyone seemed to know what they were doing. All expect for the last pairing, sitting over at the small round table by the window. It was in a corner, far from the others, and seclusion, so they were able to work without feeling-not too much-staring. But still they had nothing.
In front of Troy were sheets of fresh paper he ripped from his binder and his ballpoint pen in his hand. He spent the last fifteen minutes staring down at the paper and waiting for something, anything, to hit him.
He looked over at Gabriella, hoping for one moment she was like him. Paper laid in front, pen in her hand, tapping her nails or doing something while she was waiting for an idea. Sadly, disappointing hitting him hard and extinguishing his glimmer of hope. Sitting in her chair, feet propped and crossed over on the table and chair titled back a bit, sitting close but not too close to him, her attention was drawn outside, to the fields. The track runners zoomed around the area, pushing themselves despite the fact most of them looked about ready to collapse, while the coach sat in his longue chair, drinking his lemonade and yelling at them to run faster.
A flash of déjà vu hit Troy hard.
His parent didn't turn around, but it was hard to know even aware of him with those shades on. For all he knew she could sleeping. Then he noticed the mark on her shoulder blade.
Before, when she made her bold appearance into the room and stood before the class, he noticed it but thought it was nothing more than a lock of her dark hair. Now, with her hair pulled back and being closer to him, he saw it was a tattoo. It was an angel-slash-devil tattoo with the pure white halo and angel wing on the left connected to the fiery red devil horn and wing on the right.
It was like her in two ways: unusual but memorizing. There was something about it, despite how it weird and eerie it looked, that reused to let him pull his gaze away.
"Picturing me naked?" Gabriella turned and smirked.
He didn't realize how close they were, until he felt some strands of her hair brushing against him, almost like a trickle, as she shifted up. He looked up, embarrassed and annoyed at accusing, but before a word could be said he was stuck. Not just stuck, but speechless. By her eyes, which were wide-set and framed with black thick lashes, the shade of melted chocolate, staring at him the same way they stared at him at the cafeteria when they first locked eyes.
Deeply and intensely.
"Yes-I mean no-I mean-Project!" he nearly yelled out the last word as if his life depended on it. He was stammering and flushing like a complete idiot, broadening Gabriella's smirk. "We should be working on the project."
She nodded, acknowledging this. "So, in other words, you were picturing me naked?"
Dear sweet Jesus! Troy smacked his hand against his forehead so hard; he almost knocked himself off his chair and into unconsciousness. He almost wished he did so he wouldn't have to deal with this humiliating moment.
"Look," After two minutes wasted on trying to regain control of himself, he spoke slowly and calmly. Although the undertone of force in his calmness was heard even to him. "I don't know about you, but I don't want to fail-"
"And you think I do?" Her face became expressionless the instant her smirk vanished.
"I…" Again, with another stare into her eyes, his mind was gone and the only thing he was aware of was how nervous he was becoming while his tongue was being tied into a million knots. It was weird seeing her eyes this close. He assumed they were dark as her hair, but seeing them a soft, deep chocolate brown was surprising. He never thought there was anything soft about Montez other than her hair.
"The project?" she inquired, arching her eyebrow. Was she even aware of what happened?
"Um yeah," he coughed into his fist once he finally snapped out of it and rubbed his neck. Mr. Cummings was twenty-feet away from them, talking to Taylor and her partner. He was soon going to come to them, and they still didn't have an idea. "How about Romeo & Juliet?"
"Obvious,"
"Fine," Thinking about it, he had to hand it to her; it was too obvious. "Cleopatra and Marc Anthony?"
"Too many theories,"
"How about fucking Barbie and Ken then?" He's been doing all the suggesting while she was dismissing each one with a wave of her hand. It was really starting to get annoying.
If there was any indication she was annoyed or shocked by his comment and the way he said it, she hid it well. Arching her brow, she smirked as she delivered a comment back to him. "Three problems with that one, pup. I ain't plastic. I have a really good feeling their love story isn't what tech had in mind. And I ain't white. Nor do I have any plans to dye my hair blonde any time soon. Save that for the Barbie wannabes."
Troy stared at her for a moment, watching as she returned her attention onto her nails, not saying anything. It took every ounce of his willpower not to slam his head onto the wooden desk and bang so many times, he'd bleed out and be blacked out. Instead he smacked his hand against his forehead, with ten times harder force, and brought his head down, cursing to himself.
It was official: they were screwed. He could kiss his beautiful A goodbye, could kiss college goodbye, and any other dream he had. Colleges weren't going to care at all that his partner wasn't serious about the project, that he tried his best in the project, or how hard he worked in school. All they were going to see was the big F, along with Mr. Cummings's letter telling them not to waste their time on a wasted student.
If his dad ever found out…
Praising Taylor and Jordan for their choice, which were Catherine and Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, Mr. Cummings stood in front of their table, blue ballpoint pen in one hand and his clipboard in the other that was already filled with names. Names Troy wished he thought of. Such as Romeo & Juliet, Paris and Helen from Troy, Hamlet and Ophelia, even Cleopatra and Mark Anthony. "What do you two have for me?"
"Um…" was all Troy managed to say before slowly sinking into ground, wishing the ground could swallow him whole while Mr. Cummings frowned at him disapprovingly. "We-"
"Are doing Carmen."
Gabriella dropped the name so causally, as if she requested fried chicken for her lunch order or said it was going to be sunny for the weather. Not being intimidated by the teacher's stare and took no note of her partner's surprised glace.
"Carmen?" Troy repeated, eyebrow arched, baffled
His steel-blue eyes examining her quickly, Mr. Cummings asked "Care to elaborate, Miss Montez?"
"Of course," The amused, non-smirked smile appeared and vanished so quickly on her dark lips, it was hard to believe it was even there. Turning to Troy, she said "Carmen is a famous, stunning opera by George Bizet. A tale of romance, drama, passion, etc between an inexperienced, obedient solider named Don Jose and a fiery, free-spirited gypsy named Carmen. They fell in love, but soon after Done Jose's love becomes intensely obsessive, Carmen fells for a bullfighter, Escamillo, and Done Jose ends up killing her. Symbolizes how easily love came become dark, especially if one feels it more than the other. An amazing story with the saddest ending."
It sounded more like a soap opera to Troy, but then again most love stories were that way.
"Very unusual and unexpected. In all my years teaching Romanticism, I only taught the play once and only several students done their papers or presentations based on it. It definitely will be hard to intercept it," This made Troy flushed in nervousness. "But I must, though, as difficult as it may be, I do think it will quite a thing to see."
All throughout the time he was talking, Troy wondered if he entered the Twilight zone. Mr. Cummings giving compliments. Compliments! Something so rare, it was non-existent.
By time he gotten himself together, Mr. Cummings was gone and Gabriella went over to one of the shelves, pulling out a heavy, brown-covered book. Coming over, she plopped it onto the desk and flipped through the pages until she gotten to the page she wanted. The page was a picture of a couple, the woman dark-haired and beautiful, leaning her body close against the tall, broad man next to her, a seductive smile playing on her crimson lips while intensity gleamed in the man's dark green eyes as he looked down at her.
"Carmen and Done Jose." It didn't take a genius to figure out who it could.
"The one and only." Gabriella nodded.
They weren't exactly what Troy had in mind. Their love story seemed more complicated and weird than anything he ever heard of. But the teacher already written down, so there was nothing left to do but do it.
Sighing, Troy wrote down plans for the project. "So we both do as much research and try to have the outline done by Wednesday. Thursday the latest. I know it seems crazy since he said we have two weeks to do it, but I like getting things done as soon as possible. We can talk about the history, the setting, the symbolism, the message-"
"Dancing."
"Yes, dancing-what a minute! What?" he asked, close to writing it down.
Her lips curved up slightly. Troy couldn't be sure but it looked more like a smile than a smirk, but before he could be sure, it was gone the very next second. "Yes, pup, dancing. You heard of it, right? A movement of an expression. Swaying your hips to the music, tapping your feet, practically having sex on the floor when the music gets just about hot-"
"I know what it is!" he snapped, which brought back the smile-like curl to her lips. Just like that, it vanished all it soon. "I just…I just…"
"Dancing is a huge element in Carmen."
"I realize that, but I just-" Gabriella cut him off, leaning closer to him and peering at his face.
"You don't know how to dance, do you?" It wasn't a question; more like a fact she felt the need to express. A fact he confirmed by looking away and sheepishly robbing his neck.
"I do," she arched her eyebrow in disbelief, and he forced himself to confess. "Okay, fine, I can't dance to save my life."
She didn't laugh, like he expected, or smirked again. She simply nodded, then returned her attention back to the picture, tracing Carmen's profile with a look in her eyes he couldn't explain.
He looked at the picture, too, then glanced up at the clock. It was almost three, in about ten seconds. He quickly scribbled down as much information the page next to the picture said.
"Okay, let's each do our own research and try to come up with ideas in the morning. I know we have all week to start preparing, but I think we should find someplace to meet to do the rest. Maybe your house. If not, how about mine?" He then thought about how awkward and weird it would be if she came, with his dad eyeing her before scowling at her, wondering why he brought her there. "On, the second, maybe my house won't be the best idea. My dad can be a bit…stern. How about-"
By the time he looked up, the bell rang, everyone was packing their things and getting ready to go, and he was saw he was the only one at the table.
"We meet at the library." He said, apparently now talking only to himself.
At the end of the day, while he packed the usual load of heavy books and binders into his ratty blue Nike backpack he had since freshmen year, a note fell from the top shelf and landed by his feet.
Troy picked it up and the scent of honeysuckle rose and jasmine assaulted his nostrils. Just inhaling the scent, he knew who it was from before he opened it.
Vicznor's old studio in Huntington street, the last building down on the left. Saturday, at 7A.M
He looked up, out the window, just in the time to watch her hop onto her bike. Straddling it, she placed the black helmet onto her head, started the engine, and then, turned back to look at him like she could feel his eyes watching her.
Even though they were more than twenty feet away from each other, the effects that came with her gaze were all the same: her eyes deeply locking into his even though they were shield, his whole body tingling and buzzing with such a strong, strange feeling, the way she looking at him as if she could see right through him.
Turning her head forward, she broke the gaze, made the bike roar to life, and rode off without giving him another look back.
By the time Troy realize his vision was spinning because of lack of breath, he took note of his heartbeat, which was beating more rapidly during those three seconds than the time being of his whole existence. He arched his back against the locker, his mind spinning as visions of raven hair, amusing smirks, and bewitching eyes danced in his head and her scent that was assaulting him, twisting and mangling with his mind even more.
"Who the hell is she?" he asked himself.