A/N- Wow, this took me a month to publish. Can you ever forgive me? I've had an odd last four weeks. Summertime better get here soon, minus the hundred-degree weather. -love- Desireé
P.S. I have come to notice that in my chapters, text will start and then stop, and either start again or new text will come up. The starting-and-stopping text that is random is deleted material; so, ignore it. :)
Chapter Twenty-Two, Meantime
Ten out of ten for a race already run
Bleeding the world cause you can't figure out what's wrong
So come back down from your daydream high
Lost for words when you sympathize
There's a million ways to believe you tried
Well I'm—unsatisfied
-'Unsatisfied', Nine Black Alps
--
New York was like a breath of fresh air, surprisingly enough. Gabriella was unaware of how much she missed the flurry of taxis and change of season. Everything came back to her as if she had never left; this amused Harris.
"You look like a tourist who doesn't speak English," he pointed out as they strolled through Central Park. It had been only a few days since they arrived at the Danforth home, but they had left again early in the morning to spend time in the city with a curfew at a late evening hour. "First trip to America, eh?" He rolled his Rs and laughed at the way it sounded.
"Don't make fun of me, I haven't been here in over thirteen years," she said indignantly, pushing him a little bit with a sort of sadness she had not witnessed before. They resided on a bench and watched a dog walker pass with too many dogs; a woman embellished by a baby bump strolling along with an empty stroller; two teenagers, the girl walking ahead of the boy angrily. None of these scenes particularly endearing to him, Harris examined his palm, which had blistered from the hot doorknob of the shop in Sampson—a scar by which he could remember everything.
"You left without me because you didn't think you could take care of me, right?"
The question was unescorted by anger or disdain, for which she was relieved. He still just wanted to know. "I don't really know why I left. And I don't know why I left without you; but I know what I didn't come back. A new lifestyle would have been too hard on you—you would have been a miserable two-year-old."
And then the bomb dropped: "I'm a miserable fifteen-year-old."
She sat up and her eyes widened. "What? What do you mean, you're miserable?" Gabriella inquired, turning to him with an almost impatient tone. "How could you possibly be miserable?"
But even as she asked herself that, she knew the reason was clearly that he had been quiet for thirteen years of his life, silent even when he had questions about his mother, trying to make other people happy before he thought of himself. It was a selfless thing to do, but she couldn't find it in herself to admire that.
TYWY
"Well, I guess this is goodbye."
Firefighters were bustling around the site, which had been reduced to nothing but black muck, lumped together with survived wood and other now-useless objects. Gabriella stood awkwardly, still debating whether to be grateful that the shop was finally gone, or upset because all of her possessions were now incinerated.
Crap, she couldn't remember if there was fire insurance.
"Where are you guys going to stay?" Troy asked, not very capable of concealing his obvious curiosity.
"I'll see Taylor and Chad, out in Westchester. It's time I start giving people a call," Gabriella replied. She nodded and put an arm around Harris. "I'll have him back by the weekend, I promise."
So this was how it would be. Custody issues, driving to and from the city, picking up and dropping off, forgetting items and having to go back to get them. It was part of a process Gabriella had used to believe would never be a part of her life—how wrong a person could be. How wrong she turned out to be; motherhood was everything she could dream of and more.
Arielle said nothing, and no one prompted an input from her. Troy nudged her for a moment, to see how she would react, but got nothing so much as a nod out of her. A temporary mute by choice, he thought. It wasn't desirable, but she'd been through too much.
"I'll see you Friday, then," Harris said, half-hugging his father. He kissed Arielle's forehead and murmured something to her. The corners of her lips turned upward vaguely, and Troy was jealous to know he was unable to do this: he didn't know how to make his own daughter smile. The real problem, though, was more that he himself did not know how to smile.
Gabriella was inching toward the car she was borrowing from Adeline to make the drive upstate. How could he say good-bye to her?
"Call me, okay?" Three simple words that had her head spinning for the entire trip to Westchester; in spite of her dizzy state, Gabriella Montez was almost afraid to admit that Troy Bolton, who'd grown up to be a father of two and an all-too-serious person for the guy he was in high school, still had some magic left in him.
TYWY
For two weeks, Harris was on loan between his parents. He barely spoke to his sister, who kept herself holed up in her room again and this time, with good reason. His father did not try to get her to come out anymore; mainly, he was drawing again. None of the illustrations made a lot of sense—there was a dissolving hourglass in the middle of a puddle that reflected hateful words, trees that had roots on the top and branches on the bottom, and children's building blocks set ablaze by a match that read 'Trauma'. Whatever was stirring in his mind was being translated onto paper again, but there are only so many drivers who will notice a desperate hitchhiker on the side of the road.
Since they had come back to town, Cassandra Noel had been trying (but failing) to make everything return to normal, and now that Arielle knew the truth, the supermodel also tried mother-daughter bonding time, which was massively unsuccessful. Rumors resurfaced around magazines that the marriage was on the rocks, and it most certainly was. Not even Harris, who may or may not have been the peacekeeper in every situation, wanted to do anything, so she left.
When Gabriella heard this from her uncharitably apathetic son, she knew that she had to go see him. "You're parking?" Harris asked skeptically as she stopped the car along the curbside. "I can walk up by myself, it's not that hard."
"I want to talk to your father," she explained, straight-faced. He paused a moment with a defeatist expression, before stepping onto the sidewalk.
The elevator ride was awkward, quiet, and Gabriella had the itching feeling that her visit was long overdue. She watched the third floor hallway materialize in front of here and Harris guided her to the loft she knew too well. The family has too much history here, Troy had once said. She wasn't sure how she knew this, but she agreed wholeheartedly as Harris stuck his keys in the lock and turned the knob.
"I'm home," Harris half-called, dropping his bags at the door and kicking off his shoes. It was a habit he seemed to form as a consequence of his father. "And Mom's here, so make sure everybody's decent." He spoke as if there was a multitude of people around, but Harris well aware that Arielle would be in her room and Troy would be somewhere, busying himself with useless chores and such.
Indeed, he was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables. Harris cleared her throat and Troy turned around, a nondescript theme wandering across his face. But when his eyes met Gabriella's, something clicked. "You're here."
She opened her mouth apprehensively and looked down at the floor. "I wanted to talk about stuff," she confessed to the tiles.
"Like, with me?" Troy asked; the knife was poised in his hand mid-carrot slice. Harris raised his eyebrows before his father coughed, dropping his kitchen utensils and wiping his palms on his jeans. "Well, yeah, of course. Um, did you want to go for a walk?"
"Yes." For a long time.
TYWY
The wind picked up as the pair stepped out, Troy pulling his hood over his head and Gabriella tugging on her scarf. Nothing was said at first; once in a while he would look at her, and find her staring at him, and then they'd both blush and turn away, hoping the cold air would be reason enough for the red cheeks. "It's like riding a bicycle," Gabriella said eventually, nodding in his direction, and then at the urban lifestyle around them. "I don't know how I ever got along in Sampson."
He nodded and said nothing for a minute. "How's Chad and Taylor?"
"They're fine, just fine. They really were speechless when they saw me; I felt like I was going to cry. It's been kind of emotional but it's nice to see old faces again," she replied. "How's your foot? Still bandaged?" Before he could say anything, his phone rang, and Gabriella busied herself window-shopping in Neiman Marcus.
Troy flinched when he answered, not bothering to look at the Caller ID. "She has been in town for fifteen days and you didn't even think to tell me?" Sharpay squealed. "This is like the biggest news since the latest Brangelina baby and you mention nothing to me? Not even a BlackBerry memo?"
With a glance at Gabriella, Troy found himself smiling. "Oh, sorry, Sharpay. I guess I've been busy lately; Arielle's taken to being a hermit and with Harris gone half the time I feel a little vacant. And then there's Cassandra."
At that moment, Sharpay wasn't feeling so loud or proud or magnificent. Her end of the call was quiet, before she finally said, "I'm sorry, Troy."
He shook his head, knowing she couldn't see the somewhat cross look on his face. "Don't apologize, she and I were doomed from the beginning."
"What about you and Gabriella?"
There was no pretty way to put it; a fairytale ending always had an expiration date, and they were both full-grown people with children to consider and jobs to pursue. Below his feet, initials had been impressed into what was once wet sidewalk cement. Of course, the initials did not read TB + GM. They were a little hard to read, but he thought he saw LS + PS. Well, maybe those people were happy.
"Troy? I want to come see you guys. It's been too long since our younger days," Sharpay said gently, and he knew then she did not smoke. One day, Troy decided, she would make some amazing parent—better than he could hope to be.
"Come meet us down by the pizza parlor near the loft. I'm sure Gabriella will be happy to see you," he told her, and hung up.
Gabriella tore herself away from the beautiful clothing behind the glass and tugged on her trench coat a little bit tighter. "Everything okay? Who was that?"
"You'll see," he said with an idle grin. "Now, come on, you wanted to talk to me. I'm listening."
Whatever it is she wanted to say sure was taking a long time. Troy kept his patience, and finally she asked, "What do you think makes someone a bad person? The things they do, or the things they do not do?"
He had not expected anything like this. Something more along the lines of I'm lonely, come back to me, or Harris doesn't deserve this, we should get married might have sufficed, but more realistically: How can we fix this? Troy thought about how to answer her question, "I think it's more the resulting outcome of the decisions, or nonexistent ones. Like the way a bad call can mess up someone's reputation, or a lazy resolution only worsens the problem. But then again, it takes a lot to be qualified under 'bad person'. I think we've both been saved from making the cut, if it's any consolation."
She smiled dryly. "Not really, but it's nice to hear it said out loud, just in case."
Troy stopped on a corner, waiting for the Walk sign to permit them across the boulevard. "You know, I've been thinking about you these last couple of weeks; a lot, actually. One day I picked up a pencil and started sketching, and somehow your face came onto the paper. I got your eyes wrong, though. They weren't smiling."
Cars stopped and they were allowed to the other side of the street with a mass of other people. Gabriella sniffled in the cold wind and shrugged. "I don't know, I haven't truly smiled for a long time now. And even if I have, it's a quick second before I go back to scowling."
"Your smile hasn't changed, at least. It's the same as it was in high school," Troy said. "Sometimes when you don't put anything to use, it fades. You prove that theory wrong."
And then, her lips turned upward, and her eyes glinted for just a moment as Gabriella cocked her head back at him, hair falling in front of her face briefly. "You like being a dad?"
"Yes. Do you like being a mom?"
"It's still new to me, but yes. It's one of the better things I have done in life."
They found themselves in the pizza parlor near the loft, where Sharpay Evans stood, arguing with the employee behind the counter about something. "I give up!" she cried cynically, and turned around. Her angst disbanded as soon as she saw Gabriella, though, and she ran to hug the stranger. "You're back! You're back! I can't believe it, oh my God, you look great, how is everything, where've you been this entire freaking time?"
They sat for hours over greasy cheese and burnt crust, laughing and resuming a lifestyle that they had left a while ago. Troy sat opposite Sharpay, who sat next to Gabriella. They were missing three particular people, but there was time to get them. Maybe tomorrow would be dismal again, but in the meantime, happiness could be salvaged.
TYWY
The loft was dark when Troy and Gabriella came inside, Sharpay behind them while she talked on her cell phone with Ryan. "Okay, get your butt over here some time, because this is probably the most interesting thing that has happened to us in, like, a year. Yes, she's staying! What do you think, she's going to run off again? God, you were given a brain, Ry, use it. Yeah, yeah, hugs and kisses. Bye." She plopped down on the couch and turned on the lamp next to the armrest. "Where'd you guys go?"
No response from either Troy or Gabriella. Sharpay grinned puckishly and reoccupied to the television, assuaged now that two people, meant to be, had found their way back in the end.
TYWY
The fire escape supported two people, looking up at the dim image of the moon above them. "I got a call from my friend in Sampson," Gabriella said. "She found some of my stuff in the fire. I guess it survived. I'm going to drive down tomorrow, to get everything. Can you keep Harris for a little longer? I need to tie up some loose ends there."
"I'll go with you," Troy said quickly. She raised an eyebrow. "I'd like to."
Gabriella considered this a moment before agreeing, resting her feet against the fire escape's railing. "You know, I didn't mean for anything to happen: Cassandra leaving, and all that. I wanted you to know that I have been battling guilt this entire afternoon, now. Harris told me like it wasn't a big deal, but I thought I should see you."
"Just because I take pictures of people and she's one of those people that gets photographed doesn't mean we're supposed to be happily married like Ricky and Lucy. I'm fine being just a father for now. But you're a nice addition to everything."
A/N- That's a really terrible ending but it's late and I just need to have something published before I tear my hair out over the plot. -love- Desireé