A/N- Happy Fourth of July to those of you who celebrate it. By the way, this Monday was the official one-year mark of my membership on FanFic! I wish I could have posted this chapter on that anniversary, but the internet, of course, was not working. At least it's restored now!
Okay—so I've officially decided there will be two more chapters after this. And then it'll be done! Thanks for sticking with this, everyone. It's been a big roller coaster writing this, and you guys kept with me. So thank you! -love- Desireé
P.S. To all those who offered and/or gave help and advice on where to go with the story, thank you, as well! I finally know what to do with TYWY. You guys have been great.
Chapter Twenty-Four, Downpour
We are one, we are
Two people inside one body
Our own disgrace
Emotional champ so sorry
No sleep tonight
Only sweet reminders
Saying keep tonight
'Cause it's all I wanna do
-'Emotional Champ', New Buffalo
"Hey, baby doll, come here," said Sharpay, sinking into the couch. Harris had gone to take a shower, and so she saw this as a chance to have some one-on-one conversation, something with which she knew Gabriella would have a hard time. The blond woman opened her arms and Arielle crawled toward her. "Now. Tell your not-really-but-totally-should-have-been godmama what's on your mind."
Arielle frowned as she played with the tennis bracelet encompassing Sharpay's skinny wrist. "I miss my father. I don't think I even want a mom anymore. I've got Harris, and Dad, and you were always a good role model for me. I didn't see you so often, but you never minded when I tried to talk to you once you were around." She sniffled for a minute and clenched her teeth, gripping the bracelet. Calm down.
"Oh, Ari, darling, I'm glad to be here for you. And of course you miss you daddy; while I don't really want to admit it, I miss him, too. He's a good friend, and he's a good parent." Sharpay smiled at the top of her almost-goddaughter's head. "Do you miss Gabriella?"
After a short pause, Arielle replied, "I feel terrible for causing the fire, but that picture perfect image I used to have of a whole family…" She drifted off for a moment. "I just want my dad back. But he really loves her, I know. And it's hard to handle, because before I never thought about losing my father. The idea of getting my mom back—whoever she was—seemed better as an idea, than an actual reality."
A pitter-patter formed outside, as the rain continued its winter schedule. Sharpay hummed for a second. "I can't lie to you, honey. For a long time, you were the only girl in Troy's world, and that's the way he wanted it. Then your mother's career steadied and she came back, and it was only a little different, because it would take a million armies to get your daddy to give you up. He never really loved Cassandra, not the way he loves you… But Gabriella was his first time, practically his first important everything, and that's different."
At one point, she was his queen. He loved her with the fragile heart of a vulnerable basketball star, and she loved him in the exact same way, but one day, she left, a plot twist that had never been written. And then, a new queen took her place. She was a young royalty, with a less-than-princely brother, and for a little while, this queen made the king forget about her predecessor. For a little while.
"In high school, they did everything together. She was his equivalent, his parallel, so when she was gone, a part of Troy was, too. It's like when one twin feels pain, so does the other. It was the simple math of their relationship. And your father, as much as he loves you, has missed her all these years. How could he have not? But if you're afraid that you're going to lose him to Gabriella, baby doll, you have nothing to worry about."
To stop the sentimentality flow, Harris interrupted as he walked back down the hall in a t-shirt and pajama shorts, shaking his hair out with a towel. Arielle turned to see him, and she immediately removed herself from Sharpay's reach. As her brother sat next to her, turning the TV on again, the young girl turned to her and half-smiled. It was her way of thank you, which a much older and less dramatic Sharpay received somewhat tiredly.
The new lobby clerk buzzed the loft, and after looking at both Harris and Arielle (both of whom now sat perfectly undisturbed on the couch in front of the TV), the woman coughed and stood up to answer the message. "Yes?" she asked.
"Um, excuse me, Ms. Evans, I understand you're attending to Mr. Bolton's apartment over the weekend?" the clerk said meekly. Sharpay confirmed this. "Well, then you must know Ms. Noel—she tells me she used to live here, but I feel slightly uncomfortable letting her upstairs without your consent. She says she has something important to drop off."
This didn't come as a surprise, but Sharpay still found herself gaping at the wall for a minute. "Uh, send her up. Thank you, um—well, whatever your name is. Gracias, señor Clerk man." There went four years of high school language class. Sharpay glanced around toward the teenagers and cleared her throat, wondering just how this would go about. How do you say awkward in Spanish?
There was a knock, and she answered the door. "Shar," Cassandra said, a little flustered. "I knew the lobby clerk mentioned your name on the phone, but still, I didn't expect to see you here. You're not what I thought was the motherly type."
"You're one to talk," Sharpay sighed in return, leaning against the door and eyeing what the supermodel held: a manila folder, with papers peaking out. "That the divorce settlement?"
"Just needs his signature, and then it's done." Cassandra rocked on her heels and pursed her blushing pink lips. "I also wanted to see Arielle, if she was here. Troy and I haven't discussed custody issues yet, and, well, I thought I would just talk to her. Really, I don't know what to tell her. The first chance I have to be a real mom, and I'm at a loss."
"Trust your instinct. Something's got to come to mind when you see her face." Actually, Sharpay had no idea if that was true; she'd never had a daughter. In fact, her only childcare requirements had been her puppies, and now Milan took primary care of them. "Arielle Delaney Bolton! You have a visitor."
The young girl turned around, and her face flashed like the spitting image of Cassandra, with the touch of Troy's blue eyes. She was beautiful, and she didn't even know it; her eyebrows crinkled when she saw who stood in the doorway. "Oh. Well, I guess it's about time."
To explain what Cassandra Noel really meant to say to her daughter, the prized child she was made to admire from afar, would be like trying to translate a made up language. She stammered and hesitated and was on the verge of tears. Finally, in the hallway, she got off her pumps and knelt down to come face to face with Arielle, taking her hands. "You are a graceful young girl, you know that? You're elegant, and stunning, and you have a good soul. And now, you've every right to be mad at me, because as much as I loved you, you would never be able to love me back the same way. And that's my fault. But I wanted to know if… If you would come with me, next week, when I go to Europe. I know school starts in a few days, but—"
"No," Arielle interrupted, and she saw the disappointment in her mother's face. "You can't ask me that. Not now, not after all this. This whole time I wanted a mom, because I thought my dad couldn't make up for what I was missing in a mother. But that's not true. My dad's been everything he could be, and I never gave him the benefit of the doubt.
"You brought me into the world, but we're two different people, and as much as we would want to bond because it's what's expected of a reunited mom and daughter team, it's too late now. So go to Europe, be happy, and you'll have your opportunity to start over. I'll be okay here. It's my home." And from the doorway, Harris and Sharpay smiled sadly, knowing that after a lifetime of letdown, no one could ever really be okay.
TYWY
And at that moment, she felt the car keys dig into the skin at the back of her jaw line, as he held her for the thousandth time and kissed her again, trying to fix what may not have been broken, but rather gone.
His hands were crushed underneath her weight as they slammed against the Range Rover, creating massive PDA for the passerby who either gave a shocked or disapproving look. Not that they cared, though. To quote Sharpay Evans, with old age came the inability to really give a damn.
Finally, though, Gabriella kissed Troy one last time and then pushed her hand against his collarbone, and broke away. She was breathing hard, looking at him with a disoriented gaze. "Somewhere else," she said. That was all he needed to hear.
They couldn't bring themselves to say anything in the car as she directed him to the shop. It was not much different than she remembered; it had only been a few weeks since they left. But reconstruction was already under way, thanks to kind-hearted Sampson citizens; the scorch marks of the outside were already concealed by new wood, in a more contemporary fashion. "Maybe the workers found your stuff," Troy said softly as he cut the engine. "Did they say where they'd leave it?"
"I don't think so. But, come on. It's the weekend; they aren't working. Everything has to be inside." She walked toward what used to be The Witching Hour, and braced herself for whatever she was about to face. The front door was open, the knob a fresh brass that cooled her heated fingertips. As she stood to look at the burned and renewed rooms, Troy came behind her and mumbled something reminiscent into her hair, his hands meandering around her waist.
She breathed out blissfully and reached up to curve her hand around his neck. "I've missed you," she said. "Do you think it's too corny that I'm hoping the stuff they found is the box of keepsakes I had?"
"We've always been corny," he pointed out. "Remember 'Breaking Free'?"
"It was only the cheesiest part of our relationship. Of course I remember," she said with a chuckle. Her eyes searched the area for things other than paint cans and brushes, finally pinpointing an old take-out box filled with little pieces of memory she was happy to see had survived. Mostly, though, they were malformed in some way: her wallet had been singed and so the credit cards stuck together, the moneybox she kept for emergencies had softened to a misshapen safe of semi-crisp dollar bills, and, without a doubt, there was a little melted plastic square with a distorted CD in the middle.
"Well, so much for the love songs. None of this stuff is really even saved. They better reimburse us for the gas money."
He shrugged at the melted compact disc. "That's okay. I remember ever single track on there." And then Troy turned her around toward him, to see one of her affectionate smiles. "Just so you know, I've missed you, too."
With every single piece of clothing that came off, with every moan or sigh that left them, there was a faint outcry of protest from the rest of the world. How could two people, meant to be as teenagers, reunite after years of turmoil as full-grown adults? Troy tugged on the single gold necklace draped over her chest, and kissed her again, until the chain broke and there was nothing left for her to hide behind: "There you are."
TYWY
Ryan Evans really hated the rain. The storm was ridiculous, and if he had the audacity to even carry an umbrella with him (and clash with his perfectly proportioned outfit), the wind would simply take it away, Mary Poppins style. By the time he reached the apartment building in which Troy Bolton lived, he only had to give the deferential lobby clerk a hostile glare and a grumble of, "Evans," as he was let inside.
He passed a tall, tanned blonde whose face was twisted with gloom as she cried and pushed past him as he exited the elevator. If there was someone around to gamble with him, he could bet he'd seen her somewhere in a magazine. Maybe Vogue. "Knock, knock," he said to the open door of the loft. "Kit-kats?"
His sister hopped up immediately from her spot at the kitchen counter and closed her eyes dramatically, fanning herself with her hand. "Oh, thank goodness, you're here. I was ready to pull my hair out, even in its rich and more-expensive-than-you-can-possibly-imagine glossiness. These children, they're practically extinct! Harris has zero motivation to move more than a few feet, and he's got no interest in anything even remotely related to his parents. Meanwhile, Arielle, bless her emo little heart, won't come out of that damn shell she's built around herself. I was dying of boredom."
Ryan fake-smiled. "Oh, Shar, I'm so happy to entertain you whenever you call me, even when I'm this close to taking home a really great date."
"Heh, whatever, just call back Liberace or whoever you were canoodling with at the Thai place around the corner tomorrow. By the way, did you bring the chicken skewers with the peanut sauce like I asked?" For the first time since he arrived, Sharpay looked at him and raised her eyebrows. "Wow. You're soaked. And chicken skewer-less."
He blinked and wrinkled his nose. "I ordered so they would deliver, it's only three bucks more… And what is that repulsive smell?"
The stovetop sizzled, a fat steel-gray pot boiling on top. Sharpay leered unpleasantly. "Well, since you were running late with the Thai—which you ended up not having anyway—I thought I'd try that old stew recipe."
"What old stew recipe?"
"You know… The one in the storybooks. Veggies, chicken broth, and, um, rice." Her shoulders went up, and then down; she pinched the cartilage bridge between her eyebrows, compressing an imaginary migraine.
"And I still wonder why none of Zeke Baylor's culinary skills rubbed off on you in high school."
A guilty eavesdropper, Harris appeared next to Ryan, and he picked up a cookbook next to the coffeemaker. "Hey, wait, cut her some slack. I recognize that recipe… It's in the C section in here—under crap." And then, a miracle happened: a smile transpired on his face.
"Because that made you happy, I will let that slide," Sharpay said, squinting one eye as she prodded a spatula against Harris' chest. She looked up and saw Arielle slinking away in the background. "Hey, Little Miss Broody, where are you headed?"
"I'm just going for a walk," Arielle replied, true to her word—doe-eyed and somber-faced. She stood at the door, her hand flat against the wood.
"In this rain?" Ryan asked dubiously, waving briefly to count for his hello.
Arielle shrugged. "I have a jacket. I just want to get some air. This apartment is stuffy. And it smells weird."
"I'll go with you," Harris offered, making means to get over the coat rack and pick up his windbreaker.
In spite of his efforts, Arielle shook her head. "No, actually, I'd rather be alone. Thanks, though."
She left with a gentle click of the door behind her. Harris turned around, eyebrows knitted together in frustration. "Girls have really irritating mood swings," he muttered impatiently. "I wish we could do something for her, but every time I hear she 'would rather be alone' I have to choke back an eye roll. You think she can come back from all of this?"
"We probably shouldn't be the ones to be asked," Sharpay said, running her fingers through her hair and inhaling the stale aroma of stew. "You know, Harris, when your parents get back—"
"—they'll probably have a big heart to heart with you guys," Ryan finished. He swallowed and looked out the window again. If possible, it only seemed to rain harder.
TYWY
Steam frosted the shop's windows, those that had been smothered in ash not too long before. They sat in what used to be the kitchen appliances section of the shop, she in a size-too-big sweater and he in his boxers. "Jesus, it's freezing in here."
"Really? I'm still pretty hot," Troy laughed, sitting next to her. She bumped him with her arm, and he looked at the broken gold chain in the middle of the room. "Maybe I'm ruining my good person credit to say this, but I really don't want to go back. At least, I don't want to leave this place. I'm fine right here, with you."
"You're such a big sap, Bolton," Gabriella teased, scrunching up her nose and grinning. "But in any light, we might just be called back to reality before we're ready."
He grumbled with a smile as he looked at her, tilting his head back against the wall and looking up at the black blemishes on the ceiling. "I know."
Her purse, left across the room near the saved items box, emitted a ring. "Oh, that's my phone," Gabriella said, but as she went to reach for it, Troy pulled her back. She sighed and kissed him briefly, murmuring, "I have to answer the call."
"If you want to get technical about it, you don't really have to do anything."
The phone beeped, signaling the answering machine got it. "Ah, but on the contrary, Mr. Bolton, we have to go back home and I have to now get the missed call."
The word home made him smile. "Brie, I'm sure it's nothing. Let it go to voicemail and then, we can take advantage of the time we have left," Troy said, walking over to pick her up in his arms. She smiled, but her eyes stayed empty, staring at the screen. The missed list read Harris' cell number.
"I wonder what he needs," she said after sharing this information with Troy. "Maybe I should call him back, just to know what's going on. A status update wouldn't hurt."
While the motherly tone in her voice was tantalizingly cute, Troy let her down and nodded. "Yeah, I guess it wouldn't hurt." He went to get his shirt as she checked her messages, but a chilling cry stopped him. Spinning around, he looked at her frantically, "What, what's wrong?"
Gabriella was a sinisterly pale color, and soon, Troy would be, too. She turned the speakerphone on, and replayed the message. Harris' hysterical voice sobbed and screamed in a spine-chilling manner, "Mom, Dad, please! Pick up! I don't know what to do. It's Arielle. She's in the hospital—but I, I know she's dead."
We are one, we are
Shaping signs for nothing
We are done, we are
Forgetting this means everything