Author's Note: Andy Hurley is the love of my life! Fall Out Boy owns! Just thought I'd get that off my chest. Gawd, I need a blog…
Disclaimer:…
Chapter 21
Candles and Communication
Sharpay
It was times like these when Sharpay wished she was pure evil. Because if she were pure evil, she would have left Gabriella to wander in the New Mexican badlands until she collapsed.
Unfortunately, a significant portion of Sharpay- about two quarters of her- was good. And so she could only sit in the living room for three minutes, tapping her feet on the carpet, before pushing herself up off the couch and jogging out of the house.
She spotted Gabriella's figure disappearing into the distance and called her name. Either she didn't hear or she was pretending not to because she continued to walk. Sharpay groaned and ran out onto the road.
"Montez!" she yelled. "Get back here, now!"
No response. Sharpay rolled her eyes. She was going to have to chase her. Being two quarters good was lame.
She was but a few meters away and Gabriella continued to ignore her.
"Gabriella! Gabriella, you dumb bi-"
"What?"
She stopped in her tracks and whirled round furiously, Sharpay's blonde hair flying about her face. Shar was pleased to note she looked totally cute when she was angry. She walked the rest of the distance so that they could converse without shouting.
"Where do you think you're going?" And she settled a hand on her hips.
"I don't know, Sharpay!" she began to walk backwards, still glaring at her. "Roswell. Maybe I'll hitch a ride with some runaway aliens."
She rolled her eyes, keeping the same pace. "You can't just leave me back there by myself."
"Oh, can't I? 'Cause I'm kind of doing that right now."
She sighed. Sharpay didn't really want to go into this but…"You're mad about Ryan, aren't you?"
The Gabbie in her body stopped walking. "Yes. Actually. I'm mad that you don't care about your brother's happiness."
"I do care about Ryan's happiness!"
"No. You don't. Because if you did, you would've convinced him to stop being such a baby and realize that there's a girl who really likes him! Who kind of loves him."
Sharpay narrowed her eyes to disguise the uncertainty in them. Montez may have been a good actress but she wasn't good enough to fake this. Sharpay could see that she meant what she said, probably because she felt the same desperate longing for a certain Wildcat.
"You think I don't care about Ryan's happiness"- what could she do but start another argument- "Well, I could say the same about you."
"What are you talking about?" She really had this backward strutting thing down.
"Mrs. Montez. She's basically been celibate since your dad-"
"Don't."
"-because she's afraid of how you'd be affected by her dating. But you can't expect her to be your mum and nothing else. She's more than just Mrs. Montez and there's this really great old dude who can see that. He must be the best thing that's happened to her in years!"
Gabriella stopped walking and seemed to struggle for words. Her mouth was clamped shut and her eyes were livid, so Sharpay decided it would be best not to wait on her response.
"Look, we should continue this conversation back there. You know, where the food and shelter is? We can't expect to have a pleasant conversation in this heat."
"Who says I want to have a pleasant conversation."
"Gabriella!" She was truly exhausted now. "I can't fight you forever."
She folded her arms. "You don't have to fight me forever. Just the last two years of high school."
Sharpay shook her head. This was hopeless.
Gabriella
What was this strange emotion? Pity? Remorse? Gabriella was not sure, but something compelled her to let go of her anger as she watched Sharpay's shoulders slump in defeat.
She uncrossed her arms. "Okay. We'll go back. But only because I'm craving Pepsi."
Sharpay scoffed in the face of her pride, turned and walked back up the road. Gabriella trailed behind, trying not to let the blonde's words evoke any serious soul-searching in her. It was difficult. She had given her a lot to chew on…
Basically been celibate…more than just Mrs. Montez…best thing that's happened to her in years…mum and nothing else…
What was it that was keeping Gabriella from accepting Mr. Alman? An unwillingness to share? The anxiety about how his presence might erode her father's memory? Pure grossed-outness at the thought of her mother making out with someone?
Maybe a combination of all three. But whatever the problem, the last person she could see herself talking about it with would be Sharpay.
Unfortunately, Sharpay happened to be her last option at that point in time.
The house had a rather rusty but efficient air conditioning system installed and Gabbie felt a thrill of relief as soon as she stepped back inside.
She grabbed a Pepsi and made her way towards the hall where she intended to select the better bedroom.
"Wait a minute!" Gabriella turned back to see the Sharpay in her body glaring at her.
"What?" she asked evenly.
"We're supposed to be communicating."
She smiled sweetly. "Let's not and say we did."
Gabriella surveyed her cell with vague distaste. It would have to do. The room comprised of a bed (with a metal frame and rather thin-looking mattress), a ratty beige carpet and an old white bureau in the corner.
She ran a hand over its surface. Well, at least she had a place for Sharpay's extensive skin care collection.
Now all she needed was a big enough closet to lock up Sharpay.
Sharpay
Thank the heavens for cable TV!
Sharpay lay on the floor that evening, propped up by a pillow, a plate of corn chips in her vicinity, with her eyes glued to the ancient TV set on the floor of the living room.
After idly surfing channels, her heart had finally been claimed by a French soap opera with superb voice-dubbing. Le Coeur Du Poisson, the tale of a rich French family, the Castels, living in a manor by the sea.
Currently, the beautiful daughter of Monsier and Madame Castel, Claire, was falling for a fisherman's son, Jean-Girard. However, Jean-Girard was way beneath Claire in the social hierarchy, and besides, he was already committed to his homely but sweet childhood friend, Sophie. Meanwhile, Monsier Castel was facing bankruptcy and was therefore at the mercy of his malevolent cousin, Mersault, who wanted to buy Castel's business. In the hopes of securing a future for his only daughter, Monsieur Castel promised Claire to the wealthy son of Monsieur Dulaine, owner of a shipping company.
Sharpay sighed. She didn't ever want to watch English-speaking actors again.
Suddenly, a pair of jean-clad legs stepped in front of her, obscuring the screen. Sharpay looked up to see herself glaring down.
"Um…do you mind? Jean-Girard is proclaiming his love for Sophie!"
"You've been watching this all day," Gabriella's whiny tone underlined Sharpay's snarl. "My turn."
"Oh, and what am I supposed to do while you watch the Tellitubbies?"
"Amuse yourself!" And she snatched the remote. Sharpay's hand shot up to grab it back, jostling the bowl in the process and scattering corn chips.
"Now look what you've done," she growled, tugging at the remote.
"I didn't do anything. And those are bad for my figure anyway." With a mighty wrench, Gabriella stumbled back, the remote clutched in her hands. "Ha!" she exclaimed triumphantly.
A second later, the room went pitch black. Gabbie shrieked into the darkness.
Despite her horror, Sharpay sneered. "Not afraid of the dark, are you?"
"Shut up."
Sharpay stumbled to her feet. Unbe-freaking-lievable. Of all the times and in all the places to have a power outage, this was the worst. Aside from the hair dresser's, of course.
The next five minutes were spent fumbling around for candles and butting heads, literally. It was starting to seem like matches were the only thing Ms. Darbus had forgotten to buy for them, when Sharpay reached down into a kitchen drawer and found the small cardboard box.
She struck a match and was instantly illuminated by its fiery little glow. Gabriella stumbled towards her with a cluster of candles she had found in her room.
"You look like a floating head," she muttered.
For once, Sharpay opted out of a dispute.
They stuck the candles on top of the TV and on the window sills before plopping down on separate couches. Neither was willing to admit they were too scared to be by themselves.
Sharpay sighed and rested her head on her fist.
"I think this is Fate's way of telling us we need to talk."
Gabriella
"Well, where do we start?" She felt more patronizing than genuinely willing.
"Let's talk about Mr. Alman."
"No."
"Well, what do you want to talk about?"
Gabriella sighed and drew her bottom lip in between her teeth. Selfless love was way passed possible, but if they could at least establish some civility, there might be hope of getting back in her body, back in her life. And it started with communication.
"Let's talk about Ryan."
Sharpay rolled her eyes. "Fine. Let's talk about Ryan."
Gabriella launched right into the question that had been plaguing her since Monday, ignoring Shar's lack of enthusiasm.
"What did he say to you? About me? When you talked to him."
"That's private."
"We've lived as each other for weeks! Nothing's private anymore."
She watched Sharpay sigh resignedly. "Oh, what do you think he said? He's humiliated, how could you do this to him? He's completely absorbed by you, if you must know the truth."
She fought a smile resolutely. Yes. The truth made her feel good. But at the same time…
"I wasn't laughing at him, Sharpay," she said. "I don't think his feelings for me are funny at all."
"Oh, but you just lapped it up, didn't you? Knowing he was all googly-eyed over you."
"Well, don't act like you're not happy that Troy's all googly-eyed over you." She noted Sharpay's sudden smugness but forced herself to move past it. "You know, that don't you, Sharpay? You know I like him. And you told him, right?"
She suddenly became fascinated by her cuticles. "Not exactly."
"Not exactly?"
"Well, I kind of…called you a phony."
"Sharpay!"
"But you are a phony!"
"I am not. Okay, to a certain degree I am. But not about this. Not with Ryan. It was like, when he thought I was you I got to see a side of him that I wouldn't have otherwise. He wasn't sweet insecure Ryan. He was smart, funny, sensitive Ryan. But either way, I love all the Ryans! If that makes any sense."
Sharpay did not respond. Rather, she stuck her tongue in her cheek shrewdly. It didn't matter much to Gabbie. This communicating thing, while not all together pleasant, was proving to be a good vent for all she had been feeling. And she could see that Sharpay was jonesing to get some things off her chest, as well. So for the sake of fairness Gabbie said…
"So what do you want to say?"
Surprisingly, Sharpay did not rush into a heated rhetoric, but resumed the inspection of her nails. Finally, she looked up.
"Gabriella." Her tone made her uneasy. "How did your dad die? I mean," she said hastily at the look that had most likely darkened Gabbie's face, "I should know, right? In case your mum wants to talk about it."
"She doesn't." Gabriella was suddenly aware of a heavy weight on her chest and no matter how much she breathed, it continued to oppress her. She was thankful when Sharpay did not persist, but then there was nothing left for them but silence.
It was then that Gabriella was reminded of her childhood, of pulling off band-aids. Slow and steady at first, but then, on realizing this was only more painful, ripping it off in one go.
"He had stomach cancer." She thought of the ugly little cut, still stinging and glossy pink, but healing all the same.
"I'm sorry."
"You don't have to pretend to care."
"I fake a lot of things, Gabriella. Zeke will tell you that for sure. But caring isn't one of them."
Gabbie shrugged, trying to give off an air of nonchalance and failing.
She was done talking for tonight, and so they said nothing else until the power returned.
But Fate wasn't done with Gabriella and Sharpay.
A/N: Sorry, I got a bit carried away with my plot for Le Coeur Du Poisson! I was once an avid soapie-watcher.
Anywho, R&R, peoples! Our story is drawing steadily to a close.