Painfully Perfect

Disclaimer: I don't own HSM, Seasons of Love, Romeo and Juliet, Saw or The Notebook.

Author's Note: Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you like this chapter...it was really really hard for me to write. I knew what I wanted to happen, but I didn't know how to write it. I hope it's good. But...Um, don't hate me. Please? -sigh-

Chapter 15

88 pound Sharpay entered homeroom in a pair of black sweatpants that hung very loosely off of her hips and an overlarge grey sweatshirt that seemed to swallow her up. Her body was shivering slightly, despite the warm weather and layers she wore to keep herself warm. She pulled into a seat to the left of Gabriella and rested her chin in her hand to prop her head up.

"Hey Shar! How was your weekend?" Gabriella asked suddenly once Ms. Darbus finished reading the announcements, pulling Sharpay out of her dreamlike state.

"Oh, um," Sharpay started, "Pretty good. I didn't," Sharpay paused to clear her throat, "Do much. You?"

"Not much. Troy and I went to a movie on Saturday so that was nice. And I went to lunch with my mom yesterday afternoon so it was fun to catch up with her."

Sharpay nodded lazily and listened to her friend talk until finally the bell rang. As she gathered up her books so she could go to math, her mind was spinning with thoughts of food. Sharpay had been worried that she hadn't gotten her period yet this month, but thought maybe it was just late. Her stomach growled as she entered math with Taylor and Gabriella. All she had to eat all weekend was a banana and three bottles of water. Her body was moving sluggishly and she just felt sad.

The teacher began the lesson for the day but Sharpay could barely concentrate. She couldn't wait to get home so she could weigh herself. She hoped she'd lose at least one more pound throughout the day. Sharpay let her head rest in her chin as she scribbled in her notebook. Instead of taking notes for tonight's math assignment, she was calculating how many calories she could consume this week and when she would binge and purge, so she could reach her goal weight of 75 pounds. In Sharpay's mind, things were planned out perfectly. She figured that no harm would come from her dieting.

--

As soon as Sharpay and Ryan got home that afternoon, Sharpay pulled herself out of the car and went immediately up to her room. She slammed the locked bathroom door behind her and quickly purged the granola bar she had consumed in the car into the toilet. She scolded herself for giving into food when she had previously decided not to eat until dinner that Monday.

Sharpay flushed the toilet and quickly stood up and turned around so she could weigh herself. But instead of seeing the glinting metal square sparkling at her, she just saw the tiled bathroom floor. Frantically, Sharpay searched around the room looking for the scale, but screamed in frustration after a few minutes.

She ran down the stairs, her breathing short, and into the kitchen where her mom stood with Ryan making dinner.

"Oh, hi sweetie. Want to help Ryan cut up some vegetables for dinner?" Alyson asked her daughter while she stirred a pot of broth.

"I've actually got a lot of homework to do mom," Sharpay said between breaths, "I was just wondering where the scale went in my bathroom."

"The scale?" The older woman pondered aloud, turning towards her daughter. "The scale...Oh! The scale. I got rid of all the scales in the house."

Sharpay clutched at her side which was aching with pain before asking with the steadiest voice she could manage, "But why?"

"Well, I didn't really see the pointing in keeping those old scales. I bought some new ones however, and they should be here in about two weeks. No problem, darling," she stated plainly, turning back to the soup.

Two weeks? Sharpay didn't think she could bare going two whole weeks without weighing herself. How was she supposed to know if she was losing weight or gaining weight? Angrily, Sharpay marched out of the kitchen and back up to her bedroom, where she laid down on her bed and tried to control her breathing.

--

All week Sharpay was completely stressed. Her dieting was starting to take a very negative toll on her body. Her mind was going crazy over not being able to weigh herself and she had started purging almost daily. The pain was nearly unbearable, but the voice in Sharpay's head had returned and told her that all the pain she was going through would help to make her beautiful and that's all Sharpay wanted. In general, Sharpay was depressed and tired all the time and no matter what she did, she couldn't change it.

But just by looking at Sharpay, nobody would be able to tell. She had started wearing concealer and blush so her skin tone would look normal and was using a product in her hair that made it shine. She painted her nails so nobody could tell that they were becoming thin and brittle. She was wearing baggy enough clothes that didn't show off how skinny she was (or how big Sharpay thought she was), but weren't big enough to look suspicious. Everywhere Sharpay went she faked a smile and a laugh and her overall happy attitude. Nobody would suspect a thing.

Come Friday, Sharpay's throat seemed to constantly be on fire. Last night when she purged her tomato soup, she thought she saw blood, but ignored it, thinking her eyes were probably playing tricks on her. She sat in drama class in a group consisting of Kelsi, Troy, Gabriella and Ryan. There assignment was to come up with a short play that summarized Romeo and Juliet and be prepared to perform it on Monday. They worked long and hard all class period. Troy was going to play Romeo and Lord Capulet, Gabriella's roles were Juliet and Lady Montague. Kelsi decided to play the Nurse and Ryan asked if he could play the Friar and Mercutio. Sharpay didn't really care what her role was, so she was left with Lady Capulet and other various minor parts. They had decided to do a modern interpretation of it, so they could keep their classmates entertained.

Class flew by quickly and soon enough the bell rang. "Hey, why don't you guys come over tomorrow and we can work on it and practice it a bit? We can invite Zeke, Chad and Taylor too and have like a movie night," Ryan offered as they put away the props they had been working with.

"That sounds good," Kelsi exclaimed as she picked up her books.

"Yeah, our parents are going to be out of town, but I'm sure it'll be fine," Ryan added. "Right Shar?"

"What?" Sharpay asked absentmindedly playing with her hair. "Oh yeah. Mom and Dad won't care. See you guys tomorrow." Sharpay smiled to her friends and her and Ryan left the auditorium and headed out to their car.

--

That night Ryan and Sharpay were home alone while their parents were out of town at Mr. Evans company dinner party and were staying overnight. Ryan and Sharpay stayed apart for most of the evening until about seven. Ryan decided to go and ask Sharpay what she wanted for dinner. He walked the short distance down the hallway and knocked on Sharpay's bedroom door.

"Come in," Sharpay said with fake cheer.

"Hey sis," Ryan smiled honestly. "I was getting hungry so I was wondering what you wanted to do for dinner."

Sharpay set down the book she was previously reading and pondered Ryan's question. "I don't know. Want to order pizza? Or make pasta together?"

Ryan laughed. "Sure."

"Sure what?" Sharpay asked, her face filled with confusion.

"Let's make pasta together," Ryan spoke happily and grabbed Sharpay's hand. Sharpay was a bit taken back, but obliged and let Ryan pull her off her bed. Ryan held Sharpay's hand tightly and they ran down the stairs together in a hurry. Once entering the kitchen, Ryan released his grip on his sister's cold hand and opened the cupboards and grabbed out two boxes of angel hair pasta.

"Shar, will you grab the tomato sauce and mushrooms out of the fridge?" Ryan called across the room as he filled a large pot with warm water.

"Sure." Sharpay turned to the fridge and felt her mouth water as her eyes feasted on the food in front of her. She scanned the fridge quickly and spotted the sauce right next to the mushroom. She grabbed both and slammed the fridge door shut, much to her stomach's dismay.

Twenty minutes later, Sharpay and Ryan stood side by side, Sharpay stirring a warm pot of tomato sauce with mushrooms, Ryan stirring two boxes of noodles into a pot of boiling water. They were laughing and singing together as loud as they could.

"How do you measure," Ryan sang happily.

"Measure a year?" Sharpay added joyfully.

"In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife?" Ryan and Sharpay sang together as best as they could and as loud as the could, despite there loud fits of giggles.

Soon enough their dinner was hot and ready at the kitchen table, plated fancily on plates with glasses of sparkling apple juice. The pots had been washed and the leftovers were packed up and put away in the fridge. Ryan and Sharpay sat at the kitchen table and dug into their food.

"This is quite scrumptious, my lady," Ryan spoke suddenly in an English accent.

Sharpay smiled brightly, "Why yes, it's brilliant. Whoever could've made something so delightful?" Sharpay added in the same accent.

They broke into a stream of giggles that quickly transformed into laughs. Sharpay flung a spaghetti noodle at Ryan and laughed hysterically when he suddenly stopped laughing and looked shocked.

"Ryan! If you could see your face," Sharpay breathed through laughs.

"Here twin sister, I'll show you!" Ryan smiled, and grabbed a handful of his noodles and flung them at Sharpay. Now it was Ryan's turn to chuckle, while Sharpay sat across from him with a shocked expression.

"Oh no you did not Ryan Connor Evans! I know where you sleep mister!" Sharpay dipped her hands in the bowl of spaghetti sauce and walked right up to Ryan, running her fingers through his hair and all over his face.

"NO! Sharpay Grace, I just put new hair gel in!" Ryan squealed and retaliated by repeating the same action Sharpay had.

"Ryan! This is my favorite sweatshirt!"

For the next fifteen minutes the twin siblings ran around the kitchen throwing apple juice, spaghetti and tomato sauce at each other. They lay in a pile on the kitchen floor in stitches of laughter. When Ryan spoke, his voice was hoarse from laughing. "Whoa Shar. You have really good aim. Want me to clean up and you can shower first?" He offered like a gentleman.

"Nope, I want to clean up this mess with my big brother." Sharpay stood up weakly and unbalanced, but it went by Ryan unnoticed who was dusting off his jeans.

"Um, on second thought," Sharpay said slowly, worrying about the food that was laying in her stomach, "I'm going to take up your offer!"

Ryan pretended to look offended, but laughed. He smiled to Sharpay as she left the room. It was the best night Sharpay had had in months and right now she was going to bring it down incredibly.

She stumbled upstairs and entered the closest bathroom she could get to, which was the one across from Ryan's room. She turned on the shower so the water would start to warm up, but more importantly so it would cover up the sounds of her purging. She shoved two fingers down her throat, but nothing came up. She gag loudly, but no food returned. Frantically, she grabbed Ryan's toothbrush and jammed it down the back of her throat forcefully. Quickly, bile slid up the back of Sharpay's throat and splashed into the toilet. Sharpay coughed and watched flecks of blood fly into the toilet bowl. Overcome by the smell, Sharpay's body instinctively forced Sharpay to throw up again, this time a mixture of her dinner and blood.

Sharpay coughed onto a piece of toilet paper, wiped her mouth and flushed the toilet. As fast as she could, she brushed her teeth and hopped into the steaming shower, only slightly worried about the blood, expecting it to heal by morning.

--

Around ten o'clock Ryan entered Sharpay's room to find his sister reading in her bed on the verge of falling asleep.

"Hey Sharie. I see you got the tomato sauce out of your hair," Ryan pointed out with a laugh.

"It took me an hour. You're lucky you aren't a girl, so you have short hair. I swear the spaghetti was everywhere in my hair," Sharpay replied, setting her book on her bedside table.

"I had fun tonight though. We haven't done anything like that in a long time," Ryan said nostalgically.

"I know. It was great. We should do it more often."

"Yeah, we should. Well I'll let you get to sleep." Ryan hugged his sister tightly and planted a kiss on her forehead before exiting her room. Sharpay laid her head comfortably on her pillow and relived the events of tonight. It had been a great night, but what Sharpay thought was the best part was that Ryan didn't suspect a thing.

--

Troy, Gabriella, Ryan, Kelsi, Zeke, Chad, Taylor and Sharpay all sat around the Evans kitchen table eating pizza the next afternoon. Troy, Gabriella and Kelsi had arrived about three hours ago and they rehearsed for drama class. The rest of the gang had arrived about an hour ago, so they all decided to order pizza for lunch.

Sharpay was starving. She had an empty feeling deep inside her stomach that ached, so she quickly shoveled pizza into her mouth to fill the void. Within ten minutes she had eaten four pieces, but nobody noticed because everyone was wrapped up in their own conversations.

"So what should we watch today? My curfew isn't till like one so we've got a lot of time," Zeke spoke out to the group.

"Let's watch Saw!" Chad burst with excitement, with many whoops from the guys and groans from the girls.

"No scary movies, please!" Kelsi whimpered, scooting closer to Ryan, who wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

"Let's watch The Notebook!" Gabriella sighed romantically.

"No! Who wants to watch that lovey-dovey garbage?" Chad interrupted.

"You guys wouldn't watch it a few months ago and it was my house. I vote we watch it tonight. Who agrees?" Gabriella questioned.

All of the girls quickly raised their hands, slowly followed by Troy, Ryan and finally Zeke.

"Aww! Are you kidding? You guys suck," Chad pouted, crossing his arms. Taylor wrapped her arms around Chad lovingly and he relaxed slightly.

"Okay, how about if we watch just one scary movie you guys will watch The Notebook? And then we can watch a bunch of comedy movies?" Taylor offered.

"Yeah," everybody quickly agreed with Taylor's idea. They cleaned up the kitchen quickly before entering the living room.

"I can't find the movies," Zeke complained after scanning through the stack of DVDs in the living room.

"Oh, they are probably up in my room. Why don't I just run up there quickly and grab them and pick some movies that we could watch and bring them back down?" Sharpay offered, starting to stand up.

"Okay, that sounds good," Troy said, and everyone agreed.

"Okay, I'll be right back." Sharpay smiled and left the room, silently cheering to herself. Her throat still burned from the last couple of days, especially last night, but she ignored it and ran upstairs quickly. She decided she would purge her food as fast as she could and then would go and grab some movies from her bedroom. She entered the bathroom that was across from Ryan's room and shut the door behind her, accidentally forgetting to lock the door. She flipped on the water faucet and then leaned down in front of the toilet.

Hurriedly, she shoved her pointer and middle finger down her throat as far as she could, but all she did was gag. She tried again, but nothing was coming up. Sharpay was getting fed up and impulsively grabbed Ryan's toothbrush and quickly jammed it down her throat. She gag and quickly her lunch came back up her throat mixed disturbingly with blood and slid into the toilet in front of her. She shoved the toothbrush down her throat again and her eyes started to water as more vomit and blood filled the toilet.

Something was dribbling down Sharpay's chin and was filling up her mouth. She spit into the toilet and saw the salty crimson liquid spilling into the bowl. White spots were filling her eyes and blood seemed to be pouring out of her mouth.

Sharpay was feeling weak and her body started to sway. "This is too much blood, too much blood. Something is wrong. Help," Sharpay tried to speak, but wasn't sure if her mouth had even moved. The bloody toothbrush fell to the ground with a clang and Sharpay blacked out right next to it, blood still slowly dripping from her mouth.

--

Everyone was chatting downstairs when Troy suddenly drew their attention to him. "What's taking Shar so long?"

"I don't know. She's probably looking for a certain movie," Ryan shrugged, not really thinking anything of it.

"Want me to go check?" Taylor offered.

"Actually Tay," Gabriella politely butt in, "I'll do it. I have to go to the bathroom anyways, so I can just use Ryan's upstairs and then go help Shar with the movies."

"Okay sounds good," Taylor smiled, settling comfortably back into the couch. Gabriella smiled to everybody and exited the room and headed up the stairs. She was humming a random tune under her breath as she reached the top of the stairs. She headed towards the bathroom, but paused outside the door when she heard the faucet running. She knocked lightly on the door, "Shar? You in there?" She waited a minute for a response, but when she didn't receive one she panicked. "Shar!?" Gabriella twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open loudly. The sight in front of her burned permanently into her memory as her high-pitched bloodcurdling scream filled the walls of the Evans household.

Author's Note: Aww, I'm sorry. The whole cliff-hanger was mean, huh? Well, review please please please! If you were to only review one chapter in this whole story, I'd love it to be this one (or the last one, but hey). I wanna know what's going through your mind, how you reacted to it, what you thinks going to happen, what you WANT to have happen --anything. So, let me know and drop a review. Oh, and I'm going to bring this up: this story is going to be over soon so do you want me to write a sequel or just an epilogue? I'm up for either, but it's up to you guys! Anyways, happy holidays everyone! I'm going to go take cover by my Christmas tree now to hide from all the readers who want to chase after me with flaming pitchforks! ;) (Kidding, hopefully!)