A/N: Should I start out with how sorry I am that this chapter is so late? Or maybe I should apologize for the (lack of) length in this chapter. At any rate my excuse is that I'm over-exerting myself this year and have too much homework to write regularly. I really don't want to put this fic on hiatus so hopefully you can all bear with me on this.(The bold isn't working today, sorry 'bout that)
Imagine the deepest darkest pit of hell, so dark that even a spot light will only slice a thin beam of light through the air. So deep that even though you're in a burning pit of death you're cold. Colder than you've ever been in your life, it's so cold that you're wishing to be back in the burning wasteland you started out in. Just when you've lost all thoughts of living a tiny doorway of hope opens up. You run to it until you think that your lungs might burst but you don't care because you know it means that soon you'll be out of this horrible world. With your last ounce of strength and will power you leap towards that portal of hope, only to find that it's disappeared. Now your right back where you started but you're in pain as well.
That pretty much sums up science with Sharpay.
Before I met this girl I didn't think anyone could be as mean as those popular girls in the movies are. I mean I've seen 'Mean Girls' and the title doesn't lie but Sharpay makes those girls seem like, I don't know…angels. I could honestly imagine her making Regina cry. You know, if Regina was real and all (and if she was in our science class, which she isn't). Unfortunately I am.
I walked into class and took my usual seat, the third row back next to Taylor. I love science (ahem…it's apparently called chemistry here), I love the way I can use math to solve equations, I love the way chemicals react with each other, I love the way our class room always smells like burnt matches, I love the way the most prominent carving on my desk clearly reads 'I ♥ Troy Bolton' (I didn't write it but I liked to pretend that I did), I loved the way Sharpay sat on the other side of the room. Yes, sadly you read that right; loved.
Sharpay is an idiot. While she didn't use those exact words that's basically the gist of what Mrs. Loesher (now in my mind Mrs. Loser) said to me. Well gee, you think? I don't believe the girl can even comprehend the most basic formula, much less the relatively complicated ones we're doing now (at least Taylor tells me they're hard, I don't think so). To make a long story short, Sharpay is my new lab partner (neither of us is particularly happy about this as you might imagine). Sharpay's reaction to the news (which I, regardless of my protests, had to deliver to her) was to declare her old lab partner (who I believe was also failing) a 'freaking asshole' (I guess he wanted to have a smart partner such as Taylor). My own reaction? I at least had the decency to…yeah no, basically I yelled 'WHAT?' at the top of my lungs and proceeded to list all the (fifty-seven) reasons why I should not be Sharpay's lab partner (apparently something bad can come of having a one-hundred and three percent in a class). Ever. Ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever (and that's just after one day with her).
Mrs. Loesher didn't agree with me though, so I was forced to go sit next to the reason why I was sure I was going to hate Science from now on. And believe me the girl wasted no time proving me absolutely correct. As soon as I sat down she glanced over at me.
"Listen up ok? You're going to do the work and then you're going to share your answers with me," I opened my mouth to tell her that over my dead body was I going to let her copy off of me (I mean what do I look like? A walking text book that says 'I'm smart, be my lab partner'? That was a bad analogy, never mind) but she cut me off. She cut me off and I didn't have the guts to tell her off like I did to Troy. What can I say, he's about a foot taller but she's a hell of a lot scarier, "Don't even try to tell me no because if I fail this quarter…" She let her sentence hang threateningly in mid air but some inexplicable force of courage shot through me.
"You'll what?" I scoffed (can you imagine? Me? Scoffing? Had hell frozen over? Was the devil ice skating? Can the devil even ice skate?) "Get your brother to beat me up? Or maybe it would just be easier if you did it. Oh but then you'd break a nail, wouldn't you?" I had never been this mean to anyone before, it was like Sharpay had taken over my mind and was torturing herself (well maybe not quite like that, after all Sharpay thinks she's pretty important).
"Gabriella! I moved you over here so that Sharpay would pay more attention. Do you girls have something you'd like to share with the class?" Mrs. Loesher hovered over us casting me in her shadow. Since Sharpay looked like she was planning to kill me I thought this would be an excellent time to provide a cover story (I was wrong but how was I supposed to know that Sharpay would- well you'll see).
"We were just talking about Sir Isaac Newton's third law, for every action there is an opposite reaction." I smiled elbowing Sharpay playfully- I shouldn't have done that. She smiled along with me while mercilessly grinding her heel into my foot, at least the (purple) Uggs that I was wearing provided some protection (she didn't break my foot at any rate).
I was planning to escape to French (which I'm taking because I already know Spanish and can't stand German, I would have loved to take Latin but was mortified when my sixth grade foreign language teacher made me read the numbers one through ten out loud. If you've ever seen the Latin number for six then you know what I'm talking about, if not then I believe that you're lucky. At any rate I was too embarrassed to go through my high school carrier counting with that number- but I've matured now and… am very happy to be taking French)as soon as the bell rang but Sharpay had other plans. She roughly grabbed my arm (the girl has a vice like grip, she's like a G.I. Joe underneath that Barbie exterior) and spun me around. Her face was (waaaaaaaay) twisted into an expression that I thought only those ugly smush faced dogs could master.
"You- you bitch!" She hissed "I am going to make your life a living hell." I don't know how many of you out there have been threatened like this before but let me tell you, it's scary. In any case I decided that it might be a good time to make amends (yes I know looking back I might have been a little slow on the uptake, I fully blame that fact that I stood up for myself for my misery). Gently removing her finger nails from my arm (I had claw marks on my arm for the remainder of the day) I smiled.
"Sharpay you actually have that covered pretty well right now so maybe you and I could just forget that our little science mishap ever happened. What do you say?" I didn't think it was possible to laugh and grimace at the same time but Sharpay it seems, defies the laws of nature. I suppose it's natural for her to feel the need to defy things since her name disregards the laws that govern the naming of children (I mean seriously that must have been one amazing dog, assuming that she is named after a dog that is).
"Alright Gabriella let's be… friends." I obviously hadn't thought this through or else I'd be safely sitting my French room dreading what Sharpay was going to do to me. Now I was standing in the middle of a hallway three minutes away from my French class with only two minutes to get there.
"Since we're…buddies now I assume you'll be dropping out of the auditions." She continued, examining her nails (I was surprised they weren't dripping with my blood, it's like she sharpens them at night or something). Have I mentioned how I didn't think this through? Yeah, I thought so.
"Sorry Sharpay, no can do." Give up my chance to hang out with Troy Bolton? I didn't think so.
"Well then," And she actually smiled, "Welcome to Hell."
Normally I would beg for reviews at this point but that obviously isn't working, so I won't be doing that any more.