Author Note:

I need you to know that this is not where I thought I was going when I started writing this. It just kind of … happened. This chapter was supposed to be dinner and such… not … Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story that they obviously wanted to tell. These darn characters have a mind of their own.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

"How do you do that?"

"What?"

"Read and drive at the same time."

"Well," she smiled. "If you notice, traffic in Nairobi at rush hour is not exactly "flowing" and Kenyan radio kind of makes me want to die, so this is the easiest solution I have to patience. I've gotten entire books finished just by reading them in traffic – especially considering that rush hour lasts from 2 to 7."

"That seems ridiculously unsafe."

"Yeah, because the mechanized ballet of steel we know as driving here is so safe otherwise," she rolled her eyes at me.

"Fine, but don't you dare ever say that I've never looked out for you," I replied.

"Hey, do you mind if we make a stop real quick?" She asked a few minutes later.

"Sure, where?"

"Amana Ya Juu."

"Where?"

She laughed. If what I wrote in my journal was true… scary thought… that damn laugh had a lot to do with it. "Amani Ya Juu. It means 'a higher peace' in Swahili. It's a women's employment initiative that works mainly with handicrafts. I want to get something to take to Rwanda."

"Sure."

"They've got really, really cute kids stuff, too," she added. "You could get something for Clyde."

"They're not naming the baby Clyde."

"Morton."

"No."

"Well, of course if it's a girl, it's going to have to be Olive."

"What is your obsession with naming this child?"

She giggled, "Mostly because you get so pissed when I do."

"So it's really just about pissing me off."

"More or less," she confessed. "Your neck veins pop out a little in the back. It's kind of irresistible."

Was Sharpay Evans flirting with me?

"You know, I've heard that."

"That your neck veins are irresistible?"

I nodded, "I have to keep them concealed back in California. If I ever let a woman glance at my neck… bam… it's all over."

"She's automatically pregnant, isn't she?"

"Or at least horny."

"Well, Mr. Bolton," she said in her best Scarlett O'Hara accent, "I do declare that language is improper around a lady of means like myself. You're making me blush."

"And maybe that was my goal," I say slyly.

Was I flirting back?

That made her entire face go aflame. I had obviously hit a nerve. I swallowed awkwardly as she fiddled with her hair and said, "Good to know, Bolton."

I had noticed over the past nineteen days that I had been with her that there was a wall with her. Her clients or coworkers never seemed to encounter it, but I certainly did. And whenever I hit the wall, I got called by my last name. Which, of course, made me think of high school; my favorite memory ever.

"Well, Evans," I said, just a little too snidely, "Maybe you shouldn't mess if you're not wiling to be messed with."

Now why the hell did I need to say that?

Her only reply for a few seconds was a withering look set in my direction. I remembered, all of a sudden, very vividly why we called her the 'ice queen'. It wasn't only that she was made of ice, but she had the uncanny ability to make ice run through your veins with just one look.

"I'm sorry, Bolton," she sneered. "I had no idea that the standards were so damn high."

Oh shit. Here we go.

"What standards?"

"The standards to… never mind."

Wait. Did we have a fight? And did it just end?

"What standards, Sharpay?"

She put the car back into neutral as we came to another standstill before a roundabout up ahead. "The standards to be in your little world were always high. You had a pretty impossible check list for people to attain to if they were going to be your friend. Grace? Never big on your list."

Where the hell was all of this coming from?

"I mean, I tried and I tried and I tried to be your friend, but man, I just wasn't good enough. I wasn't nice enough or pretty enough or whatever enough. Even when I would try, you'd just ignore me. I thought you had changed, but maybe you haven't."

Wait. This is about high school? Awesome.

"Sharpay! Seriously?! When did you try to be my friend?"

"All the time!"

"When?" I yelled just a little too loudly for the small space of her car. "When you manipulated me into abandoning my friends that summer at Lava Springs? Or when you tried to get both Gabriella and I kicked out of Twinkle Towne so that you and Ryan could steal the show? Or senior year, at Chad's party…"

"We do NOT need to talk about that!" She cut me off with an angry glare.

"No! Obviously we need to! Because it's almost fifteen years later and you're holding it against me!"

"You rejected me!" She was crying now. Awesome. I loved hysterical females when I was in small enclosed spaces with them and no foreseeable escape plan.

"You were drunk!" I defended myself. "If I had slept with you that night, I would have basically raped you!"

"I was not so drunk that I didn't know what was going on, Troy," she snapped back. "I stood there, offering myself to you and you wrapped a blanket around me and had fucking Gabriella drive me home."

"I was in love with Gabi and you were asking me to fuck you. What the fuck was I supposed to do?!"

"You were supposed to love ME!"

Now, that I never saw coming.

"I thought you were just drunk that night," I said quietly, hoping she would hear me over the sobs.

It was quiet in the car for a long time. That amazing kind of silence that makes you want to slit your wrists just to escape it. My mind was racing about a million miles a minute. Sharpay loved me? Did she still harbor… No. But all of a sudden, high school makes so much more sense. Gabi had been saying for years that Sharpay was just a big ball of misdirection, but I hadn't believed her. Hats off to female intuition on that one.

We made our way through the roundabout and ended up in the Amani parking lot. Before we got out of the car, she said, "I was drunk enough for the courage, but sober enough to make the decision myself. Ryan told me that morning that you and Gabi had had a big fight the day before and that the whole school had heard you break up. I figured that it was now or never."

"Sharpay,"

She held up her hand, "No. I need to finish this." She made eye contact with me briefly and I noticed that fierce determination in her eyes. "I have loved you since the seventh grade, Troy Bolton. High school was all about getting you to notice me and fall in love with me. Everyone getting the job at Lava Springs that summer was for you. The full ride that you got offered to UCLA? That was me. I desperately needed to make you love me. And you never did. I know that you never will and that's okay. I'm okay with that. But you were my Marius and that night the dream died."

"Marius?" I hated asking it.

"From Les Miserables. The one that Eponine is completely in love with but he falls for Cosette and Eponine dies in his arms."

"Well, that's morbid."

She laughed lightly. "I'm sorry that I word vomited on you back there, you don't deserve that."

"No," I shook my head. "If it's how you feel, then I want to know. That's what friends do – they're honest with each other."

"Right," she smiled.

"And Sharpay?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't know who convinced you that you weren't good enough, but it's a lie. And me not noticing you in high school shouldn't … you know…"

"I know," she smiled and squeezed my hand. "Besides, I was such a bitch, we would have never worked out."

I laughed out loud to that. "Actually, I think we would have been great together, if you just would have retracted your talons."

"You think?"

"Yeah," I said. "Look at how amazingly we've worked together over the past few weeks. I could not have done any of this without you. You've been… I don't know… my anchor isn't too cheesy, is it?"

"No," she replied. "Just cheesy enough."

She wiped her eyes one last time and grabbed for her bag. "Now, let's go shopping for little Orville, shall we?"

"His name will not be Orville!"

"Whatever."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Author Note:

Please visit Amani's website to find out more about them and to shop. All of the products are made my marginalized refugee women in various African countries. The kids' line of products is absolutely precious.