Author Note:

Yeah, I know this one took a while. Sorry about that. I'll try to be better in the future…

As always… read and review. Your opinions warm my soul…

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"Sweet baby Jesus lying in a manger," Dinah swore.

"I know."

We both sat in silence for a few more moments.

"How many times has he called?"

"Six," I replied.

I had started a new habit in the past week – chewing the crap out of my nails. I had worked my right pointer finger in particular down the cuticle. Not a pretty sight.

"Are you planning on talking to him any time soon?"

I continued to chew on my nail and refusing to make eye contact with Dinah.

"You do realize that I make good on my promises, right?"

That's exactly what I was afraid of.

That first day – when I had texted Dinah – she had told me to talk to him. Unfortunately, that night, when Troy had called, I had been… washing my hair. Was it really my fault that I had this uncontrollable urge to be clean at exactly 9:55pm? No. Not at all.

She had informed me the next day that I one week to call him or she would.

Aka, I had to answer my Skype tonight when he called or Dinah would contact him tomorrow.

"Dinah, I mean, I'm just not sure."

"Sure about what, honey child? The man is in love with you and you are in love with him. You have baggage. Inform him of the baggage and let's all move on with our lives."

"As always, thanks for your overwhelming support."

She sighed, "Sharpay. Dear heart. Love of my life, song of my heart, sister from another mother. You have got to figure out how much you want this. If you want this, then I'm just going to need you suck it up. If you don't, then be a pansy and email him and tell him that it's over. Either way, this ends tonight."

I continued chewing on my nail for a few more minutes and finally muttered a "fine".

"And seriously, stop chewing on your fingers. Gross."

I chuckled and tucked my hands underneath my thighs.

So, it's going to end tonight.

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"How many times have you called her?"

"Six. This is about to make seven."

"And you're planning on stopping this insanity when?"

"When she answers," I replied.

Gabi snorted and went back to scrubbing the tiles in the kitchen. Today, the hormones were making her feel the need to clean absolutely everything. Once she had gotten done with her house, she had come over to mine.

I opened my computer and signed on. I clicked the name and prepared myself to hear the computerized voice tell me that the user I was trying to contact was not available when something magical happened.

I heard Sharpay's voice instead.

And promptly fell off the chair in shock.

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"Troy?! Are you there?"

Bastard. I finally get up the courage to accept his damn call and he…

"I'm here, I'm sorry, I .. I fell off the chair."

I bit back a smile. "You fell off the chair?"

"Yeah. One of my finer moments."

"Yeah."

Silence. Aching, awkward silence.

"Sharpay, I'm glad that you picked up."

"I'm not sure that I'm glad."

"Oh. Wow. There's honesty," he laughed.

My eyes were locked on the picture I had framed next to my bed. It was taken one day at Beacon and was the two of us, draped in adorable children, holding hands and gazing at each other. If I had to visually describe our relationship, I would always choose this picture. I loved it.

As I stared at it, I felt my eyes filled with tears and heard Dinah's words echoing in my head. It was now or never.

"That's kind of a lie," I admitted.

"Well, someone's bipolar today," he remarked.

"Troy."

He sighed, "Sharpay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… What I mean is…"

"No, I get it. This kind of sucks."

"The fact that we have to have this conversation? Or the fact that we're on two different sides of the world?"

"Both."

He laughed. Oh damn, how I missed that boys' laugh.

"I miss you."

"I miss you, too," I admitted.

I could hear him sigh deeply on the other end of the internet. I knew that he was running his hand through his hair – probably his left one – and fiddling with his nails just like he knew that I was chewing the crap out of my lower lip.

"Shar, you owe me the end of the sentence," came the quiet reply.

"What sentence?" Even though I knew exactly what he was talking about.

"In Kigali, when I was vague and awkward, you told me that I owed you the end of the sentence. You were on my bed and I was naked? Perhaps you remember the moment?"

"Vividly," I replied.

"That's what I thought. I mean, few women ever recover from the sight of me in a towel."

I snorted, "This is how you want to start this conversation?"

"Right, sorry," he laughed a little. "Anyway, I think it's my turn to demand the end of the sentence. Or, more accurately, the real reason behind the worst letter of my life."

"Right."

More silence.

"Did I ever tell you that I was married?"

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What. The. Hell.

"You're married now?"

"No! Good lord, no. But I have been."

She's been married? Married? As in married?

"No, dear, I believe you left that detail out of your life story," I managed to say without freaking out too much.

"Yeah, I tend to do that."

Silence.

How the hell was I supposed to respond to that?

"Is that the explanation of why you broke up with me?"

She sighed deeply, "Yes and no."

More silence.

"Sharpay, I love you, you know that, right?"

"Right?"

"And my love has no bounds, right?"

"Right."

"Woman, you are testing that statement with this whole pausing after revealing ridiculous information thing."

She laughed and I fell in love with her all over again. "Sorry, I guess… I just… Okay, here's how I think that I can do this."

"Okay."

"It's my turn to talk and you listen, how does that sound?"

"Well, your tone of voice sounds a little S&M so if this story heads that direction…"

She laughed, "Shut up, Bolton."

I smiled, "What's up, Sharpay?"

There was some more silence, but I heard her start a word a few times and knew that this silence was almost holy in its preparation. If she needed some time to figure out what to say, I could be patient.

Finally, I heard her start to cry. I was about to ask if she was okay when I heard her voice break through her own sorrow.

"When I lived in London, I met a man named Nigel Farnsworth. He was kind of amazing."

I really could not see this story ending any way but badly.

"We met at a fundraiser for work, his parents are pretty wealthy. He was a school teacher at the time and I found him… oh this is awkward… really sexy."

I chuckled a little, "It's okay, Shar. I have, in my past, found other women attractive."

She chuckled a little and I could hear her voice get calmer. "He was the first man who promised me things – things like the future and a life together. He was the first person who knew the "new" Sharpay and was pretty crazy about her and before I knew it, we were engaged."

"Engaged?" It was out of my mouth before I could stop it.

"Yeah, patience was not a virtue," she remarked. "I don't know, Troy, I mean, he was… he just… I could see myself growing old with him. And not just growing old, but growing old well. Our dreams seemed to fit together and I was pretty damn smitten."

"Understandable."

"We ended up eloping one weekend in Blackpool and started our life together pretty quickly."

Wait. She had been married? What?

Not allowing me any time to process this, Sharpay barreled on with her story. "I guess it was about a month after we got married. Nigel had been out with the boys – it was becoming more and more frequent for him to do that instead of be home with me – and I had gotten home late as well. Another man from work had driven me home and Nigel saw me get out of his car. Man, he was completely plastered. I remember smelling the alcohol in the hallway of our flat and wondering if he had spilled some on his clothes instead of in his mouth…"

Like I said, I could not see this ending any way but badly.

"He asked who the bloke was and I responded that it was just some guy from work and he said 'is it some guy that you're fucking behind my back?' which was just about the most left-field question ever, but before I knew it, he had slapped me across the face and was calling me a whore."

Three deep, calming breaths, Troy. Deep calming breaths.

"I went to work the next day with a black eye. I'm pretty sure that my cheekbone had shattered, but it must have healed itself because it never showed up on any of the other x-rays."

"Other x-rays?"

"Yeah," her voice dropped a bit. "When six months had passed, I had three broken ribs, a broken collarbone and a shattered vertebrae from when he threw me down the stairs."

"HE THREW YOU DOWN THE STAIRS?! MOTHER FUCKER I SWEAR THAT …"

"Troy, I need you to stop yelling," I heard her voice through the computer. "You're… I just need you to stop."

I sighed. "I'm sorry."

She sighed, "Are you going to ask why I didn't leave him?"

"It's a question, yes."

"I loved him, Troy. I loved him deeply and truly and passionately. He promised me forever and how was I so sure that someone else would come along and promise me that again? I took self-defense classes and learned to cope because I was petrified that no one else would love me like he promised to love me."

I licked my lips and pondered a response to that. "When did you realize …"

"That that's ridiculous?" She interrupted. "After the stairs incident. I was in the hospital. Ryan and Emily flew over and moved me out of mine and Nigel's flat. They didn't give me the option to go back to him until I could logically explain why he felt that he had a right to hit me like that. Of course, I couldn't, so I left him."

"How did he take that?"

"Not well, exactly," she stammered. "I think that Ryan standing there with a loaded semi-automatic pistol is really all that kept Nigel from beating the living shit out of me."

"As it should."

She laughed a little before continuing. "So, Mom and Dad freaked out, of course, and to make a very long story short, they paid a lot of money for my marriage to disappear and for Nigel to never be able to find me again."

"Did you press charges?"

"No, and that's something that I regret. I wonder if he is hurting someone else now," she said quietly. "I just needed to get the hell out of London, so I transferred to India."

"Wow, Shar."

"Yeah."

I didn't really know how to react to that or how she wanted me to or really what that had to do with me… so I sat there and waited for her to start talking again.

"I've dated other men since Nigel, but you were the first man that I started to dream with. You were the first who made plans and the first who I… and it kind of scares the shit out of me."

I paused for a moment, "Are you afraid that I'm going to …"

"No!" She exclaimed. "I trust you so much and I know that you love me and that you'd never hurt me and… that you're not Nigel. I know that. But, Troy, it took me six months to be able to look another man in the face after Nigel and about two years to be alone with one. And we were moving pretty fast and for a while it felt fine… and then it felt familiar and…"

"And you panicked."

She was quiet for a moment. "Yeah. I panicked."

I was quiet and then managed to say the only thing that really mattered. "Do you still love me?"

I heard her take a shaky breath, "Yeah."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Do you still love me?"

"Yeah," I smiled. I'm not sure why she thought I had stopped… but if assurance was what she needed…

"So what do we do now," she asked.

"Now? Now we wait."

"Wait?"

"You come home in six weeks and two days. I've got some things to sort out here, but six weeks is not awful to wait. Can you handle it?"

"Yeah," she sounded a little confused.

"Promise me that you'll still love me in six weeks," I said.

"I'm pretty sure I can guarantee that," she giggled.

I laughed and we continued the conversation, simply catching up on each other's lives. I made fun of her a little for running and she made fun of me a little for acting like a girl about it. We both laughed a lot and I remembered all over again why I love this woman.

Because I do. I love this woman.

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