Need You More Than Ever
Thanks for all of the reviews guys! Well I actually already have the final chapter and one of the most important parts of the story written, now I just need to try and write the chapters that lead up to them. So anyway here is chapter 8, please read it and then review and tell me what you thought.
Chapter 8Over the following week and a half, the gang's worry for Gabriella grew as her attitude to people, especially teachers and boys, became even worse and her dress sense took a major plunge, each outfit trying to be worse than the one the day before for showing her flesh.
Troy was the only one who had noticed that ever since the Monday that they had first noticed the horrendous change in Gabriella, she had been wearing bangles, which always covered her wrists.
This worried Troy enormously as when they were dating, Gabriella always complained about the likes of bangles, saying that the sound of them clattering together irritated her more than anything and that she hated the feel of them against her skin. Troy dreaded to think about what she was doing that caused her to have a sudden change of heart about the bangles.
The gang had also been keeping close tabs on her over the past week, desperately trying to figure out what was going on with their friend and meeting in Kelsi's room almost every night, to see if they could see what was going on at her house, but to no help, she now had her bedroom curtains closed constantly, so it had become impossible to see what she was up to.
Also, extremely worryingly, the gang had also realised that Gabriella's weight was dropping at an extremely dangerous rate, however much she tried to hide it. A couple of her ribs could be seen constantly sticking through the tight tops that she was wearing and she was now wearing belts tied so tightly that they almost wrapped all the way around her twice.
Finally deciding that enough was enough, Sharpay dragged the gang over to the Montez's house after school on that Friday.
As they rung on the doorbell, they waited a good ten minutes for an answer, knowing that Gabriella at least was home as they had seen her rush through the door just moments before they had reached it.
"Fine then, we should just go guys," Ryan sighed in frustration as he turned to go, Jason and Troy following him, heads dipped low.
"No!" Kelsi spoke sharply, before turning to the door, the others watching her in confusion as she took a deep breath and reached up for the door handle, dragging it down and opening the door quickly as she stepped inside and motioned for the others to follow her.
The gang all watched her carefully, before Sharpay followed her inside and the rest followed quickly.
As soon as they stepped into the house, the gang were shocked by the amount of alcohol bottles that littered every surface possible and the stench of alcohol made them all gag almost immediately, but the sound of soft sobbing made them realise why they were all there in the first place and started to head up the stairs towards Gabriella's room, Sharpay in the lead, Troy directly behind her.
Walking into Gabriella's room, only after Taylor had used her hair pin to pick the lock, they could hear the sobbing intensify and Zeke nodded his head towards Gabriella's bathroom, to which Sharpay again took over the lead and yanked open the door, gasping at what she saw.
"GABRIELLA! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" She screamed, louder than anyone had ever heard her scream as the rest of the gang stood around the doorway in horror.
Gabriella looked up at them, her eyes bright red and puffy, bruises lining her face and all other parts of her skin that was visible. She was sat in the middle of her bathroom floor, wearing a pair of her bed shorts and one of Troy's old hoodies, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, blood gushing from her freshly slit wrists.
"It wont stop, Pay, it just won't stop," she whispered, looking back at her wrists.
Chad took the first action and pushed his way forward, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around Gabriella's wrists tightly, trying to stop the flow of blood as she sobbed into his chest.
Suddenly, she took note of the towel wrapped around her wrists and started to struggle.
"NO CHAD! NOT THE TOWEL, BLOOD DOESN'T COME OUT, SHE'S GONNA BE SERIOUSLY PISSED IF I RUIN ANYTHING ELSE, I CAN'T AFFORD TO RUIN ANYTHING ELSE," Gabriella yelled, startling the gang as she desperately tried to struggle away from Chad and the towel, who held onto her firmly, a grave expression set into his face.
An hour or so later, the blood had stopped and the gang were all stood around Gabriella's room as she stood at the bathroom sink, desperately trying to get the blood out of the towel.
"Gabriella, please tell us what's going on, we can't help if we don't know," Troy begged, his eyes wide as he watched her trying desperately to save the towel.
"I DON'T WANT YOUR HELP," she suddenly screamed, startling the entire gang as she whirled around, glaring at them all, "IF YOU TRY AND HELP ME, YOU'RE GONNA GET HURT AND I CAN'T RISK IT AND THEN WATCH THE PEOPLE THAT I LOVE MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THIS UNIVERSE GET HURT!"
"Yeah but Gabby, by not letting us help, you're hurting the one person who we all care most about in this universe and who brought us altogether in the first place," Jason whispered, watching her intently as the rest of the gang nodded in agreement and Gabriella started to break, her face crumpling slightly, before turning back to stone.
"No, I can't," she whispered, looking like a deer caught in the headlights.
Taylor and Sharpay each moved up to their friend and took one of her hands each, cringing as she flinched at their touch, her big brown eyes looking at them, as if she was terrified of them.
"We're here for you Gabs, we're always gonna be here for you, whether you like it or not," Taylor muttered soothingly, gently running her thumb over the back of Gabriella's hands and the rest of the gang nodded, smiling as they say the first hint of a real smile appear on Gabriella's face for weeks.
"Okay," she whispered so softly that they all almost missed it, but they heard and each member of the gang breathed their own sigh of relief.
Gabriella slowly moved across the room until she was in front of Troy. "I'm sorry Troy, I didn't mean to cause you any hurt," she said softly, and Troy felt his heart break even more as she looked into his eyes.
He reached out and took her hand gently, feeling guilty when she winced at his touch, before moving one of her bangs out of her face, "You have nothing to be sorry for baby girl," he whispered soothingly, "If anything I should be sorry for causing you so much pain, when you were already in so much pain." With that said, he wiped away the solitary tear rolling down her cheek and pulled her into a hug, which she melted into, sobbing quietly into his shoulder for s few minutes, before turning back to the gang and taking a deep breath, finally back in the safety of her one true loves arms.
She slowly turned around to face the gang and they gasped, causing Gabriella to wince slightly and Troy to frown when they finally saw the full extent of Gabriella's injuries.
"What happened Boo?" Sharpay said, using her nickname for Gabriella, as she tucked that one stubborn lock of Gabriella's hair behind her ear again and studied her face carefully.
Gabriella took a deep breath and looked up at Troy who nodded at her and smiled softly at her to start, tenderly kissing her on top of her head. "It all started about 6 weeks ago when my Mom and I received a phone call from the army," the gang looked at her, confused as to where this was going, "they were calling to tell us that my dad had been shot and had died in battle," here a few tears fell down her cheeks, "it tore my Mom and me apart. My mom took it really bad though and she started to drink really heavily," the gang nodded, remembering the empty alcohol bottles downstairs, "pretty soon she'd be out at bars all the time and I had no idea where she was. But she kept coming back with all these random guys'; I had no clue who any of them were. About a week after that started, she started to abuse me, little things at first, just a slight slap every now and again, but as she continued to drink, it got worse and worse," the tears were flowing freely down her face by this point, "she expected me to do all the housework, everything and if it wasn't up to standard, she or her latest boyfriend would beat me, the other watching and laughing," Troy felt the anger inside him growing more with every word Gabriella spoke, clutching on to her tighter, "then she met Rick. He's the worst of all of them and the one she's stayed with the longest. He's been making my life hell for the past two weeks now, the day you came to help me in the garden was the first day he beat me. But the Sunday night following was the worst of everything, he raped me, and my mom…my mom just watched and…and she…she laughed, she was giving him pointers, while I was begging her to help me," Gabriella broke down at that point, the girls all sobbing with her and the guys anger reaching boiling point as Troy's arms wrapped tighter around her currently very petite frame, until she whimpered, causing alarm to rise from him.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he said frantically, as he turned her around and she sobbed heavily into his chest, drenching him in seconds.
The whole gang jumped as suddenly Gabriella's bedroom door burst open and in walked and extremely angry looking Maria Montez…
Ok guys, Gabriella finally came clean, so please review and tell me what you thought, the quicker you review, the quicker I will update, although most of the next chapter is already written, so thanks for reading and please review!