"What Friends Are For"
--Chapter 1 (Troy's POV)
It's been one of those days for a lot of days now
I need a day when the world can take care of itself
This isn't what I wanted how I thought my life would turn out
And I wonder if it's like this from here on out
(Superchick)
There are some mornings where you wake up, and you automatically sense that it's going to be a crappy day. And sometimes there's a sign. Like, you sit up in bed and realize your house has been overtaken by a mold epidemic and the walls are turning green and it smells like shit …or something like that. But some days have like, this aura of badness. You just feel it. You may look out your bedroom window and see that the sun's shining and the birds are chirping all happy like a gay Disney movie, but in your head you feel like it might as well be the end of the world.
I opened my eyes one Friday morning and thought this exactly. I rolled to my side and saw little Milo sleeping there, her curly hair tangled around her face. I shook her, trying to wake her up. Her eyes shot open, but she immediately reclosed them to adjust to the sudden burst of daylight.
"Morning, Sweetie," I said, kissing the imprint on her cheek that the pillow had made.
"Morning, Daddy," she groaned.
I climbed out of bed, lifting the six-year-old into my arms. I carried her down the stairs and sat her down on a kitchen chair at the table.
"Is today Saturday?" she asked me.
"No, Honey. It's Friday," I replied.
"Oh," she sighed. "School." I nodded. "And you gotta go to work?" I nodded again, pouring cereal into two bowls and adding milk.
"I'm thinking about sending you over to Miss Nancy's house while I'm at the party tonight. What would you think of that?"
"Ew! No way. Her house smells like fish sticks," she protested, sticking out her tongue to show her disgust.
"Well, you can't come with me. It's grown-ups only."
"Why? What are you gonna do there?" she asked suspiciously.
"Well… Umm… We'll talk about boring grown-up things."
"Isn't it at Chad and Sharpie's house?"
"Her name is Sharpay, and yes it is at their house," I told her, getting annoyed.
"A Sharpei is a dog…" she began. "And anyways, they like it when I go to their house."
"Not this time. This is a party for the people Chad and I work with."
"Well, that sucks."
"Don't say 'sucks'."
"Ugh! Fine, I'll go to the Fish Stick Lady's house," she said.
"Thank you. Now finish eating. Do you want me to drive you to school today?"
"Yes please."
"Hurry up, then," I told her. She took a few more bites of cereal and gulped down a glass of orange juice, slamming it down on the table when she'd finished.
"Go get dressed."
Milo ran up the stairs, and I rinsed out the cereal bowls. I then walked up the staircase and into my bedroom. I opened my closet and picked out a pair of khakis and a polo shirt. I quickly glanced at the empty side of the closet - the one that had once been reserved for Gabriella's things. I slammed the closet door shut and darted to the bathroom to shower.
Fifteen minutes later, I had bathed and dressed. I exited the master bathroom, stepping into my bedroom. On the big king-sized bed sat a very mismatched Milo.
"Hey, Sweetie," I greeted, rubbing my wet hair with a towel. She smiled up at me.
"I'm all dressed," she told me. I looked down at her powder blue Hello Kitty tee shirt that she had paired with a green skirt and red and black plaid knee socks. She'd never been the best at matching her clothes.
"You sure are," I said with a smile. I'd learned to let her idiosyncrasies go, just as she'd learned to ignore mine. "Let's go then. You got your stuff?" She ran out of my room and across the hall to hers to grab her backpack. She proceeded to trample down the stairs. I followed her, and grabbed her nearly-forgotten Hannah Montana lunchbox from the kitchen counter on our way out the front door.
I got to work by 8:03, and when I parked in my assigned parking spot, I let out a long, breathy sigh. The morning had shown no significance yet, but my thoughts remained gloomy. I walked into the Albuquerque Journal building almost reluctantly. I hate my job.
"Good morning, Mr. Bolton," the receptionist greeted.
"Hey, Lindsay," I replied. "Is Chad here yet?"
"Yes, sir. He's in his office," she responded. I nodded, walking away, and Lindsay called after me. " But I think he's kind of busy right now. I wouldn't go in there if I were y--" I had entered the elevator before she could finish. I pressed the button for the floor Chad's office was on and waited until the doors slid open again. I walked down the hallway until I got to the door with a plaque that read Chad Danforth: Sports. Ignoring the opportunity to knock, I turned the doorknob and entered the room. Chad was sitting in the chair behind his desk, a topless blonde glued to his face.
"Hey du-- WHOA! Sharpay, what the hell are you doing here!?"
"Hey man, do you mind?" Chad said, trying to shoo me out. Sharpay tried to cover herself as she shuffled to the other side of the room to grab the bra and top she'd apparently discarded there. I covered my eyes while she dressed, and after a few moments I removed my hand from my face.
"Sorry, Troy," Sharpay apologized as she brushed past me, out the door. "See you at home, Baby," she called to Chad. I closed the door behind her.
"Do you know how to knock?" Chad asked me.
"Hey, man it's not my fault. You have all night to fuck your wife. You don't need to do it at work," I told him. "Man, and it's only like quarter after eight."
"Sorry."
"Just be glad it wasn't Todd that walked in, right?" I said, referring to our boss.
"Yeah, whatever. So why'd you storm into my office anyway?"
"Oh, right. What time's the party tonight?" I asked. He thought for a moment before jumping up and leaning into the hallway.
"Shar!" he called. Sharpay was standing in front of the elevator, waiting for the doors to open. Her head turned when she heard Chad.
"What?" she yelled down the hall.
"When's the party?"
"Seven to twelve," she replied. Chad shut the door again and turned to me.
"It's from seven to twelve," he said. "And don't even think about bringing Miles." I shook my head. "I'm serious, man. I've got to keep her as far away from Shar as I can."
"Why is that again?"
"Every time Sharpay sees that kid, she decides to try and get pregnant. Milo's sweet, but you know how it is, man."
"Not really, no. Milo's all I really have left."
"Well, you've got me."
"Right. Because you're everything my heart has ever yearned for, Chad," I said sarcastically.
"What are you up to today?" Chad asked, knowing our other conversation was going nowhere pleasant.
"Not much. Obits aren't as exciting as writing your kind of stuff."
"Well, I'm leaving early," Chad said. "Got a doctor's appointment."
"Ah. What for?"
"I dunno. My muscles have been cramping up or something. They did a few tests last week, and I guess the results are in…" he trailed off.
"Think it might be serious?"
"Nah. It's probably just from playing ball with the pros, you know what I'm sayin'?"
"Yeah… You mean while you're supposed to be writing about them?"
"Hey man, it beats writing crap about dead people. You can't play ball with them, now can you?" he smirked. Chad had always been a huge fan of making fun of me and my lameass job. I wrote the obituaries for the Albuquerque Journal. I must say there were days when I would have rather been one of those guys that cleans up elephant shit at the circus. I don't know why I kept my job, other than the fact I had a crappy degree, and it would have probably been extremely difficult to find a better one. I have yet to figure out how Chad Danforth, the most illiterate person ever to graduate high school, got my dream job. Or for that matter, how I got the job he was destined to have.
"Oh, shut up," was my reply.
"Yeah. Nice comeback, dude."
"I try. … But anyway, I have places to go, people to see," I said, turning towards the door.
"I doubt that. See ya later, dude."
I waved my hand at him as I walked out of his office.
At seven thirty that night, I walked into Chad and Sharpay's house, and my first reaction was to gasp. Lindsay the receptionist was making out with Paul the intern on a cheap card table, Sharpay was dancing on the coffee table to loud Nelly Furtado music, an entire pizza was stuck to the living room wall, and other random people were doing random, bizarre things. It was reminiscent of the old varsity parties back in high school.
I looked around for Chad, but I didn't immediately see him, so I wandered to a big, blue cooler next to the refreshment table and pulled out a bottle of beer.
"Hey, Troy," a voice said from behind me as I cracked open the bottle cap. I turned around, knowing exactly who I'd see.
"Hey, Sharpay," I replied. "You decided to climb down from your living room table? But it looked like so much fun." I teased, thinking she'd get that I was kidding.
"Yeah," she sighed. "I don't even know why I'm so hyper tonight anyways. One second I was chill, and all of a sudden I'm bouncing off the walls."
I chuckled and pointed to the glass bottle in her hand. "Think it could be the vodka?" I asked, completely amused by her level of total drunkenness. She lifted the liquor bottle to her eye level and stared at it, looking utterly puzzled.
"Hmmm…" she mumbled thoughtfully, then looked back at me with an innocent smile.
"Anyway, do you know where Chad is?" I asked her. "I haven't seen him since I got here."
"Oh, he's in the library."
"Oh… Why?"
"He said something about… a headache, maybe?" she replied with more of a question than an answer.
"Um, yeah. Okay. I'll go see what's up with him. See ya later, Sharpay." I left her there, and I stumbled up the spiral staircase, pushing unidentifiably wasted people out of my way.
I walked down one of the two hallways I was met with at the top of the stairs. This level was only slightly less trashed than the downstairs. I passed about four rooms before I came to the library's double doors. The Danforths' library looked like a scene straight from Rebecca or something. On the wall opposite the door were two massive windows, each draped with its own aubergine velvet curtain. In front of the windows was a fancy antique desk, which for some reason was always stacked with mounds of papers, despite the fact that the library was rarely used at all. On the adjacent walls were rows and rows of dusty bookshelves filled by ancient hardcovers. No one ever bothered to actually clean the library, due to its typical state of emptiness. This added to its stuffy feeling.
I almost left the room just as soon as I'd entered when I didn't see Chad. But then the floor creaked under my weight, and his head shot up from where it had been resting on the desk, hidden by the piles of papers.
"Who's there? Oh, it's just you," he said. He looked terrible and completely disoriented.
"Just me? Oh, well thanks buddy. You always know just what to say to make me feel all special on the insi--"
"Please… Troy. I'm not in the mood for your sarcasm right now."
"Well, then what's up exactly? …Because I came here to see you, not your table-dancing wife," I said with a smirk. I had expected some kind of reaction to that particular comment, whether it be out of humor or frustration, but he just blankly stared at the door across the room, almost as if he wanted me to walk right back through it.
"Sorry. Did you want to be alone or something?" I asked, not feeling as sympathetic as I tried to sound.
"Um, no. I guess it's fine. Actually, I wanted to talk to you."
"O… kay. Am I in trouble?" I asked, finally taking note of his serious tone.
"Yeah. A ton. No. This isn't about you. Don't worry," he said. "It's about me."
"Oh, great. Wouldn't you know it? We get to talk about you. Again."
"Would you be serious?!"
"If you tell me why it's necessary." Apparently that really pissed him off, because as soon as I said it, he picked up a rather expensive-looking fountain pen from the desk and hurled it at the wall.
An awkward lull followed.
"I need you to do me like, a huge favor," he finally said, trying to contain his rage.
"I'm listening," I said, knowing that if I kept goofing around I'd end up pulling one of those fancy fountain pens out of my own skull.
He nodded gratefully at my response. Then he paused, and for a moment, I thought he wasn't actually planning on telling me about said favor. He just folded his hands in front of himself and studied his knuckles.
"So is that--" I started, but he quickly interrupted me.
"I need you to kill me, Troy," he said in the solemnest of any voice I'd ever heard.
This is officially the craziest story I've ever written... I think it's my favorite. And I know I said I wouldn't post until I was half-finished with it, but of course, I lied. I was in the mood for reviews this morning :D So review. When I get 8 reviews, I'll update. That shouldn't be too hard, since that's what I got for the trailer...
x sami
P.S. There's NO way this story's dialog is going to match up with the trailer, so bear with me :D