A/N: Hey you guys! I'm so sorry for taking so long! School has been crazy, plus I swear my family is being attacked by a unknown force. It's been insane! Well anyways, I'm sorry for it being so long. I hope this chapter makes up for everything! Enjoy and review :)

Chapter 5

"I need a WHAT!?!" Gabriella exclaimed, not believing her ears. This cannot be happening!

"You're gonna need a ride home. Look, I have to make up a test after school, and when I'm finished I'm gonna go hang out with some friends." Catalina informed her.

"How do you need to make up a test? We've only been back to school for two days! And you're hanging out with friends? What friends? How could you have possibly made friends so quickly?" Gabriella asked incredulously

"Okay, first of all, while you are an anti-social freak I am a social butterfly. I can make friends within an hour while it takes you a year." This caused Gabriella roll her eyes. Of course she would find a way to call her a freak, she always did. "Secondly, my second period teacher is a jerk so I skipped." she answered simply

"Ugh, how are we even sisters?" Gabi groaned in frustration as they pulled into East High's parking lot.

"I have no idea."

Gabriella stared at her history packet, and pretended to work while she tried not to scream. It seemed as if her whole day had been a bunch of accidents stringed together to make one huge horrible day.

First, Gabriella's locker had jammed so she was late to homeroom. She forgot to do yesterday's Math homework, and she had one of those hard teachers who didn't take homework late. Then, Sharpay and her minions just being plain obnoxious had made everything worse. Now here she was, trying to gather up the courage to ask for a ride with Taylor.

It should not be this hard. Just go up there and ask her you chicken! Taylor was just there innocently, doing the history work assigned to them in the desk next to Gabi, minding her own business. Right when she was about to open her mouth the threat of a shoe flying at her caused her to shut her mouth. I don't want a shoe thrown at me. You won't get a shoe thrown at you. With my luck? Oh yes I will! No you won't. Yes I will! JUST DO IT!

After wrestling with herself for a couple of minutes she gathered up the courage to ask.

"Hey Taylor?" Gabriella whispered quietly

"Yeah?" Taylor glanced up from her work.

"Um, is there any way that you can take me home today?" She looked up to check for any shoes flying towards her. The coast was clear. Taylor looked up at her with a look that Gabi hated, pity."I'm so sorry, but I can't. I have to work right after school."

Gabriella felt her stomach drop. Oh crap. Taylor was the only person that she wouldn't mind giving her a ride home. Now she didn't know what to do. Right when she was beginning to think that it was hopeless a sudden thought hit Gabriella. If Taylor couldn't give her a ride that only left one person. Troy.

Gabriella groaned inwardly, thinking of all of the rude things she had said to him that morning. He had been bugging her on the way to Math and she had snapped at him. Grimacing, she thought back to their conversation in the hallway.

Flashback

Gabriella rushed down the hallway to Math, trying to avoid the inevitable. Troy hadn't been able to talk to her that morning because she was late, but there was no way that he would be able to resist talking to her walking alone down a hallway.

"Hey Gabriella" Troy popped up next to her with a big grin on his face. I knew it!

Gabriella sighed in frustration. "Dude what's up with you?" She asked bluntly, straight and clear. She did not want history to repeat itself under any circumstances. The only way to keep that from happening was to stay emotionally detached. To keep her guard up. To not get attached to anyone or anything. That's what she kept telling herself as her conscience ate away at her for being so rude.

"What do you mean? I just want to talk" he answered looking needlessly confused, seeing as he should be used to her acting like this by now.

"Well, in case you didn't get the memo, I don't want to talk to you!" Gabriella answered abruptly Maybe it would make him go away. Why would it? It didn't work the first time. She attempted to walk away but Troy grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him.

"Yes you do, don't pretend like yesterday didn't happen. You wanted to talk to me and you know it" He couldn't know that, could he? The way he was looking at her made Gabriella feel as if he could read her every thought. A shiver ran down her spine.

"Look, I'm sorry, but I just don't see why you are doing this. Most people would have given up by now." Gabriella answered honestly

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, I'm not most people." Gabriella watched hopelessly as Troy walked away, feeling as if she had just thrown her last chance away.

By seventh period the thought of talking to Troy still made Gabriella nervous. She kept getting a vision of him scoffing in her face and refusing to speak to her in her head. If he did she really couldn't blame him. Why would he do her any kind of favor after how she had treated him? Plus wouldn't she be a hypocrite if she tried to talk to him after she had just yelled him for doing the same thing?

Come on Gabriella, you can do this. Just open your mouth and speak Gabriella encouraged herself.

The current setting felt insanely awkward. Troy and Gabriella sat at the same table, but they were sitting as far from each other as possible. The silence between them might as well have been screaming. Their earlier conversation seemed to hang in the air between them, causing them to avoid looking at each other. When Gabi did look at Troy she could only see the hurt and confused look on his face from when she yelled at him. She quickly turned away and moved her hair from behind her ear so that it hung like a curtain between them.

How did I get myself into this? All the sudden Gabriella came up with a brilliant idea. She could just write him a note, that way the worst he could do was not read it or throw it away. She hurriedly got out a sheet of paper from her binder and jotted down a greeting. Folding it in quarters, she pushed it to him.

At first he just looked at. Then he looked at her, then back at the note. She reached over and pushed it closer to him. He reached down and picked it up, gently unfolding it. She was too afraid of his reaction to watch him read it so she started doodling on her notebook.

She was on her third funky looking flower when the note dropped in front of her.

Hey

Hey, feeling bipolar today?

Gabriella chuckled when she read his reply and quickly wrote back.

Haha, just a little

So whats up?

Umm, well I hate to ask this, but can you give me a ride home?

Troy squinted at the note for a while before answering

Do you promise not to yell at me if I try to talk to you in the car?

Gabriella started to laugh as she read what he wrote. Troy looked over at her with a small smile playing across his lips.

Yes I promise.

Good. Then yeah, it would be no problem

We would have to go get my baby sister from daycare. Is that okay?

Well I have basketball practice after school that I can't miss. Would that cause a problem?

When does it end?

Five, is that okay?

Gabriella stared at the note and chewed her lip as she thought. The day care was open until 5:30. Thirty minutes would be plenty of time to get there.

Yeah that's great! So I'll meet you at the gym?

Yeah that'd be great

Gabriella leaned back in her chair and relaxed for the first time that day since the car ride to school. Everything was going to be just fine.

The sound of bouncing basketballs and whistles could be heard through the gym doors. Gabriella walked to the gym reluctantly after as much stalling as possible. Contrary to common belief, not all girls liked to watch random sweaty guys play basketball. After she had taken as much time as possible walking to her locker and packing up she had still had a huge amount of time left over. Gabriella had gratefully retreated to her sanctuary, the library. Unfortunately she hadn't received a library card yet, and one could only look at unavailable books for so long without going crazy.

Gabriella pushed the heavy gym door open to be overpowered by the smell of musky sneakers and sweat. Troy, along with the rest of the team, was running up and down to court doing suicides while Coach Bolton stood on the sidelines, egging them on.

Gabriella walked to the bleachers as quietly as possible and sat down. The last thing she wanted was to bring attention to herself and be questioned by the coach. Her plan must have worked seeing as no one came over to bother her while she watched the team practice.

Even if the coach had seen her she wouldn't have known, seeing as she couldn't take her eyes off of a certain blue-eyed boy. It wasn't just that she was attracted to him, there was more to it than that. It was that she was...drawn to him. Like he held all of the answers that she had been searching for. Ever since the other day at her house she could barely stop thinking about him, which honestly scared the crap out of her. The last time she had felt anything like this not only had she gotten her heart broken, but she had gotten a broken heart plus a baby. She didn't think that she could survive if that happened again.

Before she knew it Coach Bolton was blowing the whistle to dismiss the team.

Wow that was fast.

Troy ran up to the bleachers near her, and picked up a towel to wipe the sweat off of his neck. He smiled at her as he said, "Just give me a minute and I'll be right back.", and disappeared.

Gabriella was still getting over the butterflies from him smiling at her like that when he popped back up, freshly showered and ready to go. This was going to be an interesting ride.

Troy and Gabriella barely said a word to each other as they drove to Gabriella's little sister's daycare. Actually Gabriella had barely spoken since Troy had gotten out of practice. True to her word, she didn't yell at him when she tried to talk to him, but she did always give him one word answers. Troy had to admit that he was surprised at how she was acting. After she had written him that note he thought that she had finally wanted to give him a chance, yet here she was, the same as always. He heard her sigh in relief as he pulled up into the daycare's parking lot.

"You can just stay in here. It shouldn't take that long." Gabriella told him as he turned the car off and reached for his seatbelt.

Wow, her first full sentence since we got in the car.

"Oh okay"

Gabriella quickly got out of the car and walked briskly to the daycare. Within a few minutes she was coming back holding a car seat.

"Why are you home so late?"

Wow, no 'Hey, how are you?' or 'How was school?'. Just a 'Why are you home so late? Well aren't you lovable today!

"Oh my day was great! Thanks for asking!" Gabriella answered her mother sarcastically while setting her stuff down. At her mother's stern look she answered the question. "I had to get a ride home from school, and the boy who took me home had basketball practice."

Maria snorted and turned back to her cup of coffee "Oh so you're a slut now? That only took you three days, at least last time it took you three months."

Gabriella's mouth dropped in disbelief as she set Ariela's car seat down on the counter. She didn't want to admit it but that comment had really stung. Did she really just say that?

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I said you're a slut. You know you should look to Catalina more often to see how you are supposed to behave. She would never act the way you do."

What! She's more of a slut than me!

"Ok, first of all, don't compare me to Catalina. That's just not nice. Second of all, I am NOT a slut! And thirdly, Catalina is the one who dumped me. She didn't even wait to see if I had a ride! Troy was my last resort!"

"Whatever, if that's what you want to believe." Maria brushed off everything that her daughter said as if it were irrelevant.

She couldn't believe it. Here her sister had abandoned her, and she was being blamed for it, again! She wanted to scream. Scream until all of the glass in the windowpanes shattered to pieces.

All of her pent up emotions from the past years stirred inside her. The pain from each of the times her mom made her feel worthless, the hate she felt when her sister insulted her ,the bitterness she had felt from each move, and the hurt from when Ariela's father rejected her. Every horrible moment from the past was brought back out into the light, and Gabriella wanted nothing more than to throw it all back at her mother and make her suffer. All of the frustrations from that day welled up inside Gabriella, and a pressure in her chest grew until it became nearly unbearable and she blurted out, "What is your problem?"

"Excuse me?"

Gabriella found her mother's questioning gaze annoying. Suddenly she realized that the more annoyed she got the higher her self confidence rose.

"I said, What. Is. Your. Problem." she replied enunciating every word "Why do you always treat me so badly while Catalina can do no wrong? You do know that Catalina is way worse of a person than me right? I mean, what do you think she's doing with her friends right now, playing Monopoly?" Gabriella laughed at the thought. "Oh no, and why does all of my hard work goes unnoticed, and whenever I make a little mistake it becomes the biggest news ever? Has it escaped your notice that I have only made one B in my entire school life? Whenever Catalina makes a frickin C- you act as if she was just nominated for a Nobel Prize while I don't even get a good job! Everything that ever happens is always my fault and I'm sick of it. Now for years I have brushed this off and ignored it, but that's over now."

Gabriella glared at her mother. She wanted answers and she wanted them this instant. Maria just looked at Gabriella with an amused expression. Gabriella couldn't believe her eyes when her mother got to her feet and started to leave.

"Is it because of him?" Gabriella called after her, knowing that it was a low blow, but not really caring. Her mother stopped in her tracks. Catalina and Gabriella had had it drilled into their heads as children to never bring up their father. The only things that they knew about him was that he and Maria had worked together and he had abandoned them when Gabriella and Catalina were both babies. He was forbidden territory that neither of them really wanted to tread. Neither of them had ever really brought him up, until now.

As her mother turned to face her Gabriella realized that mentioning her father was a big mistake. Maria's expression was furious. She walked right up in front of her, enraged.

"You want to know why I don't treat you as well as Catalina, well you know what? I'll tell you." Maria stepped back a few steps "Me and your father met at a company banquet. We dated happily for two years and then he proposed and we got married shortly after. It seemed like everything was going great. Almost perfectly. We had a great relationship, things were going well at work, we were happy, everything was going wonderfully. Then he got a promotion. He started to work late and had to go on more business trips, and soon I was getting lonely. After a couple of weeks of eating dinner alone I came up with a brilliant plan. I thought that maybe I had a baby then I wouldn't be as lonely any more. When I mentioned my brilliant plan to him you know what he did?" Maria rhetorically asked her, really getting into the story now. "He freaked. It took all of my strength to convince him to have a baby, and he eventually agreed under one condition. Only one child, and that was it. I agreed. So then I got pregnant and he was so happy. We had a daughter and she was so beautiful and smart. She was going to be the best child anyone had ever seen. And then you know what happened?"

"You got pregnant with me." Gabriella answered the rhetorical question not quite getting the point of why she was telling this story. This wasn't really aswering her question.

"Exactly. For some reason I never had any morning sickness and I wrote off most of the other side effects of pregnancy because I had just had Catalina. I didn't even suspect I was pregnant until I was far enough along that abortion was not an option. The moment I got fat your father lost it. He said he couldn't handle two children. It was too much. I asked him to at least give it a chance, but after you were born he lost it. Between Catalina demanding our attention, as any 10 month old would, and you being a screaming newborn, " She motioned to Ariela with a disgusted look on her face that made Gabi's blood boil, " he couldn't take it. We had a fight and he was gone the next morning."

"So that's it. I was born. That's the reason for all of this?" Gabriella asked not believing her ears. Being born didn't really seem like a reason to be punished this harshly.

Her lack reaction to the story seemed to make her mother even angrier. "Do you not get it? I don't want you! You're the reason he's gone! " she shouted " If it weren't for you your father would still be here, and we would be the happy family we were meant to be. You ruined everything."

"I wish you were never born." Maria sneered. Her last words echoed in Gabriella's head and she stood frozen in place. Ariela's screaming was just a distance noise that barely registered in her brain.

She had no idea how long she stood there, and quite frankly she didn't care. Everything around her seemed to disappear. Everything except her mother's last words.

I wish you were never born.

"Why won't you stop crying?" Gabriella whined walking around bouncing Ariela in her arms. She still hadn't stopped crying from the fight, one hour ago. She laid the wailing infant in her bassinet and raked her hands through her hair. Nothing was working! She rocked her, bounced her, sang to her, fed her, changed her. She had had no results unless you count making her scream louder.

"Shut up!" She shouted frustrated, then she felt bad.

"I'm so sorry! Mommy didn't mean that!" she apologized picking her back up. Gabriella had almost gotten her to stop a couple of times, but then she would remember what her mother had said and tense up. She would be so close to forgetting and then it popped back up.

I wish you were never born.

Coming to a decision, Gabi put Ariela down and went to get their stuff.

Gabriella had never felt as stupid as she did now, standing in front of Troy Bolton's house with screaming Ariela in her car seat, ready to pour her heart out. Why was she here? She honestly didn't know. All that she knew was that she had to talk to someone before she went crazy from all of the thoughts and memories bouncing around in her head.

Troy jumped in surprise when he heard the doorbell ring. He wracked his brain to remember if his mom told him if anyone was coming over. Coming up with nothing, he looked through the peephole to see who the unexpected visitor was. The sight of a desperate looking teenage girl with a baby in a car seat filled his view. He swung open the door and greeted Gabriella. "Hey Gabriella"

" Hey, can I come in? "

"Um, yeah sure " He answered opening the door further and stepping out of the way. He glanced at the wailing baby in the car seat. What was her name again? Ariela?

"I'm sorry for just barging in like this, but the baby won't stop crying and everything is falling apart, and you just sort of popped in my head when I was thinking of where to go."

"No no it's okay, um what's going on?" he asked while he led her to the living room. She sat the carrier down by the sofa and bent down to get the baby out.

"Me and my mom got into this huge fight and it scared Ariela." She said desperately, motioning with her head to the baby in her arms, "She hasn't stopped crying since. Nothing that I've tried has helped and I don't know what to do." She bounced the baby in her arms and looked at him desperately for help.

Troy summoned all of his memories of babysitting from the past years. Somehow he was the only boy out of all of his cousins his age. He always ended up hanging out with the girls when his family visited them in Missouri, and somehow teenage girl cousins equaled babysitting baby cousins. Don't ask him why ,it's like some unspoken rule. Not that he minded, he actually loved it. He always wanted a big family. He was always teased that he should have been a girl....

"Um it's probably because she can sense that you're in distress. Try calming down and clear your head."

"That's the problem I can't! All I can think about is everything that we said. Here you take her I can't think straight." Gabriella told him, frustrated with herself, and practically threw the baby into his arms. She sank down into an armchair by the window and took deep breaths to try and calm down.

Troy looked away from her and looked at the baby girl in his arms. He hadn't really gotten a good look at her in the car. She looked to be about a couple of months old, and had lots of curly dark brown hair. At least for a tiny baby it was a lot. He walked around the room and gently bounced her, humming a song and shushing her. After a couple of minutes of just walking around she stopped crying and slowly fell asleep to Troy's humming. He gently laid her down and looked over to the girl sitting by the window. She was silently staring out of the window, watching all of the activities going on in the street. Troy could hear a lawn mower faintly, and some kids playing ball in the street. He couldn't help but stare at her beauty. Her long dark curls were thrown into a messy ponytail with tendrils hanging down around her face, and even as tired as she looked she was still the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

Slowly, he walked across the room to sit next to her. Everything was still and silent, no one moved. Gabriella's voice shattered the still silence that had surrounded them.

"If you asked me how many times I've been told I don't matter, I couldn't. If you asked me how many times people have told me that I'm just in the way, and that I should leave, it would be impossible. All I've ever heard is that I can't do anything right and that I won't ever be able to amount to anything. My whole life I've been trying to prove them wrong, and so far... they've never cared." she told him quietly

Only when she looked at him did Troy notice the tears streaming down her face.

"What happened?" Troy asked with true concern in his voice.

Gabriella turned back to the window and gave a small chuckle before saying "I guess you could say that my mom and I had ...a little disagreement." she stopped and swiped some of the falling tears off of her face. "Let's just say that it helped, um, confirm a lot of my suspicions. " she took the silence that followed as a sign to continue. "My mom took our argument as a chance to tell me how she really felt about me."

By the tone in her voice Troy could tell that whatever her mom thought about her wasn't very good

"What did she say?" Troy asked carefully.

He felt his eyebrows draw together in confusion as she gave another dark chuckle. "She said that she wished I had never been born, and that everything would have been better without me. Actually, according to her, I was a complete accident that was never wanted."

Troy reared back in surprise. What kind of heartless woman could ever say that to her child? His mom had said some things in her anger that had hurt his feelings, but never anything that horrible.

"Isn't that great! Heck, it's not like I never suspected something! Me and Catalina are only 10 months apart. Ten! Even as a little girl I would notice that my sister was treated way better than me. Catalina wanted something, she got it, no questions asked. I wanted something my mom gave me some excuse that didn't even make sense. It always seemed as if everything she did was way better than anything I could ever hope to accomplish. I could never do anything right in my mother's eyes." She wiped at her nose and dipped her head down as if ashamed.

Troy didn't know what to say. He was still in shock from everything Gabriella had just confessed to him. The fact that a mother could even say that to her child, well he could barely believe it. But how could he not when this girl sat before him as broken as she was.

Gabriella's quiet voice pulled Troy out of his thoughts. "I don't know if you've figured it out yet, but Ariela isn't my sister."

That caught his attention. "Hmm?"

"Ariela. She's mine. I had her a month before we moved. Strangely enough, in the midst of me trying to prove myself I somehow proved everything my mom had ever thought about me." she confessed, looking too tired to even notice that she had just let out one of her biggest secrets.

"That's not true." he said quietly, and he meant it with all of his heart.

"What?" Gabriella sat straight up in the chair and turned to look Troy straight in the face for the first time during the whole conversation. She had a look of pure surprise on her face.

"Everything that your mom thought, none of it is true. You do matter and you are the strongest person I know. You have to be to endure everything that you've told me." Troy told her sincerely

"Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me." she thanked him with new tears in her eyes. Something in her expression told Troy that he had just said the exact words that she had needed to hear all day.

Review please :):):)