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"What the fuck are you doing here?" I whispered harshly. Troy's eyebrows jumped at my word choice; I was surprised too. I don't use profane words. Ever- at least not in Albuquerque. I could see Troy's eyes flutter over my body. I crossed my arms. The fire of anger inside me turned yellow for insecurity.

"Wow, where has this Gabriella been all my life?" he didn't make eye contact. I waited a second but Troy didn't come back up. I huffed and rolled my eyes at what he said then.

I noticed Troy while he studied me. I feel like to say that someone was the King of High School is the worst way to address someone. Monarchy, in the United States at least, was never born. But Troy- there's no other way to address someone like him. You can't say president because there is already a Class president. And, what other ways are there to address someone who basically dictates everything that goes on at school? Even without the name, this was Troy Bolton in a corner of the world. Worse yet, he was in my corner of the world. Mine. The one place I go to get away Albuquerque except the embodiment of it just followed me back up to haunt me.

I fade out of my thoughts and realize he's still staring at my body. Flustered, I walk up and with a finger I bring his chin up for his eyes to meet mine.

"You didn't answer my question" I remind him. "I saw you last night at Sharpay's party-"I stopped, realizing that he wasn't supposed to know that I saw him. I bit my lip.

"That was some trick you pulled last night, huh?" he smirked maliciously and I hated every inch of his gorgeous face.

I squinted my eyes slightly, my eyebrows furrowing and held in a storm of anger inside me. "Just forget it, Troy" I sighed. I turned with, holding my arms to my chest again and walked towards the entrance of the Caton's backyard. I didn't want to be around Troy. Hell, I didn't want a summer around Troy; that was why I came to Morton.

"Gabriella, wait!" Troy called behind me. I didn't know what he wanted from me but if it was another demeaning comment I didn't want to hear it. I kept walking, pushing the fence gate out and leaving the party. The bustle of the party was behind me in a matter of moments as I began walking back the road to my own home.

"Come on, Gabriella!" he was running after me. I had an itch to run for it. I didn't though, making it easier for Troy to catch up to me. He was sprinting his way up to me until just ten feet behind me when he started walking. He kept his pace.

"Why are you leaving the party so early? You know, my aunt won't exactly love you for that"

"Go away, Troy" I ignored his question. It should have been quite clear why I was leaving.

"Aw, come one, baby. Won't you give me a tour of your precious little town?"

"No" I stated firmly. "And don't call me baby"

"Why not, baby?" he added.

I rolled my eyes. This was the epitome of immature conversation. I didn't say anything for a while and I could still feel Troy's presence behind me.

When I reached the gravel of my own driveway, I said to him, "Alright, will you get lost on your way home or do you need me to give you directions?". I stepped up the short staircase to the doorway of my house and turned around.

He came up in front of me and stared down at me with that smirk of his still splattered on his face. I could feel his slow exhale on my face. When I moved backward, he moved forward. I could feel the mesh of the first door pressed against my back. My heart beat rapidly in my chest as he got closer. Too close my mind warned.

"I was kinda hoping that I would get to hang out with you today, baby"

Troy leaned forward with a knowing look on his face and brushed his lips against mine. Alarms went off in my head. They seared higher as I felt his hands graze my sides. Immediately, I pushed his chest away using all my strength. He only budged away from my face.

"Get away from me you jerk" I seethed.

"What?" Troy said. "I thought-"

"What, that I wanted you to kiss me? Yeah, that's right Troy. After all these years of constant torture, that's everything I wanted from you"

"I wouldn't call it torture" he was looking away.

"Really? I'm sorry- so what do you call the bruises left on my stomach when you pushed me down school steps a week ago, into the lockers or into the ground at lunch every single day"

"I never did that" Troy defended himself.

"Well, I wouldn't call standing there and letting your friends trample me much of a heroic gesture, jackass" I thrust my fists at his chest again, sending him down another step.

"I never touched you, Ella. What are you saying?"

This time I couldn't handle it anymore. A shot of adrenalin reached my brain and instantly, I press my palms against Troy and sent him down the stairs into the gravel. I followed him down, my eyes never leaving his.

"I'm saying you don't get to kiss me" I declared. "You can't just arrive at my house after everything you did the past three years and just expect me to forgive you" I scolded Troy ridiculously. His eyes were blank and I couldn't tell if it was because of me or because of his indifference toward my discourse.

"So just leave me alone, Troy. I don't want to see your face here. I don't even want to remember you are here"

With that, I turned and marched up the stairs again. I rushed inside and stood there for two seconds, recollecting myself. I was breathless and tears stung my eyes. My feet lead me towards the left into the hallway and then turned again into my room. Once the door closed behind me, I collapsed onto my bed. A tear fell onto my cheek and I wiped it away quickly. I hated myself for crying, for being upset. I didn't want to be sad. This was summer; the only time I have the whole year when I don't have any reason for depression.

I lifted myself off the bed again and gazed through the window. I could see the shadows of all the trees around my house growing darker from the sun setting behind the home. Troy still stood in my driveway, staring off at the ground. My eyes ran over him. He was wearing a black Wildcat sweatshirt from school and a pair of jeans. Just then, Troy didn't look like any tyrant of poor high schoolers. He was different. Standing in my driveway as the sun's orange rays lit his caramel hair and stunned his eyes, Troy looked completely alone. Then, I realized; this was Troy Bolton and he was 2,000 miles away from home. He was completely alone.

And I just told him to stay that way.

Over the next few hours, I couldn't believe that I felt guilty. I actually felt bad. For an hour, I lay in my bed struggling against these emotions but my thoughts kept insisting that Troy was just trying to look for someone he knew. Obviously, he didn't really know how to approach someone in a friendlier manner than straight up kissing them on the lips. But, shouldn't I have understood he simply had no idea how to make friends with someone? Couldn't I have made an effort to be nice to him? Maybe, if at the party I was far more agreeable than I was, would it have stopped him from resorting to kissing me? Maybe, we could've actually got along and just with one conversation, my life in Albuquerque would magically transform to the better.

Of course, by the end of the hour I fell asleep, the late night, early morning and uncomfortable flight seat all coming back to me in tiredness. I had a dream of Troy in a parallel universe where he was the ridiculed boy of the school and I was the queen of Morton High School who did the same to him as he did to me. When I woke, I felt worse than when I fell into slumber. My head ached, it was dark outside and my digital clock shone 11:46 pm in bright red. Looking around, I shook off the drowsiness and lifted the blankets, that I guess my grandmother wrapped around me when she came home from the party, and walked out of my room. It was slightly chilly in the house so I grabbed a thin woolen blanket to hang of my shoulders. I placed a pot on the stove and filled it with milk, determined to make myself a cup of hot chocolate My grandparents' lack of a microwave made me have to do this manually. However, it was done quicker than I thought.

As I sat on the sofa in the living room and drank the mug full of chocolate, my mind kept coming back to the dream. It was a horrible, horrible dream. There's nothing worse than a person who, after the entire struggle they've been through, comes out and does the same thing to the person that hurt them. The ability to forgive is probably the most dignified virtue that anyone could do. And, I frowned at the fact that I couldn't do it.

I couldn't bring myself to forgive Troy for what he did, for destroying the four years of my life that were supposed to be the best. Some people won't blame me. Most people won't say it necessary to move on and not hold grudge against people. Revenge is merely human. But, there is a part of me that doesn't want to be human in that sense. I don't want to wallow myself up in self-pity. I want the strength to move on and detach myself from the past, the people of past and be open to change.

Once I downed my hot drink, I travelled back into the thick blankets of my room and opened my laptop. I did some seamless browsing for a while but ending up falling back to sleep, completely unsatisfied by what my first day in Morton brought me.

That morning I woke up around nine. The sun was hiding behind thin clouds, as it did a lot of the time in Washington, but nonetheless, it still felt like summer. Birds chirped, as cliché as it is, by my window and my grandma apparently came into my room and again to open the shades so the rays of occasional sunshine could fall in beautifully.

I lay there without any plans of the day a head of. This was probably the best thing about summer: being able to lay in bed in the morning, no matter what time, and have the whole day in front of you with endless possibilities of what could happen. I tried not to think about the previous night with Troy and my dream, that was now too hazy to recall, but those ideas were impossible to hide away. I took my time getting out of bed and getting ready. Once I was out of the bathroom, a certain dark skinned girl kept me distracted from more thoughts of Troy. Taylor and her father were back in town today.

Taylor's house was walking distance from mine. I could've taken the truck from my house to hers in order to lessen the wait time but I didn't mind being stopped by people who recognized me from the year before. Mrs Gladys came out from her sweet shop to tell me, yet again, how much I've grown. Mr Gladys came from behind her store with a greasy towel in his hand and agreed with her. And like that, plenty of other people welcomed me back to Morton once again.

Twenty minutes later, I arrived at a worn down, two-story white house. As I climbed the steps to the front door, the second step creaked and I felt like nothing has changed once again. I knocked on the door twice.

It took a while for Mr Mckessie to open his door. He was a tall elderly man who looked even more weak than I saw him last. He was diagnosed with lung cancer two years ago and the sickness has grown rapidly since then. Taylor has been taking her father to Seattle where he can get proper medicine. She and her father make the trip every two weeks and that's where she just back from.

"Gabriella" he beamed at me. "Has it really been a year already?" he said. He let me come inside and took me into his arms.

"Rob" I say, knowing if I regarded him as 'Mister', he would go on a tantrum. "How are you" I ask from sister his chest. He smelled like peppermint. It has been exactly two years since he quit smoking and ever since he has gotten in the habit of chewing on round minty disks of candy. Taylor and I agree that this addiction is definitely better than cigarettes. His breath was cool.

"Doing well, sweetheart. How's that father of yours?" he asked. The only time Noah came to Morton was when I was 11 and my mother just passed away. He came here to basically drop me off with my parents and in the three days that Noah was here, Rob and he became good friends. I wouldn't know if they were still in touch but for what it's worth, Rob Mckessie was the only person to ever call Noah my father.

I looked around for Taylor and he noticed. "She's upstairs. Taylor!" he tried to call for his daughter but he ended up coughing horribly.

I rubbed his back, "Take is easy. I'll go upstairs"

I did. I called out to my best friend while taking the steps two at a time.

"Tay?" I walked past two rooms of Taylor's sisters who were off in college. Taylor is last to graduate, next year like me. She hasn't told me about how college is going to work for her with her father being sick and all. At the moment, I think she's got a lot more on her mind.

"Gabi?" I heard from the last room on the right. This door was shorter than anyone's room and thinner because it was the door to the only restroom in the house. I heard a forceful hustle.

"Are you okay?" I asked, pressing my fingers against the door. It immediately opened.

"Hey!" Her arms were around me before I could see her face. She sniffed. Was she crying? When she pulled back, her eyes were red shot and begging me not to bring it up. I didn't. I figured if she wanted to talk about it, it would happen soon.

"How are you?" she asked and I shrugged.

"Good, I guess" I say and she nods her head back downstairs. Fifteen seconds later, we slowly walked down the steps of her porch. A strikingly blue Porsche smoothly drove past us. No one in Morton owned a car like that unless you count the occasional passer-by. That is, until I saw the driver of the car and he winked at me menacingly. I huffed.

"Who's that?" I squinted at Taylor for what she said. I bit my lip, wondering if I should tell her about Troy. But, obviously I couldn't help myself.

An hour later, we were in the woods and Troy was still the topic discussion.

"I'm sure he's not that bad" Taylor said finally. I furrowed my eyebrows and stopped her, stepping in front her body on a round, grey rock. I lifted up my shirt just to show my stomach.

"Holy!" her words were muffled up by her hands as she gaped at the purple stains on my stomach. "He did that?"

"Not exactly, not him. He's kinda like the leader though..." my voice drifted away as I looked down at those large bruises on my abdomen. I didn't say anything else as we both looked at them. For a moment, I felt like a bitch that just wanted attention with my shirt lifted up in the middle of the woods, trying to gain some sympathy from my friend.

"Gabi, shouldn't you tell someone?" she gasped.

I sighed and folded my shirt down clean. Like I haven't thought of this before. It was all in my head for about two years now; how the drama would play out. I would end up telling the vice principal of my school on, I don't know, a cold day in November. She would tell me it was going to be okay. The next thing I know is that it's all over the news about how Troy and his friends would spend the rest of their senior year in juvy. I would be victim in school and all eyes would be on me until I graduate. Then, fast forward six years in my life, I'm a lawyer and looking down at newspaper showing those four boys that ruined my life who were caught drug smuggling or something. They would remember me as the girl that ruined their lives and I would remember them as the boys that destroyed high school for me, that wasn't supposed to be that great anyway. All in all, mission redemption was a no-go.

"What's the point Tay? Aren't we just going to graduate in a year?"

"This is bullying. Violence!" she accused.

"Shh!" I hushed her, looking around dramatically as if someone was there to listen.

"But, Gabi..." she hesitated.

"Tay, stop that. I really don't want to think about school or that jackass, Troy. I just want to have my summer"

I looked at her chidingly. Taylor owed me. I gave her the tears at her house so she can ignore the fact that I've been bullied for the past three years.

But like her tears, we knew that it would come up again soon enough.