Author's Note: Please review!
High School Musical is Wicked!
Chapter 8: This Is Real
By musiclover94
Last Chapter…
As they were hoisting him into the ambulance, Gabriella asked if she could come in it with Ryan. They said yes with kind smiles plastered on their faces. Gabriella took a seat next to Ryan, who still lay still. She held his hand the whole ride, hoping against hope that it would sustain him, letting him know that there was someone there for him.
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The rain was pouring by the time they got to the hospital. The stretcher's wheels slid on the wet pavement as the medics, Ryan's unconscious, near-death form, and Gabriella made their way to the back entrance to the Albuquerque Hospital. Her silent tears mixed in with the rain falling from the heavens, the heavens that Ryan might be in right now for all they knew.
"Where are you going?" Gabriella asked one of the doctors. They were inside the building at last and after a couple minutes hovering over Ryan, had rushed him to the ER.
"He has massive internal bleeding, Ms. Montez," the doctor informed her and headed off after the others.
Gabriella sank weakly into a chair, tears flowing out of her puffy eyes into her shaking hands covering them. But then she thought of something: Would Ryan have wanted her to be doing this, crying over his state of being? Or would he have wanted her to be doing something about it? She thought the latter. She took a deep, quaking breath and stepped outside the hospital and dialed the police's number.
"Hello, this is the Albuquerque Police Department. What crime are you reporting?" a man's voice said.
Gabriella told him everything that had happened. He paused for a moment, and then said, "You don't seem fond of this Troy Bolton, do you?"
Gabriella almost laughed at this absurd comment, despite the circumstances on which the call was dialed. "I hate him."
"Do you have any evidence that this attack was real? That this wasn't just a scam to get Mr. Bolton in jail?" he asked calmly.
"The victim told me himself!" Gabriella exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air with exasperation.
"And this victim is your new boyfriend, I believe?"
Gabriella said, "Yes, he is," even though it was a mostly false statement. She reasoned that saying 'kind of' would sound too teenager-ish and the authorities wouldn't take her seriously.
"So, naturally, he would want to get the ex out of the way, like, perhaps in jail?"
Gabriella couldn't believe this. "This isn't some joke, or scheme, or whatever it is that you think it is! This is real!"
The officer gave a forced, patient sigh and said "How about you come down to the station tomorrow and we can talk face-to-face."
"Will it help my case?" she asked suspiciously.
"Maybe," he said mysteriously.
"Fine," she said and hung up. Gabriella felt like crying again. Why did no one believe her?
She pushed open the hospital doors again dejectedly. She resumed her post in her chair by the ER wing, staring at the off-white tile floor for what seemed like days, but were probably just minutes ticking into hours. She thought of Ryan, unconscious or dead in an unfamiliar hospital room surrounded by strangers.
She longed to be near him again, but he was in surgery. A tear fell as she said this, despite her best efforts to keep the waterworks at bay. She kept on repeating the words Ryan, pull through, please pull through in her head, hoping it would help him survive if he was still on Earth.
A grave-looking doctor Gabriella didn't know stepped out of the hallway leading to where the brunette was. She looked very young, maybe an intern, assigned to do the dirty work.
"Are you Ms. Montez?" she asked her timidly.
"Yes, I am," Gabriella replied, picking her head up out of her tear-blotched hands.
"I'm here to inform you that Ryan Evans is…
Author's Note: Is what? Find out in the next chapter. Please review!