Author's Note: Please review and check out Baby-M-xo's profile. She's awesome!
Everyone Has a ProblemChapter 3: Their Lethal Secret
By musiclover94 and Baby-M-xo
Recap…Her am was an almost paper white and the color was quickly spreading to the rest of her body. The room was spinning in and out of vision. Gabriella's head lolled to the side as the world went black.
RingRing. Gabriella groggily opened her eyes and squinted at her alarm clock: it was almost 3 p.m. She jumped out of bed and hastily put on a long-sleeved baby doll top, Bermudas, and espadrilles. She jogged to her car and pressed on the gas. A sharp, intense pain shot through her brain, causing her to veer slightly off-road.
"Darn. I didn't take and Motrin," she mentally slapped herself.
Gabriella once again felt the sharp pain in her head as she walked away from the school a half-hour later with an armful of homework. She sat in her red Ford Mustang convertible and flipped through it. What is all this? She thought frantically, leafing through her math sheets. On instinct, she flipped her cell phone and sent a SOS.
Hey, Sharpay!
I was sick 2day and had 2 miss skool. Can I come over and study with you?
Xo-Gabi
Gabriella rifled through the rest of her enormous amount of homework as she waited for Sharpay to text back.
"Almost…there…" Sharpay egged herself on as she applied her mascara.
I'm a leader, I don't need you'Cause I'm awesome…
"OW!" Sharpay screeched as she accidentally poked herself with the mascara brush as she jumped.
She picked her pink T-Mobile Sidekick and flipped it open. '1 New Text Message' it read. She clicked on it.
Hey, Sharpay!
I was sick 2day and had 2 miss skool. Can I come over and study with you?
Xo-Gabi
Sharpay laughed a bit as she replied.
Gabi-
You don't even have 2 ask. Of course u can come! See ya soon!!
Hugs, Sharpie :-P
DingDong.
"I'll get it!" Sharpay yelled to the empty vicinity and strutted to the door.
"Hey Sharpay!" Gabriella said tiredly, still lugging her boatload of books.
"Hey Gabi!" Sharpay smiled, "It's so nice to have someone here after school," she added, after seeing Gabriella's confused look, "My parents are at Lava Springs and Ryan's at Hat Appreciation Club, which, of course, he started," Sharpay laughed.
"Ugh, I have so much homework!" Gabriella moaned, putting down her books with a resounding thud.
"I hear you. How much math do we have to learn in a lifetime?" the blonde said, opening her math notebook with resentment.
"Ouch!" Gabriella clutched her forehead as another migraine shot through her skull. Sharpay looked worried.
"Gabriella, why weren't you at school today?" she asked sincerely.
"I told you, I was sick!" she said irritably, still rubbing her forehead.
"Oh, come on, Gabi, I know you weren't sick," Sharpay said.
"And how do you know that?" Gabriella asked, perhaps too quick than was necessary.
"Because I tried calling your cell during lunch, and I got your answering machine. You never turn your cell off, Gabibear," she frowned slightly.
Gabriella remembered with a pang of the heart that Troy had called her Gabibear. She self-concisely rubbed her left wrist and felt the deep gauge marks and winced.
Unfortunately, Sharpay noticed this and looked from Gabriella's face to her wrist, a look of dawning comprehension on her face. She lunged for her sleeve, but Gabriella was too quick and yanked it out of her reach.
Gabriella dug for something in her binder and laid her wrist haphazardly next to her. Sharpay used her quick fingers to pull up the sleeve and gasp audibly at the deep gashes engraved on it. Gabriella quickly yanked her wrist out of sight, but the damage was done.
"Gabriella, what happened to your wrist?" she asked shakily.
"My dog bit me," she said, surprised she could think of a lie so quickly.
"Gabriella, you don't have a dog," Sharpay said, now sounding really worried.
"It's nothing," she said, as if shaking it off, "let's lat back to this work," she said opening her science book and opened to a random page, but wasn't reading.
"Gabriella…did Troy break up with you?" she asked quietly. What else would prompt Gabriella Montez to do this to herself? She was practically attached at the hip to Troy.
"N-Yes," she said resignedly, not looking at Sharpay.
"Oh, I am going to murder him the next time I see him…" Sharpay said dangerously.
"That won't fix it," Gabriella said unknowingly, catching herself too late.
"Fix what?" Sharpay asked quickly.
"My broken heart," Gabriella said, shocking herself by how truthful she sounded.
Sharpay gave her a very serious look and then said, "Want something to eat?"
Gabriella was caught off guard. "Uh-sure."
Sharpay headed to the kitchen as Gabriella started on her English essay.
A delicious smell of cheese and pepperoni reached Gabriella's nostrils. Sharpay walked over with a steaming pizza in her hands.
"Mmm, that smells delicious!" Gabriella smacked her lips together.
"Only the best out of a microwave," Sharpay laughed.
"Ugh, this is gonna take me forever to work off," Gabriella said, tucking into her third piece of pizza, "but it's totally worth it!"
"Yeah, same here," Sharpay said distantly, chomping on her forth piece.
"Ugh, how can they assign us so much homework!?" Gabriella looked glumly at her looming pile of homework in front of her.
Sharpay faked a pained eye twitch. "Ah, poked myself with my mascara brush a bit ago. Got to go wash my face," she said hurriedly and ran upstairs, her stomach churning.
The scale creaked as Sharpay's abnormally small frame stepped onto it.
"98 pounds," she said to herself, looking into the mirror. Instead of seeing the skinny thespian she was, she horrifically saw herself as an obese hog digging into a Big Mac greedily.
Her mind was spinning, her thoughts all jumbled together. Without really thinking about what she was doing, she practically ripped the medicine cabinet and scrounged around for a toothbrush. She spotted a bottle of her mother's diet pills and grabbed it. She unscrewed the cap with trembling hands and popped an overflowing handful in her mouth. It only added to the uneasiness of her stomach contents. She finally located a toothbrush and roughly shoved it down her throat. Her throat gagged and she felt an upward lurching in her stomach. She quickly leaned over into the toilet bowl and emptied her stomach. She shakily got up and wiped her mouth, looking very pale and sweaty. She once again looked at herself in the mirror, seeing is she still saw the horrific vision: she did. It was smirking at her, its six chins barely visible. She panicked and once again dived for the pills. She deposited another handful into her mouth. She felt an odd shakiness as they went down, but she shook it off. She once again looked into the mirror: the Big Mac girl was no longer there…for now. She smiled a fake smile at herself in the mirror and walked downstairs.
"Hey, I'm back!" she said in ringing tones, walking down the hallway as if it were a runway.
"Hey Sharpay!" Gabriella said, only looking up briefly from her Biology sheet she was immersed in.
"Darn, I still have to write that essay for Mr. Gregory," Sharpay groaned, getting the paper from her binder and started to write. She felt a strong lurch in her stomach, as if to retech again, but cleverly disguised it as a hiccup. At the same time, Gabriella felt a strong, painful surge through her brain and a slight, burning pain in her scarred wrist. But the pair of them kept quiet, keeping their lethal secret private.
Author's Note: Had a lot of help from Baby-M-xo on this chapter, so big hugs to her. Please review!