Author's Note: Please review and check out Baby-M-xo's profile, she helped me a lot with this chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Everyone Has a Problem
Chapter 6: Heartbeat
By musiclover94 and Baby-M-xo
Last Chapter…
One, two, three, four times she sliced her forearm open, more blood draining from her. Finally, on the last stroke, more blood than ever before snaked down her arm; she had hit a vein. She saw her usually tan skin turn paler, the blood standing out like Kool-Aid stains on a white carpet. She felt a lump in her stomach, as if something was residing there. And then, with a last spooky laugh, she collapsed.
The bell rang, unnoticed by the still lifeless Gabriella crumpled in the bathroom. Sharpay bolted out of the Algebra room into the hallway just beginning to hold some students. She looked around, feeling slightly lightheaded by the lack of food in her system. She shook off the feeling and continued searching for Gabriella through the growing mass of students. When she could not locate her after several moments combing through the hallway with her eagle eyes, the dull realization hit her like a freight train. She ran full speed to the bathroom nearest to the nearby French room. She opened the door, which collided with the brick wall behind it with a loud and echoing bang. The doorknob left a small dent in the brick. The bathroom was completely silent, except for the muffled voices of their peers beyond the door.
"Gabriella?" she asked shakily. No reply.
Sharpay looked around the vicinity wildly, as if she was going to pop out at any moment. "Gabriella, I know you're in here." Still silence.
Sharpay sped to the doors. Each and every door was closed, but unlocked and empty. Finally, she got to the last stall. It was locked, but the stall handles were notorious for being easy to open. This stall was no exception. With a little wiggling, the stall opened with ease.
Gabriella Montez was lying spread-eagled on the scuffed bathroom tiles. Her eyes were closed and her thick, dark, curly hair was framing her face like a kind of black halo. There was a sharp, shiny object beside her, a majority of it covered in a thick, scarlet good. A part of her loose sleeve was up, revealing her mutilated wrist.
"Gabi…no, please don't be…" She couldn't bring herself to say 'dead'. She pulled her friend into a sitting position. She did not stir. The troubled blonde grabbed the uncut arm and checked for a pulse. Gabriella's heart was weakly beating, at least a full minute in between each thump.
"Gabriella, stay with me," Sharpay pleaded, shaking her slightly, but to no avail.
"We're getting you to a hospital." She picked her up awkwardly and slung her limp form over her frail shoulder. She one-handedly pushed open the door and stumbled into the crowded hallway.
It was as if time had had stopped. The whole hallway, at least three-fourths of the student body was gaping at Gabriella, then at Sharpay. She wished she had thought the plan of getting Gabriella out of East High more carefully, but there was no turning back now, time was slipping away for Gabriella. Sharpay could hear Gabriella's heart against her back, the heartbeats getting slower, growing fainter and fainter.
Without a word to anyone, she weaved in and out of the shocked people and headed down the stairs, almost falling with the combined weights, most of it Gabriella's. She distantly wandered why she was heavier these days…
She was one floor above the ground floor and the doors leading outside the school. She was running as fast as she could when a hand caught her shoulder, pulling her backwards. She turned around and saw a white-faced Troy looked at her, willing himself not to look at Gabriella, who was still unmoving.
"What happened?" he asked shakily, frozen where he stood. As she looked at him, she noticed Ryan, Chad, Jason, Kelsi, and Martha gaping at them like the students over their heads. Her gaze flickered from them to Troy, as she said quickly, "I can't explain now, there's not much time."
She stumbled to the stairs directly behind her shocked friends. No one stopped her, apparently too surprised to move.
She was almost to the main exit when another hand stopped her. She turned around, expecting Troy or another one of her friends, but instead faced a very confused Principal Matsui. (A/N: I Think that's what it is. Please correct me if it's not.)
"Ms. Evans, what is going on?" he asked.
"I'm sorry, but I can't explain now. There's not much time."
She left him very shocked and confused and ran to the doors and finally pushed them open without any interference. She directed herself to the hospital situated, ironically, right across the street from the school, stumbling more by her weak body and Gabriella's heartbeat growing almost nonexistent.
The receptionist was almost as shocked as the students of East High were.
"I need to see doctors. Fast." She said shortly, Gabriella still slung like a burlap sack across her shoulder.
The lady said something very fast into a walkie-talkie. "In Room 4, miss."
"Thanks," she breathed. Gabriella's weight was really coming down hard. Was she preg…? That would be the only explanation.
Sharpay opened the door and four frantic doctors swarmed on her and Gabriella like bees on honey. Sharpay gratefully lowered Gabriella's body onto a hospital bed. She rubbed her sore shoulder and backed away. As she stood there, the full force of the situation hit her like a slap in the face. A doctor ushered her out of the room a couple minutes later. She found herself in a brightly lit waiting room. It was almost empty except for a small, mousy older woman, who was blowing her nose on an elaborate handkerchief. Sharpay sat in stunned silence for what seemed like days. A small ding by the front door drew her eyes to the front of the room. Troy was walking in, looking very frazzled and ghostlike.
"How is she?" he asked, stumbling over to Sharpay and taking a seat.
"I have no idea. They haven't let me in yet."
As if on command, the same doctor who had taken Sharpay out of the room came into the waiting room.
"You can come in now, Ms. Evans," she said. She made no objection when Troy followed the blonde.
They entered the room fearfully. Gabriella was lying on the bleached sheets, her eyes shut. There were half a dozen IV needles sticking out of her.
"What happened?" Troy asked, too in chock to say any more.
"I found Gabriella unconscious in the bathroom by the French room and brought her here," she said simply.
"Sharpay, people just don't fall unconscious because of nothing. What caused it?" He looked deep into her eyes.
Sharpay took a deep breath and told him the full story, all the suspicions she had had, everything.
Troy didn't speak for several minutes afterward, but then said quickly, as if it was causing him great pain to say it, "This is all my fault."
"What?" she said, stunned by this proposition.
"If I hadn't broken up with her, she wouldn't be like this."
"I don't think you caused this, Troy. At least not directly. It must have been something she heard about in French class, because I found her there right after she had the class, during passing period." Sharpay said slowly.
Troy didn't respond, but just held Gabriella's pale hand. Her sleeve moved slightly with the movement of Gabriella's hand and exposed the fresh wounds on his ex-girlfriend's wrist. He looked shocked for a moment and then her arm went even more limp than before and the heart machine she was attached to went flat line, producing an ominous beep.
Sharpay leaped to the door, yanked it open, stuck her head out and yelled, "DOCTOR!" to the once again stunned vicinity.
Author's Note: Be prepared for many more plot twists, readers. Please review and check out Baby-M-xo's stories. And ideas are always welcome. There will be more about Sharpay's struggle in future chapters, maybe not the next one, but probably the one after that.