(A/N Okay… I wanted to write more in this chapter so I apologize if it doesn't say much)
I woke up, it was the last day of summer vacation. And you could practically tell by the way it looked outside, every teenager in the relative area felt like hiding under the covers… that or they were hung over from the party the night before, that population included my brother, Ryan, he was a really heavy sleeper on days like these, but he didn't worry, my mom was more hung over than he was.
My mom… I'm not so sure if I can even call her that, but yeah. She was 33, do the math, she had me and Ryan at age 16 and was still making up for it. She was in this on-again-off-again thing with my on-again-off-again dad. When they were apart my mom would get really drunk half the time and sleep it off, the other half she would spend at a bar, trying to pick up some quick loser who seemed 'ready to commit'. He would usually break her heart and she would shrug and say 'just another lapse of reason I guess', then she would get drunk again. And when she and my dad were together… they pretended like that all never happened.
I got up and checked on Ryan, it was like a reflex ever since his first party. "Ry?" I asked. It was about noon, and Ryan was still recovering from his 2am puking fest, just a normal thing for me.
"Hm… Sharpay… my head." He squeezed his eyes closed, propped himself up and shielded himself from the sun with the other.
I came prepared with one of mom's 'smoothies' that she kept stock of in the fridge, it wasn't hard to figure out that it was some sort of hang over remedy that my mom only bothered to drink if she had to go job hunting (my dad's child care payment was enough to live of), he drank it and forced his eyes opened. "Thanks." He said, pressing his palm to his head. "That must have been some party judging by this head ache." He said.
"It's too soon for jokes, Ryan, you were way wasted." I said.
"Just leaving summer with a bang, right?" He yawned.
I shook my head. "Mom has a date with Geico tonight." I said, referring to mom's current drifter, he had a phony accent that sounded remarkably like the Gecko for the car insurance commercial.
"Geico has a name." Ryan said from under the covers. "And Matt happens to be a nice guy."
"That's what you said about Drew, and Kevin, and Dave… you even said that about that Bones guy." I said.
"I thought he was joking about being in a gang!" He said.
"Yeah, he just needed a place to hide the crack, mom was sent to jail!" I said.
"Only for like, a week!" Ryan said.
"Yeah! But still! I mean come on Ryan! Aren't you tired of this!?" I practically yelled.
"Sharpay, my head!" Ryan said loudly.
"Oh… sorry." I muttered. I was tired of this, but what was I supposed to do? Tell Ryan off about drinking while my mom chugged down a few bottles a day? That wouldn't do anything.
I decided just to chill in the backyard. I was floating on one of those inflatable rafts wearing too-big sunglasses and reading a book that was covered up by the latest issue of Cosmo, wearing a string bikini (sue me it was freakin hot out!) and trying to act like the school's stereotyped Sharpay. I wore nice clothes, had friends across the country and didn't talk much to anybody (accept for Troy… but that ended a while ago) making me a snob in the eyes of my fellow East high folk.
In truth I couldn't care less about how Ashlee Simpson 'balanced her work and romance' so I read The Unwanted: A take on real life by real teens (A/N Not a real book), basically a collection of what most people would consider 'emo poems' I liked them, they weren't rash, or hormonal or 'written during a bad PMS' as Taylor so nicely put it. They were brutally honest, and they stopped me from going psycho, so what ever.
"Still reading your emo book?" Troy asked from his yard.
I scowled at him and placed the opened emo book/magazine on my stomach, keeping my place. "No, I'm reading about how split ends almost ruined Paris Hilton's life." I said, sounded enough like something out of that magazine. "So how was Ever after? I hear that if you watch it twice, they start to hear their voices." I shot back.
"It's an acquired taste." He said, obviously defending Gabriella.
"So is provolone cheese." I said.
Troy gave me ha-ha very funny smile and climbed over the fence separating our houses. "Is your mom home?" He asked.
"She's… out." I said, which was a somewhat accurate description of the state she was in.
"Cool, where's Ryan?" He asked.
"The same place my mom is." I said, still not lying. Troy jumped into the pool, fully clothed. "What the heck are you doing?" I asked.
"Swimming." He answered plainly.
"Yeah, thanks for telling me but why?" I asked.
"Because, I want to read about Paris Hilton's split ends too." He said, pulling the magazine off of my stomach and picking up the book. "No split ends in here. Just darkness hate and agony." He said.
"If you were a girl you would know that they are the same thing." I said, grabbing my book back and putting it on the pool side.
"I highly doubt that Paris Hilton said that, she doesn't know what Walmart is." Troy smirked.
"What do you want?" I asked.
Troy crossed his arms on the raft. "What's up? You haven't been you for the past few months."
"Well if you must know my fish died a tragic death last month and I just find it hard to cope. Why do you care anyways?" I asked.
"Because Goldy and I were your only friends, now spill." He said.
"Okay… I'll tell." I said quietly, letting a single tear slip.
"Really?" Troy asked, his face getting all serious.
I nodded. "This morning…" I started crying like a maniac. "A total freak jock broke into my back yard and wouldn't leave." I said, turning off the tears, he forgot that I could cry on demand.
"That was not funny!" Troy yelled and pulled the raft from under me.
I splashed into the water. I admit, it felt good in the sticky heat, but I didn't tell him that. "You idiot!" I said.
Troy shrugged. "What's the point of having a pool if you don't swim?" He asked.
"Avoiding your neighbors." I said getting out of the pool to dry off. "What was with the whole therapist act?" I asked.
"I wanted to know. Just because we don't hang out or talk anymore doesn't mean we're not friends." He said, getting out of the pool too.
"Really? No one gave me that memo." I said.
"Come on Sharpay, what's up?" He asked.
"Okay… I'm moving to Vegas and becoming a Brittany Murphy impersonator." I said.
"Sharpay!" He complained.
"What?"
"Just tell me!" He said loudly.
"What do you just assume that there is something going on in my life?" I asked.
"Because I know you… or at least I used to." He said. "Look, can't we just hang out or something? Like we used to?"
I rolled my eyes. "If it'll stop you from asking about my 'problems'" I said, adding air quotes.
Troy smiled. "Deal." He said.
"Okay, I'll be right back." I said. I went to my room, every step I took it was like 'what are you thinking' but I wanted to go at the same time. I changed into a denim shorts, a camo cropped top and converse shoes, a typical outfit.
I came back down and Troy was reading my book. "Funny, you don't look emo." He said looking up.
"And they say stalkers don't reveal themselves to you." I said, walking over to him.
"What's the writing in the margins?" He asked.
"My thoughts, I'm pretty sure I could submit these to the book and it would take them." I said.
"You should… this is actually pretty good, the poems I mean, they really aren't that creepy, they're just hard to get if you haven't been there." He said.
"And you have?" I asked.
Troy shrugged. "Well at least I get what they're saying." He said. "I like the one you wrote… Torn between love and hate, I enter this world again, I try so hard to walk away, but I'm stuck here 'til the end." He turned to me. "What is it about?"
"Life being flipped upside down because someone you love messed up." I said.
"So… who flipped your life?" He asked.
I hit him in the arm. "No one okay? I just wanted to see if I could pull it off." I said crossing my arms.
"And you did, that's not a good sign." He said.
"Look, do you want to hang out or not?" I asked.
"Fine, but can I ask you one question first?" He asked, and pouted, I'm dead serious here, Troy Bolton pouted, is there anything more deserving to be a Kodak moment?
"One question. That's it." I said.
"Why do you hate me?" He asked.
I almost fell backwards when he asked that, I'm not joking. "I don't hate you, we just… we… look Troy, I've been around messed up relationships my entire life, I can tell when something is at its breaking point. And we were. I just stopped pretending first." I said.
Troy nodded, he wasn't mad, surprisingly. "We did kind of crash and burn didn't we?" He asked.
The word DUH comes to mind. "So… where do you want to go?" I asked.
Troy smiled. "The only place we didn't get kicked out of." He said.
"Taco Bell?" I asked.
"No… well the only other place besides Taco Bell." Troy said.
I raised an eyebrow. "Paintball?" I asked.
"Well it is the only place where they'll let us in." He said with a wink. "Don't tell me you forgot how to play did you?"
"No, and I can still kick your butt any day." I said.
"I told you there was something wrong with the paintball gun!" Troy said.
"Oh please, you lost even when we switched guns!" I said.
"That was pure luck!" Troy said.
"I hit you over ten times, and didn't mess up my nails!" I said.
"Look, are we going or not?" Troy asked sounding aggravated.
I rolled my eyes. "Fine… but I still owned you big time."
Okay… that's chapter two. I take full responsibility- I mean credit for the delightful poem that was used in this chapter… I am not disturbed, I'm just good at this stuff so don't report me for it. I'll try to update ASAP since this chapter didn't say much… it was mainly character development