Chapter 1

It was the day of the callbacks, nerd-fest, and the championship game, and an upset Sharpay Evans could be seen walking out to her car, if there was anyone around to see her, of course. She was alone, once again. She had just lost the only thing that really meant anything to her-the lead in the winter musicale. She had been working towards getting this part for months! Hell, she already knew all of her lines, because she feakin' wrote the play! Tears stung at her eyes. She turned around slowly when she heard someone's footsteps behind her. It was none other than Troy the-basketball-boy himself, the one who had stolen Ryan's lead as well. "What do you want, Bolton?" Sharpay snapped at him, hoping that he couldn't see the tears now running down her face.

"I just wanted to see if you were okay, but I think I got my answer." He watched as a tear rolled down her cheek and hit the cement below. Then, he looked up into her eyes and he saw hurt, and nothing else. He took a step closer as she took a step back; he knew this wouldn't be easy. "What's wrong, Sharpay?"

"What's right? That's the question you should be asking! And the answer is: nothing…"

She drifted off as she reached her pink mustang. She climbed into the driver's side and

started the car, just as Troy climbed into the passenger's side. "Troy, get out!"

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's wrong." He just sat there with a content

look on his face.

"Why do you care?! Just go back to your girlfriend, Bolton!"

"We're not dating, Sharpay! And I like it when you cal me Troy better."

"Whatever!" Sharpay looked at him and Troy saw the true hurt in her eyes. He felt really

bad bugging her like this, but he needed to know what was really wrong.

"And I do care, Sharpay! I've known you my whole life and our moms are like best

Friends, just like we used to be."

"That was a long time ago, Troy! Things just can't snap back into place after three years!" She looked at him and saw hurt in his own eyes. "Do you really care what's wrong, or are you just going to go back into school and tell everyone that Sharpay Evans' life sucks?"

"I really do care, Sharpay! I want to know, and you know I would never tell anyone that!"

"I also thought that you wouldn't ever steal my lead in the musicale!" she was yelling between sniffs.

"Is that what this is about?"

"That's only part of it, Troy! You don't know half the stuff that you think you do! For example: did you know that I haven't seen my parents since last summer, because they're either at the country club or away on trips around the world?"

"Sharpay, I'm-" he was about to apologize when she interrupted him.

"Did you know that I'm home alone almost all of the time now, because Ryan's always sleeping over at friend's house or at a party? No, you didn't Troy because you don't take the time to really see how bad my life is, you just judge me by what you see!" She was on the edge of a total breakdown. "Troy, get out of my car."

"But-"

"Please, Troy…" Sharpay was now just staring at her steering wheel, because she knew if she looked at him, she'd give in. She shut her eyes to wait until he shut the door, but moments later she felt Troy put his lips up to her cheek. She felt a tingle in her cheek while thinking: 'Oh my god, Troy just "kissed" me!'. She felt him get out of the car, so she turned her eyes to the passenger side.

"Just know that I'm always here, Sharpay." She nodded and then pulled out of the parking lot.

She drove to her house and saw Mrs. Bolton outside her own house which was just right next door to the three-times-bigger Evans' mansion. Sharpay didn't want her to see her like this, so she quickly pulled her car into the garage and shut the door. She almost never parked her car in the garage but if she didn't then she would have to go through the front door and speak to Mrs. Bolton, which she really did not want to do right now. She was sure that Troy would tell his mom everything that happened later, anyways.

As she climbed the stairs up to her room, which was the master suite since her parents were never home, she whipped around when she heard a squeak behind her, but calmed down when she figured out it was just the stairs. When she reached the double doors, she threw them both open and walked over to her stereo. Once she had turned on 'Welcome To My Life' by Simple Plan (this had become one of her favorite songs these past few weeks), she jumped on her bed and slowly began to fall asleep.

Sharpay jolted awake when she heard someone struggling at the door and she started to panic. It was 9:00 pm now and completely dark outside. On top of all that, it was completely silent, because her iPod had stopped playing, except for the struggle against the door downstairs. She quickly straightened her back against the headboard and started to scream, hoping someone would hear her, not realizing that there was a man downstairs that would probably kill her for all the stuff he could get from this house. Just then, she heard a second set of footsteps and a large crash downstairs. Everything was silent until she heard one set of footsteps climbing the stairs up to her room, so she quickly grabbed the handgun out of her nightstand. When the shadowed figure appeared in front of her doorway, without thinking, she shot.

The figure grasped his left bicep and fell to his knees. Seeing that he was vulnerable and still grasping the handgun in her left hand, she got up and walked towards him. When she reached the doorway, she switched on the lights and stared in horror. "Bolton?! What the hell? Are you trying to rob my house?!"

"No, Sharpay, I heard you scream and ran over here. The door was open so I stepped in and then I saw the guy, so I broke a vase over his head. Then, I ran up here to see if you were okay, and you kind of shot me." Sharpay kneeled down beside him and dropped the gun.

"Oh my god, Troy, I am so sorry!" She realized that she should probably call 911 so she ran to her phone.

The ambulance arrived about five minutes later in front of the house, and they rushed Troy to the hospital. While Troy and Sharpay were in the ambulance, sitting there awkwardly, Troy spoke up: "You know, I should probably call my parents."

"Oh, right." She handed him her cell phone and he saw the worried look in her eyes.

"Pay, don't worry. I'll tell them, so you won't have to."

"They'll still want to talk, Troy."

"I'll tell them to just lay off for a while, okay?"

"Thank you."

"No problem."

He finished talking to his parents just as they pulled up to the hospital. The police called Sharpay back on her phone and told her that they had taken the guy into custody and would she please come down to the station tomorrow for questioning. She agreed and hung up. Because she wasn't a blood relative, she wasn't allowed to go back with Troy, so she was forced to stay in the waiting room. It was completely dead at the moment, so she just went and layed down on the couch by the window. She didn't realize it, but she soon drifted off to sleep.

Half-an-hour later, Mr. and Mrs. Bolton came rushing into the emergency room and up to the nurse's station. "We're here to see, Troy Bolton!" Lisa said between breaths.

"Oh, Ms. Evans said that you would be coming, but we had to go ahead and take him back, so you'll have to wait here." The two adults sighed and turned around to see a petite blonde asleep on the leather couch by the window. Lisa looked at her for a moment and then turned to her husband.

"Wow, she looks so much different from when we saw her last!"

"Should we wake her up?"

"No, she's had a rough night, let's just let her sleep. We'll wake her up when we can go back to see Troy later."

"Alright." They just sat down in the two chairs opposite the couch that Sharpay was laying on. Mrs. Bolton looked at the girl who she had loved as a daughter at one point, but then, when Troy and she entered high school, the two became enemies. Lisa knew that Sharpay's parents were never home anymore, because the only cars that she ever saw in the garage were Sharpay's pink mustang and, occasionally, Ryan's blue one. Lisa and Jack had once been close with the Evans family, but they just kind of disappeared after a while. Chris and Sherri Evans, she knew, used to travel a lot, but now they were gone all of the time. They had only met Ryan a few times, but it seemed like he was Sharpay's best friend, although he was almost never home anymore either. Lisa saw Sharpay everyday as she got home from school, but had never really noticed how much she had grown or had never seen the tears in her eyes.

They sat there a while longer until the nurse they had spoken to earlier announced that Troy was in a room and they could go see him now. Lisa got up and walked over to Sharpay. "Sharpay, honey, can you wake up?" Sharpay's eyes fluttered open and she sat up on the couch.

"Is Troy okay?"

"Yes, he'll be fine. They said that we could go back and see him now."

"Oh, okay." She stood up, ran her fingers through her hair, and followed the Boltons back to Troy's room. They walked in and saw Troy laying on the bed, smiling up at them. Tears automatically started forming in Sharpay's eyes. Troy, noticing this, gave his mom and dad 'the look' that said 'leave!', so they did. When they were gone, Troy patted the spot next to him on the bed, for her to sit down. Once she was laying there beside him, with her head on his right shoulder, Troy began.

"Pay, what's wrong?"

"Troy, you're in the hospital because I shot you in the arm! What do you mean, what's wrong?"

"Pay, this wasn't your fault! I should have yelled to you before I got to the doorway so you would've calmed down. Besides, I'm going to be perfectly fine. Why do you have a handgun, anyway?"

"I got it a few months ago when I started to be home alone a lot more. I guess it just always made me feel better to know that I'd have it if anything ever happened."

Changing the subject, Troy asked: "So, where is everyone tonight?"

"Ryan is at Zeke's baking stuff for the school bake sale, I have no idea where my parents are, and thank the lord Blondie is at the Spa for a coupe of days. I would be devastated if anything happened to her."

"You have a dog, since when?"

"Since about the same time I got the gun!" they both laughed and then Sharpay's phone began to ring. She looked at the screen flashing 'Ryan' and sighed. "Hello?"

"Shar, where the hell are you?! I pulled up to the house and there were police cars everywhere and they won't tell me what's going on!"

She looked at Troy and whispered: "I'm going to walk outside real quick." Troy kissed her on the cheek, making her blush. She walked out and came face to face with Lisa and Jack who laughed when they saw how red her cheeks were. Sharpay started talking to Ryan again, not knowing that the Boltons were eavesdropping. "Ryan, I'm not going to tell you over the phone!"

"Fine, where are you?!" Sharpay tried to stay calm as she took the phone away from her ear because he was yelling so loud.

"I'm fine!! Just go back to Zeke's and bake your stupid cookies!" She screamed into the phone. She hung up and looked around. Everyone was staring at her. She sighed and walked back into the hospital room, with Lisa and Jack right on her heels. Troy looked up at her and laughed.

"You know, you can scream louder than anybody I know. I remember like a week ago, when you found out that Gabi and I," Sharpay flinched at the sound of Gabriella's name, "got callbacks, you screamed and everything stopped. It was so loud!"

"What did you expect me to do? Go congratulate you?" She sounded shocked. "You stole my lead!"

"Actually, I didn't, Gabriella did."

"I don't want to talk about her…" Sharpay buried her face in her hands and sighed. Mr. and Mrs. Bolton looked at Troy with confused looks on their faces and Troy just gave them the 'I'll tell you later' look. He turned back to Sharpay.

"Pay, we don't even know who got the leads yet. You and Ryan could've gotten them, you are better than me and Ga- her."

"Troy, just because I have more experience, a better voice, better acting skills, and better dancing skills than her, doesn't mean that I'll get the part."

"I'd say you were pretty well qualified!" Lisa jumped in. Sharpay laughed and then just said:

"Maybe it is time for a change." Sharpay looked devastated. Troy felt bad for her and cut in because he saw that his dad was about to say something and he knew, whatever it was, it wouldn't help.

"Don't say that! You have been the lead in every production possible since we were in Kindergarten! I know that this is your life and you deserve it more than anyone! Maybe we could talk to Ms. Darbus on Monday!"

"And say what, Troy?"

"Um, I don't know, I didn't get that far."

"Okay." She said as she stood up. "I better go home for a bit, so Ryan doesn't have a heart attack, but then I'll be back up here. And the only thing I have to do tomorrow is pick up Blondie and the rest of the day I'm free."

"You don't have to stay up here with me, Sharpay." She acted like she was thinking about it.

"Hmmm, let's see…hospital with Troy or home alone?" She looked up at Troy and said: "I'll see you in a little bit." She walked over, hugged him, and placed a small kiss on his cheek. She stopped at the doorway and winked at him before shutting the door and walking out. Lisa and Jack looked at Troy with their eyebrows raised.

"Honey, are you to going out or something?"

"I honestly have no clue, mom."

"Okay." She just laughed at her son's light red face.