HSM is not mine.

Chapter 5

It Was Only a Kiss

Gabriella couldn't sleep. Why had she been so…opinionated today? She knew that Ryan was supposed to know best for her, right?

Gabriella groaned and fell backwards onto her bed. What the heck was her problem? If Ryan had told her she wasn't going to the beach yesterday, it wouldn't have been a problem. So why was it a problem now?

Then it dawned on her. Troy. She hadn't met him until tonight, and she was already totally and completely intrigued with him. Aside from the fact that he was beautiful, he also had seen things and done things that she didn't even know existed before today.

Just Troy showing up in Nowhere was a huge deal. Not a single woman in Nowhere had ever met a man, or woman for that matter, from outside of their city. Now that Troy was here, Gabriella wondered why. Why couldn't the women leave? Why couldn't the women be valued for having things other than great cooking skills? Why was she still questioning this?

Gabriella needed to shut her mind up and fast! She glanced at her cell phone lying on her dresser. Ryan would take her mind off of all these questions. She shook her head. She wanted to have an intelligent conversation, one where somebody would consider her questions, rather than tell her to stop thinking.

Gabriella let out a frustrated sigh and grabbed her jacket. She was going on a walk.

It was already 11, two hours after Nowhere shut down for the night.

She decided to walk to the downtown area. Nobody would be around, and she couldn't get lost in the desert that way.

Gabriella snuck down the stairs and quietly opened up the front door. A cool breeze hit her, and she shivered some. Gabriella closed the door behind her as quietly as she had opened it and started the mile walk to the town, hoping to clear her head.

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Troy tossed and turned. He was trapped in a knotted mess of sheets. He couldn't stop thinking about how Ryan had treated Gabriella. Actually, he couldn't stop thinking of Gabriella. She was so beautiful. He could feel his heart rate speeding up.

Troy smacked himself in the head before he could continue thinking about her. She was taken. And it wasn't just a boyfriend, but a fiancé. It shouldn't really matter, anyways. Troy had just met the girl a few hours ago. He didn't even know her. For all he knew, she was an axe murderer.

Troy laughed at himself. An axe murderer? Honestly. A girl with a voice as soft and gentle as hers couldn't hurt a fly, and he didn't doubt that one bit.

Troy smacked himself in the head again. He had to stop thinking about her.

Before he knew what he was doing, Troy threw on a shirt and pants, followed by his socks and shoes and was out the door.

He glanced at his watch as he walked along the road. He had no idea where he was going, but it was only about quarter after 11. The night was still young. Although, judging by the lack of lights on in the houses and the town, everybody else had other opinions.

He did not see a single light on in any house as he walked by them. The homes looked so cold and unwelcoming in the night. Troy shivered. It really was cold. Nighttime in the desert could be deceivingly chilly.

Eventually, he ended up on the main street. He wasn't sure how he got there, and it was rather eerie in the night, pitch black, and surrounded by the endless desert.

Suddenly, Troy saw a dark figure ahead of him. "Who's there?" he asked in a quick, threatened voice.

I tiny yelp came out of the other figure that sounded like a girl. The figure froze, and Troy walked over to it.

"Gabriella?" he finally asked.

"Y-yes," came the scared reply. "Troy?"

"Yeah. What are you doing out here? Isn't it like past Nowhere's bedtime or something?"

"Yeah, but I couldn't sleep."

Troy kicked at the dirt in front of him with his toe. "Yeah, me neither," he replied.

"I'm sorry you had to see Ryan like that earlier today. It was my fault. I really shouldn't have questioned his-"

Troy cut Gabriella off with an exasperated sigh as he sat down on the curb. "Why not? You asked a perfectly non-threatening question, and he just went off on you."

Gabriella was silent. Troy wished he could clearly see Gabriella's face so he could at least get a nonverbal sense as to whether or not he had crossed the line.

Finally, he sighed and threw his hands up in the air. "I give up. I haven't even been here for six hours and I'm already wreaking havoc on this town. I have a feeling that I just shouldn't be here. I mean, Sharpay has already asked me to take her away from here and now I'm trying to tell people who I don't even know what's okay and what's not in a relationship. I just don't get this place, and I'm not sure it would be a good idea for me to stick around long enough to come to any sort of understanding."

Troy watched Gabriella's figure sit down next to him on the curb.

"Please don't leave," she said.

"Why on Earth do you want me to stay?" If anything, Gabriella was the one who should be encouraging him to leave. He was already pointing out the flaws in her relationship. How pompous and arrogant could he be?

"I don't know," Gabriella said in her beautiful gentle voice. "I just- I don't want you to leave. Not yet."

"But why?"

"Well, I know that if you stay, things won't be as simple, but I want to know about the world out there. Can I ask you a question?"

"Um…sure."

"Do you believe in evolution?"

"Huh?" Now Troy was really confused. What did evolution have to do with anything?"

"You know, like the fact that humans evolved from gorillas?"

Troy chuckled. "I don't see what this has to do with anything, but I do know that evolution within a species has been proven. I watched this video one time in science class where these birds' beaks changed length over so many generations due to the food supply or something like that."

"Yeah," Gabriella agreed. "I really do agree with evolution within the same species, but I really have trouble believing that there would be interspecies evolution."

Troy was getting into this conversation. "Well, what about the people they've discovered that really seem to by a hybrid between gorillas and humans? Isn't that a sign of evolution?"

"You have a good point, but humans and gorilla's are cousins, so we posses many similar traits. This being said, I would say that people are going to show up that strongly resemble gorillas due to our similarities in traits, rather than evolution."

"Wow, you're really smart," Troy said. He really was impressed with her knowledge and thought process.

"Thanks," Gabriella mumbled.

Troy wondered if she was blushing. Gabriella probably looked even more beautiful when she blushed. Troy took a deep breath. What was he thinking? He had to stop!

"So, why did you bring that up? I still don't understand what that has to do with anything."

"Can I talk to you about something personal?" Gabriella asked.

Troy raised his eyebrows. This should be interesting. "Sure."

"Okay. Well, I was talking to Ryan earlier today and I was just joking about how I wasn't only beautiful, but also intelligent, and Ryan just kinda laughed it off. I know he thinks I'm beautiful, but I really doubt that he thinks I'm intelligent. I mean, I graduated second in my class. Unfortunately, the person who beat me was a man. I would really love to have an intelligent conversation with Ryan every now and then. I have all of these ideas in my head, and they just get bottled up in my mind. Sometimes I just can't sleep at night because some theory is driving me crazy. I would talk to the other women, but they don't really care, and most of them didn't try very hard in school because they just assumed that they would marry a guy and have children." Gabriella took a breath. "I'm sorry. I just totally unloaded on you there."

Troy was shocked. This girl was smart, and all she was going to do with her life was to raise kids and cook and clean. It wasn't that any of those things were bad. In fact, all were quite necessary, but it seemed like there was just so much untapped potential in Gabriella.

What Troy really wanted to say was that if she were with him, he would talk about that all the time, but he knew better. "I-I don't know what to say," he finally said. "You seem like a really smart person."

"It's not even that. I just love to think and learn, and I feel like my only outlet for that was school, and now that's gone."

"Have you ever thought about college?"

Gabriella let out a sarcastic laugh. "College? Are you serious? College is for men, and nobody from Nowhere has ever gone to college. The men around here have made a more-than-decent living without a college education."

"Okay. It's true that you can make a decent living without going to college, but it is not true that college is just for men. In fact, I'm pretty sure that more women enroll in college than men do."

"Oh. I thought that just men went to college."

Troy sighed. "See, here I go making more trouble. I feel like I'm trying to make you more rebellious or something."

"Troy, no," Gabriella said, gently putting her hand on Troy's forearm. "I asked because I wanted to know, and I was wondering why I couldn't use my intelligence for more than just housekeeping for awhile now. Listen, I don't know why you're here, but I'm glad."

Troy didn't know what he was doing. Every cell in his brain was screaming for him to stop, but his face starting inching towards Gabriella's. Before he knew what was happing, his lips found hers. He froze for a second, their lips touching, and Gabriella didn't move away, so he unfroze and began molding his lips to hers, first gently and then with more fervor.

Just as quickly as the kiss began, it ended. Troy pulled back, speechless. "I," he finally managed to say, but he couldn't find the words. What had he done? Sure, it was just a kiss, but it was a kiss with someone who was getting married, and to somebody else. "I'll walk you home," he finally said.

"No," Gabriella mumbled, guilt running rampant through the two letter word. "You better not. I'll see you tomorrow." With that, she stood up from the curb and walked away.

Troy was beside himself. What the heck was that? He kissed her. He didn't even know her, and he kissed her. She was taken. Off the market. Unavailable. But she had kissed back. There was nothing one-sided about it. That didn't make it right though.

Troy's head was spinning and he was frustrated. He had left the house, hoping to find some peace so he could sleep, but instead he was more confused than ever, and that kiss was still burning on his lips.

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Gabriella walked fast. She couldn't go home yet, but she knew that if she stuck around Troy, nothing good was going to happen. He had kissed her, and she had liked it.

Ryan never kissed her like that. With him, it was always just a chaste peck on the lips, void of any feelings. That kiss with Troy, well it melted her. She was amazed at how much could be said in a kiss. She felt like Troy had totally made himself vulnerable in that kiss. He had taken a major risk.

Ryan would never make himself vulnerable. Ever. Ryan was the man in their relationship, and he wasn't going to let her forget it.

What was she even thinking? Gabriella was engaged. She was marrying the man she willingly fell in love with. When Ryan asked her to marry him, she agreed. She was in this forever, so why was she suddenly having all of these second thoughts?

Gabriella wanted so badly to shake off her feelings for Troy and her doubts with Ryan, but she didn't know how.

As she found herself making her way up the front steps of her house, she decided that the only way to deal with her emotions was to ignore them and avoid Troy.

A/N: REVIEW!!! Is there a reason I've only gotten two reviews so far? If there are things I can improve on, I would be glad to find out. Thanks :)