Chapter 21

In Another Place

Sometime during the night, Troy's father suggested to Troy that he get some sleep. Troy didn't have the strength to object.

When he woke up the next morning, his mother was on the phone, and his dad was pacing around the living room.

"He's gone, isn't he?" Troy asked, not wanting to hear answer.

Troy's dad looked at him. He looked tired. Dark circles were under his eyes. He nodded.

Troy felt awful.

He looked at the clock. It was only seven in the morning, but he noticed Sharpay in the kitchen working on breakfast.

He ate his silently with his mom, dad, and Sharpay.

"Thanks," he mumbled to Sharpay. He really wasn't even sure what he had just eaten. "I think I'm gonna go for a little while."

His mother sighed, but nodded.

Troy grabbed his keys off of the kitchen counter and walked over to his car.

As he got into the driver's side, he saw Sharpay joining him on the passenger's side.

"What are you doing?" Troy asked.

"I promise I won't talk," Sharpay replied. "I just think you need somebody right now."

Troy didn't feel like objecting. He just started the engine, backed out of the driveway, and made a silent 30 minute trip to Long Beach.

He parked the car in the same parking lot that he and Sharpay had run into Gabriella and Ryan at several weeks ago.

Troy walked over the boardwalk and onto the beach. He kept on walking until he reached the rocks that he and Sharpay had seen the sunset from just a few weeks ago.

There weren't many people around, since it was so early in the morning, and he found the most secluded spot that he could.

As he stared over the ocean, he felt Sharpay join him, but he didn't even look at her.

He felt her put her head on his shoulder. It felt good. Troy realized that he was glad Sharpay was there.

"I'm sorry about your loss," she whispered. "Just consider yourself lucky that you had him for your entire life."

Troy understood what she meant. Sharpay never had a grandpa like his.

"Sometimes I just wonder if I wasted it. There were so many more things that we could have done together."

"Troy, I can't give you all of the answers that you want to hear, but I can promise you that I'm here when you need me."

Troy took in a shaky breath. "Thanks," he said.

Troy could feel the tears he had been holding in since the night before threatening to fall. He didn't care anymore. He couldn't. So he let them fall. At first they felt cold and unfeeling, but as the stream running down his face intensified, he could feel them heating up until his tears felt so hot that it hurt to cry.

After Troy had cried for a good while, he and Sharpay got back into his car and headed back to his grandfather's house.

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Sharpay truly felt a loss when Troy's grandpa died. When her grandpa died.

Sharpay remembered when he first introduced himself to her. "You can call me grandpa," he had said.

She took the week off of work and found herself tidying up Troy's grandpa's house and providing Troy and his parents with meals.

Clara, the waitress who had helped train her, even came over with a casserole from Granata's.

She accepted it graciously and put it on the dining room table with the rest of the ones that she had received.

The next few days were a blur as funeral arrangements were made. Sharpay, Troy, and his parents made it through the funeral and the burial without incident.

About a week after Troy's grandpa died, Troy's mom got a call from the lawyer's office that had dealt with his will.

She came into the living room, where Sharpay and Troy were playing a game of cards on her last day off.

"That was your grandpa's lawyer," she said. "He said that he wants both of you there."

Sharpay looked at Troy's mom skeptically. "He wants me there?"

"Yes. I have no idea why, but my dad was pretty unpredictable."

Sharpay and Troy got their shoes on and joined his parents for the short ride over to the lawyer's office.

After the lawyer introduced himself as Greg Flatt and shook everybody's hand, he had them all sit down in a conference room with a big wooden table in the middle and impressive black leather chairs surrounding it.

"Mr. Morris has left a will, which he wants the four of you to hear."

Mr. Flatt went on to explain what was being left to whom. It turned out that he had a good bit of money that was being given mostly to Troy's parents.

"And the house of Mr. Morris goes to Mr. and Mrs. Bolton, under the stipulation that they allow a Miss Sharpay Evans to live there, free of expenses until one year after she receives her diploma. Also, once Miss Evans receives her diploma, Mr. Morris has set up an account with $10,000 in it for you to start your life."

Sharpay looked around at the Boltons. They all looked shocked.

"Wow," Mr. Bolton finally managed. "You must have made quite an impression on the man."

"He was like the grandfather I never had," Sharpay replied, shyly.

"Well, we would be glad to let you stay in his place until you graduate, as long as you don't trash it or anything."

"I won't," Sharpay said. "Thank you so much."

"And one final thing," Mr. Flatt said. "Troy is to be given all the money that will be necessary to make it through his first year of college. This includes room, board, books, and an allowance of $1000 per semester of spending money."

Troy nodded. "I need to call Coach Richards back, then," he said.

Sharpay noticed that it was the happiest he had looked all week.

In fact, Sharpay was the happiest she had felt all week. Troy's grandpa had just made the next four years of her life reality. She wouldn't have to worry about just barely being able to make ends meet, which meant that she would have more time to focus on school.

Sharpay wasn't sure how to react to the news of Troy's grandpa's will. Part of her wanted to skip and jump and soak in the financial freedom that he had given her, but part of her heart still hurt when she thought about the loss her and Troy had experienced.

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Later that day, Troy found Sharpay sitting on the back patio of his grandfather's house at the plastic white table.

"It's funny to think that my grandpa had a couple million dollars hidden away, but he still decided to settle for a plastic table," he said joining her.

Sharpay smiled. "And yet so fitting," she added.

"Yeah. My grandpa was a pretty special guy," Troy replied.

"Do you miss him?" Sharpay asked.

Troy nodded. "It seems so unfair that such a wonderful person had to die."

"Yeah."

Troy and Sharpay were silent for a while.

"I called Coach Richards," Troy said, breaking the silence. "I'm all set up to be a Red Hawk next semester."

"I sent in my deposit for USC and got all of my financial aid worked out," Sharpay replied.

"I'm going to miss this," Troy said.

"Miss what?"

"I dunno. Everything, I guess. I'm gonna miss having fresh squeezed orange juice for breakfast every morning and playing cards when I'm bored. I'm really gonna miss hanging out with you too."

Sharpay nodded. "Yeah. We've been livin' the life for the past month, but reality calls, I suppose."

Troy agreed. "You know what's funny, though? I feel like I'm gonna be hit with reality once I have to leave, but really this entire month has been a steady stream of reality checks, starting with the whole bribe thing, and then everything with me and Gabriella, and having to apologize to her and Ryan and forgive my parents and then grandpa dying. How can you get more real than that?"

"You know, that's a good point."

"Sharpay?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for everything. You've really come through when I needed you. You're a great friend."

Sharpay smiled and blushed.

"It's the least I can do. Thanks to you, I'm getting to try the life I could have only dreamed of in Nowhere."

The two enjoyed a comfortable silence, reflecting on everything that had gone right and wrong in the past month.

A/N: Wow. This story is really coming to a close. All I have left is the epilogue. Also, this is your friendly reminder to keep on reviewing. I was getting five a chapter and that's been tapering off, so let's finish strong. I'll post the epilogue once I have five reviews.