This story has changed a little becasue I decided to deepen the plot to make it a bit more realistic and more different form the other 'best friends' stories. This chapter has a lot of phylosphical-style stuff in it, with a whole heap of confusingly rhetorical questions, so if you're itred i don't recommend reading it. If you haven't/don't understand what exactly is going on, I'll explain it in the next paargraph, skip that if you don't want to know/already know.

--Troy and Gabriella have been friends since they were really little, they have always just sort of been normal friends, talking and joking and stuff, but never all that close. Suddenly, they're both going throuhg that stage in your life where you start to sort of doubt everyone around you. The stress levels build up, and you really desperately need a supportive family and a close group of friends to help you through it. They have both realised that over time their friendship has been changing/disolving and are unsure of whether its changing because they want to be more than friends or disolving because they no longer have anything in common. They still are friends, but it just took an argument for them to figure out that their fights weren't really friendly anymore. They hate each one another because they love one another, make sense? hopfully, PM/review if you're still confused.--

I think after this I'll go back to pointless fluff, but I just wanted a slightly deper story. (I may delete all of the last two chapters because thye've changed my original plotline for the story and I'm not et sure on how to fix it, so please bare with the confusion for a while).

Disclaimer- Don't own HSM, do own the cool-ish quote type thing in this (wanna gues what it is?)

Gabriella walked straight past her mum and Troy's parents, now sitting in the lounge again talking over a box of chocolates, she paused just outside the room.

"Uh, mum?" her mum shrugged in answer to one of Lucy's questions and looked up at her daughter.

"Yes sweetie?"

"Can I go home now, I'm not feeling very good." Lucy and Elena both immediately looked concerned.

"Is everything okay Gabi, was it something in the your dinner?" Lucy sounded worried and she thought back over the ingredients in the meal. She hadn't thought to ask if Gabriella was allergic to anything.

"No, diienr was great. I'm just sort of tired. You know, with homework and singing and stuff… it all gets a little stressful by this stage of the year." Lucy nodded understandingly.

"Well, you two can go if you want to, I'd hate to make Gabi sick." Gabriella tried not to look annoyed, why did her lies never work?

"Oh… I don't mind just walking actually. The fresh air will be good for me. Plus, I'm sure you guys still have heaps to talk about, it's not like you can catch up all the time at school like Troy and me." She tried not to wince as Troy's name left her lips. That was a topic that she'd prefer to avoid, but considering that she was at Troy's house, avoiding talking about anything Troy-related could be difficult.

"Yes, it'd be nice if I could stay a little later, but I don't want you walking home so late. I'm so sorry Lucy, Jack, maybe we can have dinner again?" This definitely wasn't what Gabriella wanted.

"Um, mum, look. I don't mind waiting, I guess. I don't feel that bad, just stress, maybe if I just relaxed a little I'd feel better." Why did she have to feel so guilty about something so small?

"That would be great honey, are you sure?" Gabriella nodded to her mum, silently cursing herself for not insisting on leaving.

"Okay. If you want you can have a rest in Troy's room, we don't really have any other spare beds, but I'm sure he'd be fine with that, go on upstairs, if he gives you any trouble just call me." Gabriella pasted a fake smile onto her face and forced her legs to drag the rest of her back towards the torture chamber she'd just escaped from. Why did things always end out bad for her? Always. She folded her arms around her chest and tried not to shiver. A jacket really would have been a good idea.

Troy was surprised when he heard more footsteps coming back towards his room. He stood and looked out his door, even more surprised when Gabriella came into sight, her long tanned legs barely hidden under her shorts and her arms crossed defensively. He tried not to stare as she got closer, instead focussing on a point just above her left ear.

"Hey Gabs."

"Hi."

"Are you okay?" Gabriella felt her insides melt in spite of her recent decision not to get involved any further with Troy. His tone was soft and concerned, but in a different way to Lucy and Elena's. Troy seemed earnestly worried about her, and just her. Not about the school she'd miss if she was sick or the cost of the doctor. He didn't even think about what had made her sick or if he should get her allergy tested, all he cared about was her, right her and now, and how she felt. And she could know all of that from one question, maybe it wasn't quite time to give up yet.

"Yeah. I'm fine, just feeling a little sick. Your mum said I could lie down on your bed, but if you don't want me to that's cool, I can just sit on the floor or something.

"No, it's fine, come in." Troy's tone was blank and expressionless, maybe he knew that he'd revealed too much with his earlier words. Or maybe his other words hadn't meant anything and she'd just imagined all of that stuff. It would be so much easier if she could read minds.

Gabriella shuffled through the door and stood awkwardly in the middle of Troy's room. It had been a pretty long time since she'd been in there, and it showed. The walls, once decorated with photos of Troy and his friends and family were now virtually covered by what seemed like hundreds of thousands of pictures of tall guys shooting baskets or bouncing basketballs. A few posters for bands were stuck to the walls too, and Gabriella couldn't help but notice that their taste in music had nothing whatsoever in common.

"Whoa. This has changed." Completely forgetting that she was meant to be sick, Gabriella stared around the room in wonder. "It's changed a lot." Troy made no response, instead just stood where he was at the door, watching Gabriella.

"I guess. It's been like this fro a while though. I think I realised pretty quickly that it was lame to have pictures of your friends and stuff on your walls." Gabriella's expression was puzzled as she stopped looking around and instead faced him.

"So? Since when have you cared?" Troy shrugged and walked further into his room, sitting down on his wheelie chair at his desk and spinning around to face Gabriella again. Why had she come back?

"Since that same time as I found out it was lame to have photos on your walls." He raised his eyebrows at her, daring her to fight back with him. It was suddenly as if he didn't care. Why did she have to be so confusing? Why did she have to change her mind about everything? Why did she have to come back to him?

"You mean since you decided to conform with society?" Gabriella's sharp tone stung, and Troy would've loved to say he was used to it, but he still wasn't. Why was everything so different now? After all, 'now' had only started about 5 minutes ago, how could so much change in 5 minutes?

"Maybe, I've always seen it as when society decided to conform with me."

"But you were the one who had to change."

"Everyone changes Gabs. It's called growing up. It's just that some people-"

-can't change fast enough to keep up." Troy let her interrupt him, just like he knew she would. He wanted to apologise, why was he torturing her like this when he hated to see her suffer? Because it made everything more real. Seeing her unhappy made him be able to think that she wasn't happy when she saw him, she wasn't excited about being with him, their splitting friendship hadn't split because better feelings had erupted from it. There was a different reason; at least he was trying to convince himself that there was.

"I'm sorry." He didn't even look at her, but he knew that she was crying. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Why do you hate me?" She sniffed, still standing in the middle of the room.

"Because I have to." Troy finally let his eyes wander to hers, and he gripped her brown gaze tightly, unwilling to ever let go of it. He had never wanted her to know anything else more than he wanted her to know this. It was his fault. He'd changed too fast for her, and he had never thought of her on the way, and now that he'd realised how far ahead of her he was he couldn't go back.

"Why are you sorry?" Her tears had stopped, and she even wiped away the trails leading down her cheeks, now her expression was numb, void of feeling or emotion, just nothing. Maybe acceptance, maybe defeat, Troy felt another stab of hurt when he discovered that he didn't know which.

"It's all my fault. We used to be such good friends, really close. We used to laugh together and cry together and everything. But I changed too fast for you, and now it's too late for me to go back, or for you to keep up. I have my group, you have yours."

"We're running in different circles." She summarised, and he nodded slowly, still not able to pull his eyes away from hers. "How do you know that they don't touch?" Her question surprised him, and he was so taken aback by it that he blinked and broke the tie between them.

"I don't, but if they do it's too far away for me to see." Gabriella sighed and sat down on his bed.

"So what do we do? Do we dump more than ten years of friendship because of a problem that we wouldn't even have understood when we were first friends? Or do we just let our own lives decide what will happen?"

"What's the difference? Either way we end up separate."

"Not necessarily." There was silence for a while and Gabriella settled back onto Troy's bed, leaning silently against the wooden bed head, deep in thought. Troy watched her, thinking hard. What did she mean by not necessarily? Was she saying that maybe she felt something too? Maybe she was.

"Why did you walk away?" He asked, knowing that she wouldn't have to ask what he was referring to.

"I had no other choice. You didn't want me to talk to you. We're not that close anymore, I can't just make everything better now, and you can't do that for me either. The only reason why we still even talk is because people expect us to. Were you actually comfortable with me coming over to dinner tonight?" Troy looked down at his knees, was it even possible to answer that truthfully.

"No. It feels like for ages we've been drifting further and further apart. I can't believe it took us so long to realise."

"Maybe the fog on the edge of the horizon has started to drift between us." Troy nodded stiffly. Why couldn't they just talk in normal words?

"Maybe being friends isn't enough anymore." He looked back up at her and let his deep blue eyes bore into her hers. "Maybe the circles do cross, but in a different way than before. Maybe we have to be separate to realise how close we actually are." He was disappointed when her eyes didn't change. She didn't look surprised at his implied confession- she didn't even look unnerved.

"So maybe we should take that time apart now and test both theories. Mine, that we don't need each other anymore, and yours, that we need each other in a different way. See what happens."

"And if I'm right?"

"We'll see." And she let her gaze drop from his, drifting her eyelids closed, although she had no intention of sleeping.

URGH! confusing and annoying! next chapter I promise there will be less thinking and that sort of annoying stuff. and becasue poeple have been asking TROYELLA ALL THE WAY!!! i hope that answers any questions.