Wow, totally exhausted from a whole day of doing nothing (cause it's holidays) but high enough to be writing at 11:00pm cause I just watched the season finale of The Chaser... I am so jealous of those people who got to be in that final clip...
Anyway, I'm so sorry for not updating for so long but I suddenly realised that i had a social life which was/is a frightening concept for me and included an entire weekend of parties and my brother's school's carol service (okay, so the latter is hardly a social event, but whatever), so that's why i haven't updated for so long and I apologise.
Disclaimer: Whoa! apparently my 'guilt-trip' style disclaimers are totally working, so I'd better keep using them. No one is reading this terrible story so there's no one who woudl bother turnign it into a film so if I worte this load of... yuckiness... i must be thoroughy incapable opf writing anything half decent such as the High School Musical movies... hmm, that was a pretty long way to sya it, wasn't it. And by the way I was being sarcastic, I really appreciate and adore (but not obsessively) each and every one of my reviewers, so thank you all!
Gabriella lay on her bed, preferring to pretend to be sick than face her friends and mum, all of whom were concerned about her. She hadn't seen Troy for what felt like a lifetime, but was really only a couple of days. Maybe it felt like a lifetime because she spent about two thirds of her time thinking about him. And an eighth of it thinking about forgetting about him… and the last eighth thinking about what she wanted to eat, because that was important too.
Josh had called quite a few times. In fact he'd called so many times that she'd taken to ignoring the phone, no matter how much she wanted to speak to her friends, it wasn't worth risking Josh. The worst thing was that Troy kept coming by, and every single tie she heard his voice Gabriella had to bury her head under her sheets and pretend to sleep, otherwise her mum might actually have lee him talk to her… and anyone could guess what might happen then.
It had been three days since Gabriella had been at school when Taylor finally decided to go visit her. She knew that her friend was ignoring her phone calls, and everyone else's for that matter, and everyone was worried about her.
"Hey Taylor?" Troy saw her at her locker and ran over to her.
"Yeah?" she asked, turning around and pulling her packed bag out of her locker.
"Are you going to see Gabi?" He came to a halt beside her, catching his breath.
"Yes, have you seen her? Chad said that you went by yesterday." Troy rolled his eyes.
"Oh yeah right, she's uh… ignoring me."
"Why?" Troy shifted uncomfortably; maybe if he'd been talking to Chad he might've said something like, 'because I acted on my stupid impulse and kissed her last time I saw her', but because he was talking to Taylor who he barely knew, he didn't say anything, instead just shrugging it off.
"No reason, she just doesn't like me. But anyway, can I recommend something to you, and make a request?" Taylor looked mildly confused as she closed her locker and hoisted her bag over her shoulder.
"What sort of request?"
"Can I recommend that you don't bring up Josh or anything slightly related to him, or me or anything slightly related to me, and to tell me how she's going?" Taylor couldn't help but sympathise at the almost desperate tone in his voice. She nodded understandingly and turned to leave.
"Sure thing." She smiled, then thought of something and looked back at Troy, already in his basketball singlet for training after school. "But why can't you talk to her yourself? She's known you for way longer and is much more likely to talk to you than me." Troy laughed half-heartedly, but it sort of came out more like a cough because of the lack of humour that he actually felt.
"She won't talk to me anymore, I promise you." Taylor raised her eyebrows in a 'what did you do' sort of way. "We just sort of had a falling out when she came over for dinner. I guess we sort of delved a little deeper than before into our friendship and-" he cut off, his gaze falling as he suddenly lost the air of confidence that he always kept around him at school.
"What did you say?"
"I didn't say anything… much. In fact I mostly just agreed with what she said. We're sort of in different circles now, you know? Running on different tracks," Troy searched for a non-sport related term to try and explain it. "Opposite sides of the cube, that were sort of close when it was still about to be folded into a full cube, but as the make folded it we got further and further away from each other…" he broke off again, and looked back up at Taylor, his expression strangely distant. "Do you get it?" Taylor nodded.
"So just squash the cube." She suggested, shrugging as she turned away and disappeared into the crowd hurrying out of the school to get to the bus. Troy looked blankly at the place where she'd been standing a moment ago, running her words through his head. His eyebrows knitted in a puzzled expression, how could she make such a confusing situation so easy to solve? And more importantly, why hadn't Gabriella, who had the same amazingly gifted mind, thought of such an easy way to solve it? Maybe it was different when you were involved in it, or maybe it was the different analogy that did it. Or maybe, Troy though, maybe Gabriella and Taylor were less alike than he thought.
"Squash the cube…" he murmured under his breath, before turning away and jogging to the gym. His father was going to make him do extra laps if he was any later.
Gabriella looked up from her book when she heard someone knock on the front door. It couldn't be her mum because she'd gotten home half and hours ago, so that just left Troy… or Josh… despite everything she'd prefer the former; around him at leats she had no reason to feel guilty… or at least as guilty, she did feel guilty for enjoying it.
Hearing her mum open the door brought Gabriella back to her senses and she quickly dropped her book onto the floor and pushed it under the skirt of her bed. She turned off her bedside light and lay down quickly, tidying up the sheets a little so it looked like she'd actually been sleeping, not sitting up. Pulling the sheet up to her chin, then, after a moment of thought, the rest of the way over her head, she started breathing deeply as she heard light footsteps coming up the stairs.
Taylor stood at her best friend's bedroom door, maybe Troy had been warning her for a reason. Gabriella's mum said that she hadn't been talking to anyone, and was hardly ever awake when people were in her room. Taylor sighed and knocked sharply on the door, there was no reason whatsoever for Gabriella to be ignoring her… at least not according to Troy.
Her knock was greeted by silence, so Taylor knocked again, harder and sharper than before. More silence.
"Gabi?" she called through the door, pressing her ear against the cold wood in hope of hearing a response. None came. "Gabs? I'd really like to talk to you, and even if you don't let me in I can still talk." More silence, and for a moment Taylor questioned how stupid the entire situation would be if Gabriella really was asleep and she was standing there talking to a closed door. "Please Gabriella, I feel really stupid talking to a piece of wood, and I know you can hear me." If Gabriella was asleep she couldn't hear Taylor talking so she wouldn't know how much Taylor had embarrassed herself.
Rolling her eyes, Taylor opened the door and walked in, not bothering got close it behind her. She was met be Gabriella's wide, brown eyes staring at her. Or maybe she was glaring.
"It's not my fault if you're ignoring me, is it?" Taylor said, before seating herself on the side of Gabriella's bed, seeing no other place to sit.
"I'm not ignoring you." Gabriella muttered; her voice muffled by her sheets.
"No, you're not. You're ignoring everyone, but I am no one, therefore you aren't ignoring me. But Troy, for example, being a someone, is obviously part of everyone, thus it is logical for you to be ignoring him and not me. Hypothetically." She added, considering what she'd just said and how it might have been a much too hasty violation of Troy's recommendation.
"So Troy didn't send you then?" Gabriela concluded, sitting up and leaning against the bed head. Taylor shook her head quickly, maybe a bit too quickly for someone who was telling the truth, which she in fact was. "Or he did send you and told you to bring him up so that I'd think that he didn't send you." This time Taylor shook her head. For a sick person, Gabriella certainly seemed capable of doing a decent amount of high-level thinking.
"No, Troy isn't smart enough to know about reverse psychology, then he might actually realise all of those times that we use it on him. And besides, since when have Troy and I been talking?" Gabriella made a movement partway between and shrug and a nod.
"Okay, you've passed security, but that's only checkpoint one. You may begin telling me your reason for coming here, but I am totally allowed to kick you out at any point if I get uncomfortable or otherwise disturbed by what you say. Or bored." Taylor nodded again; she had never before met this stricter and more robotic side of Gabriella.
"You really don't sound sick." She pointed out, opting for the obvious before actually digging into to proper conversation.
"That's cause I'm not." Gabriella answered bluntly.
"Than what are you doing at home?"
"Avoiding Troy, and Josh, and everyone else."
"But not me?"
"You're not part of everyone, like you said before. Cause you're no one, therefore you're not someone so you can't be a part of anyone; et cetera, et cetera."
"Right, which means you're not avoiding Kelsi either?"
"I'm avoiding everyone who puts themselves in a position to be avoided, neither you nor Kelsi has done that, so I have no desire to avoid either of you. In fact your company is actually much appreciated.
"Thank you, it must be hard to find company when you're avoiding everyone."
"It is. Now did you actually have an alternate motive for coming here, or was it just to discuss methods of avoiding certain persons or groups of people?" Taylor licked her lips, it didn't exactly seem like the perfect time to bring up Troy, but what other choice did she have?
"I was actually wondering what's going on with you and Troy?" She paused, scanning Gabriella's face for any signs of an outburst, and was surprised when she saw a sudden barrier grow between them "He's been sort of antisocial –for him at least- and, you know, you haven't been at school and I sort of-"
"Put two and two together?" Gabriella asked in a monotone, her gaze fixed on her lap.
"Not quite. I haven't actually figured out what happened."
"Do you really want to know?" Taylor nodded slowly, why did Gabriella have to make it seem so big. "Are you sure you can handle the truth." She nodded again. "The full and entire truth with no sugar-coating or pretty little laces to make it seem more innocent and honest and loyal and friendly?" Taylor gasped.
"You guys did it!"
"Did what?" Gabriella asked, almost sure that Taylor knew what had happened. Taylor glanced at Gabriella's open door and lowered her voice.
"You and Troy… you did it?"
"Which 'it'?" Gabriella was much too confused, and despite not being sick did have a minor headache as she thought of all the meanings of 'it' possible.
"You and Troy had sex!" Taylor's voice was barely audible, but it echoed through Gabriella's mind like billions of shards of ice cutting into her skull.
"WHAT!? No we didn't! How could you even think that Taylor?" Taylor was a little frightened at Gabriella's sudden outburst, and jumped off the bed, taking a few steps away before answering.
"Well… cause… a lot of friends… do it… and I just thought that maybe you and Troy… I mean you are best friends!" She stammered, trying to figure out the best way to explain herself.
"We're not best friends Tay, me and Troy. We hardly have anything in common anymore, I don't think I've really spoken to him for years." Gabriella settled back into her bed, holding back tears that she couldn't quite explain.
"But what about when you had dinner at his place on Friday, Troy said that you guys talked heap then… or at least that you talked heaps." Gabriella's expression changed from sorrow to anger.
"How do you know that?" Taylor's eyes widened as she realised what she'd said.
"I'm so sorry Gabriella, Troy just talked to me before I left school, I swear he didn't send me here."
"Yeah right Taylor. Can you leave, now, and never come back? In fact, forget the question. Get lost!" Taylor turned and left, not even thinking about turning back or saying anything. Why hadn't she listened to Troy's advice? Why had she brought him up at all to begin with? She nodded to Gabriella's mum as she passed the living room, and as the two's eyes met they both knew that Gabriella was under neither of their control.
Gabriella brushed away the tears dripping down her cheeks, but for every single drop she flicked away another two seemed to appear. The worst part was she wasn't even sure why she was crying; there were so many things for her to be upset about right now.
She'd lost her mum, her boyfriends and her best friend all because of Troy's stupid little impulsive kiss. Why couldn't he have just left them as friends? Why did he need to complicate her life even more than it already was?
And then there was Taylor, how could she have thought that Gabriella and Troy were best friends? She'd been Gabriella's best friend for more than a year now, didn't she even realise? Gabriella's hand stopped abruptly, millimetres away from her cheek. Everyone in her life seemed to have the wrong ideas. Troy thought that they were more than friends, Taylor thought that they were less than friends and Josh thought that they were in love, why was everything so messed up?
Because of Troy. Right at that moment, Gabriella Montez felt as if she truly hated Troy Bolton; at least until her phone vibrated a new message appeared on the screen. In fact two did, and they were both identical, just from tow vastly different people. And both held the same message, 'sorry'. How could two people so different be so similar, Gabriella thought dully. Then suddenly the answer dawned upon her. They were made that way because of her.
So now Gabriella has no one left to comfort her, or does she? find out soon (i hope)
by the way, I know that I never actually said anythig about her mum not really talking to her eithe,r but I thoguth i sort of implied it early in the chapter, if not... oh well, deal with it.
