!Hey!

Your reviews were awesome. Like, way awesome. Like, totally awesome.

So, do it again.

I had always enjoyed Saturdays.

Until now.

My brain strained against my thoughts, blood overthrowing my veins, sending my conscience into overdrive. Pushups. Dammit.

"Twenty more, Troy." A voice, a distant, cloudy voice barked again.

"Dad," I grunted. Pain choked me as my face planted against the pavement of the driveway over and over again... over and over again... 17. 18. 19. "I've learned my lesson...coach."

"Uh, obviously, you haven't learned your lesson, son. Make that thirty more."

I bit my tongue, told myself cussing my dad out was wrongwrongwrong. Instead I fueled my pushups with anger. Towards Jason. Towards my dad. Towards Sharpay...

"Do another twenty, Troy."

A low, spiteful growl left my mouth, mt arms locked with lead bones and my brain spinning off of its axis. Dad suddenly crouched down next to me on the pavement. "Just what were you trying to prove yesterday, Troy? Hm?"

I knew better than to answer his questions when he was busy chewing on me. Up. Down. The number of pushups I had done had plunged deep into the realms of my mind. They would never be found again.

"What kind of example were you setting for your teammates, Troy? Hm? Were you trying to show them that you're a man, Troy? Hm?"

I pursed my lips. No way would I explain to him that my fight with Jason was over a girl.

"Well, Troy," he hissed, anger on his breath. "Real men don't use their fists. Real men use everything else. You proved to me today that you're not a man, Troy Bolton."

Up. Down. My biceps throbbed and I felt myself slowly slip out of consciousness.

Shame was a twenty pound weight plunked between my shoulder blades, making my father's pushup demands impossible to meet.

"What are you going to do when you get to high school, Troy? Hm? East High School Basketball is for men, Troy. Are you going to be man enough by then?"

A sharp, painful breath poked from my lungs with each push-up. Up. Down. So it goes.

"You know what else you proved to me today, Troy Nathaniel?..."

Troy Nathaniel. My dad whipped out the middle name, giving a new meaning to the trouble I was in.

"You're too much of a loose cannon. I think my mother and I have been giving you too many liberties. It's time for some new boundaries Troy, time for the consequences of your actions."

He roughly grabbed me by the back of the t-shirt he wouldn't let me remove in the unbearable heat and hoisted me onto my jelly-like knees. After jamming a basketball into my stomach, he called for 100 hellish lay-ups. But just as I was about to heed to my dad's next punishment, I was saved by my biggest surprise and my worst nightmare.

"Mr. Bolton!" I knew that teenage female voice and spun around to come face-to-face with Bridgett Oliver. She wore her pretty little scowl and her favorite jeans as she charged across the front lawn onto the driveway. Something tickled the back of my conscience. The thought that I was hoping for Sharpay. The thought that Sharpay would have looked prettier in those jeans.

I opened my mouth to speak, but my father beat me to it. "Sorry, Bridgett," he said. "Troy can't see you right now."

Her nostrils flared in an irritated cute way at the sound of 'Bridgett'. Sharpay would have looked much cuter. "It's an emergency... Coach," she fired back, her words slathered with their usual cattiness. She continued towards me and grabbed me by my wrist, dragging me a few feet away from my dad.

"Bridgett Oliver, now really isn't a good time," I sighed. "I'm in serious trouble after-" She hushed me by forcefully placing a finger over my lips.

"Lucky for you, I'm willing to overlook your weirdness yesterday at lunch," she explained. My stomach twisted awkwardly at the memory of dodging Bridgett Oliver's kiss. "But Troy, your Jason stunt got you banned from my dance. What are you going to do about that?"

I gave a perplexed laugh. "I don't care about the dance, Bridgett Oliver," I said. "I'm lucky I wasn't suspended." But the shadowed look my girlfriend gave me and the fire in her green eyes told me I gave the wrong answer.

"Do you not know how much this means to me, Troy?" her voice pitched as if it was watered with tears. "And you don't care at all? I've busted my ass with Sharpay Evans of all people and all you can do is laugh?"

"I mean..." Over Bridgett Oliver's shoulder, I spotted my dad shading his eyes with his hand. He looked on with aggravation and disappointment. I looked back to my girlfriend. My precious girlfriend of one million years with shining brown hair and green eyes. With a bronzed clear complexion and a feminine mouth. With an underhanded demeanor and a terrible attitude...

Was this it? Was this the moment I had been hoping would come? That time when I could finally break up with Bridgett Oliver, chop the extension cord, finally finally be free?

Bridgett Oliver stared back with her usual intensity. "I mean..." I stammered. "I... guess you could sneak me in..."

She breathed a sigh of relief and gave a radiating smile. "Thank goodness you see it my way." Her manicured hands took both sides of my sweaty face. "Six days! Everything has to be perfect. Oh, and make sure your tie matches my dress. It's emerald green. Totally flawless with this rhinestone finish..."

I winced. She was doing that thing again. Where she spoke about the things I was apathetic about. I glanced over Bridgett Oliver's shoulder once more to see Dad pacing across the grass, his hunger to devour me evident on his face. "Uh, Bridgett Oliver..." Slowly, I covered her hands with mine and removed them from my face. "I really have to get going. My dad's about ready to shoot me-"

But the nearing of her face silenced my words.

My brain, in its muddled, tick-tocking state didn't register Bridgett Oliver's mouth crushed against mine. There was a bittersweetness to her nose jammed against mine, her lips slanted in a mess of gloss and heat. My eyes bulleted over her shoulder again to see my father quickly coming towards us.

I took Bridgett Oliver by the shoulders and forcefully parted from her. "Bridgett Oliver," I said forcefully. "You really need to go. Now."

She shuffled off in a flurry of glossy brown hair and blissful giggles, obviously happy that she had gotten what she wanted. I stood in the midst of my unanswered questions and heavy Saturday heat, my father's barks becoming more distant.

I was wavered with a feeling of unsatisfaction.

This would never end.

Bridgett Oliver would always use her unspoken beauty to get what she wanted, and I would always fall for it out of fear. I realized how right my father was as he continued to shout for me. I really wasn't a man. I would never be ready for high school ball. As much as I wanted to change and indulge the curiosity I had for Sharpay Evans, I wouldn't.

"Troy!"

I whirled around to find my dad impatiently waiting for me. He twirled his whistle on his finger and angrily whipped sweat from his forehead. I sighed in defeat and began a tired jog in his direction.

"Welcome back to hell, son."

And just as he promised, it was time for the consequences of my actions.

--

The next four days desperately crawled along. Between basketball practices, at-home practices, sore muscles, Bridgett Oliver's A Midnight in Paris antics, snubbing from Jason, and questions about Sharpay from Chad, my lungs closed off and I was engulfed in my own complicated lifestyle.

With each day, Bridgett Oliver's excitement grew more dramatic. "Four days!" she would say. "Four days until my dance." Her dance. Though the school hallways rattled with talk of how exquisite Bridgett Oliver's dance was going to be, people chose to ignore the fact that it was Sharpay Evans' dance as well.

Two days before Bridgett Oliver's night to be the center of attention, I leaned against my locker between classes as classmates elbowed past one another. A conglomerate of conversations were occurring and I caught snatches of a particular one:

"...heard that they got in that fist fight over Sharpay Evans..."

"Wait, isn't Jason taking Sharpay to the dance?"

"Not anymore. They're not going because Troy got in the way..."

Truth pierced the quickly-growing rumors and my body flushed with a numbness. How had people found out? The thought of Bridgett Oliver discovering the real reason Jason and I had fought was catastrophic.

Just then, Bridgett Oliver appeared at my side with a laugh. "You won't believe what I just heard about... that." she jutted her soft chin towards Sharpay who happened to be walking down the hallway. She chose to ignore the titters of conversation that jabbed her as she sauntered towards her next class. She gunned her eyes to me for a second before she looked away and my stomach brewed with simultaneous fondness and pain.

"Look, I gotta go," I mumbled to Bridgett Oliver. Her face fell in disappointment. "Two days," I said and her face immediately brightened again.

"Don't forget, my dress is emerald green!" She shouted after me as I slipped between crowds of people.

I still hadn't found a tie to match Bridgett Oliver's dress, but it didn't seem to worry me as much as it should have.

Because ultimately, in two days, things wouldn't be as perfect as everyone hoped.

Bllaaaah.

It's been five months. And this was kindasorta really bad. Sorry it dragged along. I haven't written in ages.

So review.

Y'know, if you want.