1As Ryan walked into the kitchen, he saw Gabriella sitting at the table with her food looking sadly down at it. Mrs. Evans was sharing out hte rest of the plates of food.
"Mom, do you want me to go tell everyone the food's ready?" Ryan asked.
"No, I'll do it. You can stay and start eating." Mrs. Evans said before walking out the kitchen. Ryan made his way over and sat next to Gabriella.
"So, um, what's up?" Ryan asked lamely.
"You already know so don't bother, Ryan." Gabriella said before raising her fork to her mouth.
"I guess we all kind of know but we told Troy off." Ryan said. Gabriella didn't seem to be getting happier by this. "He admitted that he was playing you." Ryan lied.
"He did?" Gabriella asked alarmed. "So he really did hook up with Amber last night?"
"Yeah, but he tried to say he was confused and didn't really know what he was doing. You know, the usual stuff. No one's going to talk to him so we're all behind you." Ryan said.
"You guys are great." Gabriella said with a smile. Ryan smiled back. That was her first smile of the day and Ryan got it. "But if Troy didn't want to be with me anymore then why didn't he just say so. It would've hurt less...you know?"
"Yeah," Ryan said gently taking her free hand. Gabriella didn't pull away but simply stared at their interlocked hands. Gabriella blushed a little then thought about what was going on between them. She wanted to pull her hand away because she knew that it was too soon but at the same time she wanted to see what was going on with them. Then there were approaching footsteps so they quickly stopped holding hands.
"Hey, are you feeling better, Gabby?" Taylor asked.
"Yeah, a little." She said looking over at Ryan with a slight smile.