A/N: I'm trying to get back into the groove of things updating-wise. I feel guilty that I haven't been cranking these out as quickly as I used to, but school and such is just chaos and I've been trying to balance it all.

So like I said, I hope this chapter picks up on action again. I know this story has been having lots of filler chapters for the past few chapters, and I apologize, but there were issues I needed to cover before moving on. But now I can move on. :D So we will be having a lot more fun now.

Disclaimer: I do not own Disney or High School Musical or any of these characters except mine.

Gabriella knew it was bad the second she was ushered into the living room that Tuesday night; so graciously and so innocently that it made her throat feel sore. The forged expression pasted to her mother's face was disgustingly syrupy, her face seeming to be temporarily paralyzed, her nearly black eyes dreadfully nervous as they stared straight ahead. Preppy stood somewhat stiffly at her side, his lofty back rigid. Eric, Victoria, and James were all obediently seated on the plush sofas of the room, looking uneasy and anxious. Gabriella was remotely surprised to see Elizabeth present, looking tremendously bored and restless indeed, slouching jadedly in a vomit-yellow armchair in one corner. Gabriella timidly occupied a silk, spongy sofa, tautly firm and refusing to allow her mind to venture through the possibilities of why the meeting had been called. Victoria had filled the space to Gabriella's side, fearfully shrunk back against the expensive exterior of the couch, as if trying to become one with it and simply evaporate.

"Well…" Maria chimed merrily from nowhere, her aging face looking painfully plastic as she spoke so awkwardly. She strained herself to keep a secure grip of her false mask. "We wanted to gather you all here today to inform you—or announce to you that…about…how we're—"

"—Just spit it out already," Elizabeth interrupted insolently in her droning, uninterested voice, her clawing green eyes squeezing threateningly at the fidgeting speaker. The mother ignored Elizabeth's brusque tone, pausing dramatically before proceeding with the principal publication.

Maria gently placed her hand on her abdomen. "Well…we're pregnant."

All four minors merely sat there, expressionless and feeling wildly surreal. They sat in uncomfortable silence for what Gabriella logically guessed to be a minute or so, blank and unsure of what to think. The two wordless parents were still at their unmoving perch, baffled; worrying and wondering what they had done wrong and how they had received such a different reply from what they'd expected.

James boldly reacted first, shrugging his shoulders, shooting up to a standing position, courteously congratulating them, politely shaking the couple's hands, and then finally resorting to his room. Eric took his brother's intrepid example into account, and repeated the boy's procedure. Victoria then stood, apprehensively sucking in a deep breath before mutely acknowledging the couple.

Gabriella pessimistically glanced over at her mother and Phillip, and then back at Elizabeth, whom was staring off aimlessly into space with a ghostly vacant expression, her peculiar emerald eyes empty but her mind evidently not, thoughts cluttered and mystified and trampling through her head a mile a minute. Gabriella's bottom lip quivered perilously. She felt stuck. She had no idea how she had been able to endure the last few minutes without breaking down, for she knew the moment she was alone she would. She didn't want to congratulate the two traitors, but of course she had to. Gabriella knew Elizabeth was not going to take the chance, and so the senior hesitantly stood, copied James's and Eric's model the best she could without completely cracking, and then scurried up to her room. Immediately, she collapsed onto the floor and dissolved into acidic tears.

She had known this would happen.

In the pit of her aching stomach, she seemed to have always known it would. From the day her mother had revealed their hurried engagement, she knew that in conclusion, the story would finish with a baby. Of course. She was getting replaced. Now her mother could finally have the ideal child she had always dreamed for. And now it was permanent. Maria and Phillip were probably going to sacrifice everything they had for their stupid child and they would make sure that there marriage was everlasting. It sickened Gabriella, for she knew now that there was no way out and everything was horrifically final. Her mother's pregnancy seemed to make everything real; everything official. Her father really had left her mother. Her parents really had divorced. Her mother really was getting remarried. And she really was fucked up.

She heard the front door violently slam, and it was no mystery to who it had been. Somehow, this made her feel more alone.

"Troy?" she bawled deliriouslyinto the mouthpiece of her phone, salty tears streaming down her reddened face in jagged rivers and pooling in her mouth. Gobs of mucus oozed slowly out of her nose and saliva trickled down her chin, dripping onto her clothes and seeping into the material as she savagely wept. "Tr-Troy? I r-really need y-you right-t now…please—please call m-me back…as s-soon-n as you can-n…"

Earth-shattering sobs echoed through the room, erupting uncontrollably from the depths of her throat like vile vomit, her body out of her management. Her white hands shaking dangerously, she switched off her cell phone, tossing it onto her desk as carelessly as if it were a dirty sock. Her chin trembled as oxygen was vacuumed from her, her chest expanding before bursting with more self-pitying cries. She stayed in an unyielding, balled position, hugging her knees to her chest as if they were her shield, motionless and exhausted as she continued to cry hysterically. She thanked God that it was not very long until Troy aggressively thrust open the door, his gorgeous face drenched in utter horror at the wrecked state of his girlfriend.

"Come here, baby," he had coaxed her soothingly, carefully gathering her limp limbs in his sturdy arms and letting her lose it completely. He felt much more than sympathetic towards her devastation; he experienced every fierce ripple of emotion, every brutal wave of outbreak. His heart cracked and buried itself under her sadness. He felt like he was in her place at that moment. More than willingly, he had held her and rubbed her back and brought her tissues. He was her support. They had lain down on her bed together, despondently glum and silent, Troy comforting her until she drifted off to a considerately calm slumber. She awoke to a start some short time later to find him absent, and then began to sob maniacally again in the dark, hollow loneliness of her room. Even though she knew he had escaped because he would most likely get in trouble with his father for not being home, it didn't halt her from crying or feeling terribly miserable.

Besides the dim moon, there was no real illumination pouring through the windows, which had been wrenched open some time earlier. The bitter wind whirled and howled, teetering on her windowsill and tugging on her lavender window curtains as it did so. She felt so alone. She felt like she was drowning in a sea of her loneliness, engulfing her so overwhelmingly that she couldn't breathe. She felt choked, hopeless, forgotten. Her irregular breathing fell short and raspy, her skin texture feeling as dry and rough as sandpaper. She was soaked with trouble, absorbing problems like a sponge, sitting on top of them because she just didn't want them to be true, no matter how much she knew they were. Courtesy of the faraway moon, there were taunting shadows of her lifeless self looming on her walls, perturbing her even more. She couldn't recognize herself, and eternally petrified was undoubtedly an understatement. When would this torment end?

"I can't even believe it," an arrogant, domineering voice suddenly sneered callously at the door. "I can't believe you're crying. Over a fucking baby."

Gabriella tentatively blinked up to see the small, sinister sophomore, her trademark eyes staggeringly dark. The emotionless menace thrashing inside her seemed to be especially thriving at that particular moment, the corners of her pink mouth murdering themselves not to turn up in a mocking smirk.

"Excuse me—" Gabriella stammered defenselessly, any existing confidence remaining in her face crashing down like an avalanche.

"—You always escape to Troy because you can't deal with yourself. Because you're so unstable and weak, and because you can't stand up for yourself. You believe you need help, even for things you can do yourself, because you're insecure. Well learn. Learn to protect yourself. Learn to live on your own. Because that's how it is in real life, and you're only being deceived, misdirected, confused this way. Because one day you will wake up and little Troysie will be gone, and you'll be completely lost. And you'll wish you had listened to me," she snarled coldly, her voice insistently harsh and vicious. Her pale red-tinged blonde hair glimmered from the light in the hallway behind her, her freckle-speckled face grimly shadowed in the murkiness of the evening.

Gabriella's innocent features softened helplessly as she seemed to melt of muscle in Elizabeth's unarming presence. "I don't always run to him," Gabriella blubbered feebly, although she guiltily knew that it was very well true. Elizabeth allowed herself to snigger, ruthlessly cruel.

"You have to be your own person, Gabriella. You have to experiment, understand what you are and what you are not capable of. You need to test your limits, know yourself inside and out. And when you do, that's when things become easier," Elizabeth informed firmly, control spinning in the palms of her hands.

"Do you know yourself that way?" Gabriella rebutted with a faint hint of renewed strength.

"Listen," Elizabeth stated forcefully, taking a defiant step forward. She tactically angled her face down to Gabriella's, who was still crumpled pathetically on the floor, making Gabriella feel smaller and more powerless than ever. Elizabeth's infamous gem-colored eyes hardened with unshakable ferocity as she spoke. "Take it from me. I might be a sophomore, but I know things. Like how Victoria is failing nearly every single one of her classes and how she's probably going to be living at summer school until college, if she even gets into one. Like how James will most likely be a successful, pioneering scientist. Like how Eric and none of the boys on the varsity basketball team are going to play basketball professionally. Like how I know my dad and your mom are not going to end up well and how that baby is going to be fucked up. Like how I know you and Troy are going to break up soon enough."

Gabriella gasped in a mixture of shock and horror at the last sentence, just like Elizabeth had expected she would.

"You don't really know that—"

"Some things—as you will learn, or possibly not—are easy to predict. Once you know them, you take that knowledge and use it," Elizabeth declared decisively, her tone solid.

Gabriella was wholly speechless. She just sat there, bemusedly gazing up at Elizabeth with a stupid, dumbfound look slapped to her naïve self. She looked like someone had just kicked her in the stomach, astonished at Elizabeth's piercing words.

"You can't tell me that," Gabriella croaked finally, her words dry and monotonous. Her eyes seemed to search for a worthy answer, spelling out to Elizabeth everything her enemy needed to know.

"Why not?" Elizabeth shot back deviously, snickering once more. Gabriella opened her mouth to say something, but no sound came out. "Just stand up, bitch," Elizabeth "Just get up and get away."

And with those final suggestive words, Elizabeth promptly sauntered from the room.

Gabriella merely sat. And thought. Then kept on sitting. And thought some more. Until those thoughts settled in her mind like feathers floating to the ground, sinking into her brain; she made an unbending decision.

She was going to change.

She wasn't sure how—those were still untied ends needing to be tended to. But she knew she was going to turn her life around. She needed to.

Sure enough, true to her word, Sharpay brought upon a scandal on herself on Thursday, two days after she had promised Gabriella she would. (She had been absent on Wednesday…she claimed to Gabriella that she had been mulling over her plan.) And in Gabriella's opinion, it was much more than she had needed to. But, Gabriella was satisfied besides.

"Did you hear?"

"Sharpay Evans has AIDS! She lied to this college guy and said she was in college and they fucked and he gave it to her!"

And when the school nurse insisted she were checked, Sharpay realized she was trapped and had to confess that she had fabricated the entire story just for the sole purpose of gaining attention from her peers. That honest admission only catapulted her to the vice principal's office for "inventing such an unnecessary tale on a serious matter," which resulted in Vice Principal Matsui ordering her parents down for a meeting to "share a little talk." Sharpay, for the first time in her life, was grounded. She wasn't allowed to drive her shocking pink, initialed convertible for a whole week. So she paid Ryan to drive for her. And just to spice up the entertainment, she made him wear a matching hot pink top hat with fake craft feathers sticking out awkwardly on all sides. It was all in good fun though. At least for Sharpay.

On the following day, Friday, the swarming halls of East High were frantically buzzing about how the Ice Queen was starved for attention, so hopeless that she had devised this whole ludicrous story. So either way, the false account Sharpay had framed still made her the core of gossip.

"Hey, baby," Troy murmured seductively into his girlfriend's ear, yanking Gabriella out of her thoughts. She just couldn't stop thinking about what Elizabeth had said those few days ago. Her words were roughly branded in her mind, and she wouldn't stop reverting to them. Were they right, or were they wrong? Her feeling were so crisscrossed that she had no idea where to even start. She knew she had to come to a conclusion, and quickly. She seemed to be waiting around for answer, clueless.

"Hey," she responded back somewhat vaguely, still in a trance and quite sleepy from the evening before. Besides the quick sex session they had partaken inside an empty classroom the previous day, he had also crept into her room late that night for another one, famished of her love. And after he had scampered home, quickly, before his father would discover his absence, Gabriella had reclined peacefully on her bed and couldn't seem to glide off to sleep. She felt oddly full, imprisoning an overwhelming amount of something. She wasn't sure what it was exactly though—she guessed it were confusion. She figured she was too consumed and congested by her misdirection. Her disordered life had never seemed so real as it did then.

"Are you okay?" he whispered gently in her ear, his tone suddenly morphing from purposefully sexy to unknowingly tender. His steamy breath tickled her skin, making chilly shivers rush down her spine.

"Fine," she replied dimly, still slightly possessed. His extreme closeness made her mind fog. It was like suddenly there were no rational thoughts floating in her mind. Just him. All she could see and feel and smell was him, and she adored every moment of it. Her mocha eyes fluttered close, and she nervously sucked in a deep, haggard breath. Troy's face fell immediately, receiving the obvious vibe of her uneasiness.

"What is it, baby? Please tell me," he cooed softly against her silky cheek, pressing a kiss to the first patch of flesh his lips could find. Gabriella didn't hesitate any longer, practically collapsing against his built chest. Troy was surprised when she dropped her full weight on him, his muscular arms steadying her unbalanced shape. "What?" he questioned earnestly, his low voice faint but loving all the same. "I thought we were telling each other everything."

Gabriella knew it was bad for her to be such a baby to him, but she didn't care at that moment. She just gave in. Elizabeth was right. She was weak.

Her timid answer came out in a barely incoherent mumble. She shamefully lowered her fogged eyes, not daring to make eye contact with her boyfriend. Troy's secure grip around her waist tightened stiffly. "Do you know Mike Sanyor?"

Troy's attractive face instantaneously hardened at the wicked name. He seemed to instinctively know where this was going, without even knowing exactly what was wrong. "Yes," he managed to spit out.

"Sharpay told me that he likes me." Gabriella stated this very quickly and nervously. She had put it off for days, but now she would tell him the truth that had been bugging her for so long. "I, um, caught him staring at me during gym. I never really took notice of it before."

Troy grew incredibly rigid. "I'll handle him for you," he replied quietly. His pace quickened and strengthened as he boldly continued. "After school—"

She wasn't sure what it was.

But all of a sudden, she realized that Elizabeth was right.

And as quickly as she realized, she changed, completely, into a person she didn't know from where they came. All she knew what that suddenly she was being controlled by someone that wasn't her.

"—No, Troy," Gabriella had interjected crisply, pulling away from his caring embrace and looking him straightforwardly in the eye. Her firm stare was unyielding and dark. Troy was taken wildly aback at this unexpected, out-of-character behavior. "Don't interfere, okay? I only said that because I wanted to be honest. But I don't want to make trouble. That is that last thing I need right now."

Troy felt strangely exasperated. How could she be acting so stupid? Mike was dangerous, and he could seriously hurt her. How could Gabriella not let him defend her? Just because she was trying to put up this whole brave act? "Gabriella, Mike is dangerous," he rebutted defiantly. "It's not something you can just brush away like it's not a big deal. Because it is, and you need to sort this out now. And if you're not going to intrude and defend yourself, than I guess I will have to." Troy's voice elevated uncontrollably at the end, the impertinence augmenting tremendously. He swallowed forcibly, his cyan eyes feeling vexingly dry.

"It's my life, Troy," Gabriella replied back with surprising fierceness, her chocolate eyes misting over and going concrete. "I can do what I want. You can't control me, okay? And I say no. You cannot interfere if I don't want you to, Troy. Especially if I specifically demand you not to. So don't think about it."

Swiftly, she swiveled on the heel of her foot and strolled punctually down the hallway, fast. Her strides were extended and hasty, and she had to concentrate on not glancing behind her to see if he was following her. Troy leapt after her, not caring that that was what she had craved for, carelessly pushing his way through the dense swarm of people and taking grip of her upper arm. He had to tug it for her to stop walking.

"What? Troy, please I don't need any—"

"Just shut up. Please," he cut in hurriedly. Gabriella's jaw dropped at his disruptive insolence, but he began to speak again before she could splutter a single rebellious word. The bold dominance to his voice was still very much present, frightening Gabriella some, though she would never admit it. He spoke loudly and quickly, not nervously; just very speedily and choppily, as if to prove his point further. "I just want you to be safe. That's all I want. I will go to any lengths to get what I want. You know me."

Could she do this? Could she really shove Troy away like that?

Inside, it truthfully pained Gabriella to see her boyfriend like this, so hurt because of her actions. Because it was her fault. She was reluctant about continuing the tougher behavior, but on the other side she was determined to get her point across. Either way, she was just so…confused.

"You need to know how to trust me, Troy," Gabriella croaked weakly with hurt evidently written in her cracking voice. Troy was surprised that she chose to go with the pathetic and powerless act after she'd just erupted before. But as she proceeded, he wasn't sure it was really an act. She seemed genuinely helpless; and unveiling herself was the first thing she had done because that was the first thing she knew how to do impulsively. "You need to know that I can defend myself sometimes too."

Troy sighed, combing his fingers tensely through the sandy strands of his shaggy hair and anxiously kneading the back of his neck as he retorted more coolly. "I know, Gabriella. But I just…I'd rather know that you're completely safe if I do it—"

"What are you saying?" Her delicate voice, quivering and tremulous, was barely audible; her tone suggesting she were greatly offended. "Are you saying that I…" She paused when her voice helplessly broke. "That you don't think I can shoo Mike away or defend myself from him? That you would do a better job? That—"

"No, I was just—" Troy blubbered maladroitly, his awkward gaze reverting down to his sneakers.

"—FUCK, Troy! Just LET ME TALK FOR ONCE!"

Gabriella's earsplitting outburst caused many alarmed, curious heads to turn, and it was not very long before a snooping crowd had formed around the quarrelling couple. Neither of them really realized. Troy shrunk back at his girlfriend's unexpected explosion after seeing her in such a vulnerable state, biting down on his lip hard. Was she just PMSing?

"I can defend myself, Troy," Gabriella whispered quietly, staring directly into his disgraced, cerulean eyes. "I know myself. I am just getting tired of you shielding me for everything. I want you to know that I know what I am capable of doing many things that you do for me, and I know what I'm doing. I'm not stupid; I know that if I can't handle it, I will go to you. But if I can, I want to deal with it in the way that I want. And in this case, I am doing this alone. I can figure it out by myself. Please just let me handle my own situations for now. I'm not disabled and I just need to test my limits."

That was exactly what he was afraid of.

Troy, somewhere deep inside of him, knew that one day Gabriella was going to snap. But he would have never guessed now.

Troy sighed again, ready to spit back when the bell pierced through the cluttered school.

Without connecting their eyes, Gabriella mumbled quickly, "I'll see you later," whirling around, and before Troy knew it, she had disappeared into the thick throng of students.

A/N: I don't want to seem like the author that is dying for reviews, but I haven't been receiving as many as I used to. I'm just curious as to why. Has it been really boring? Slow? Please let me know; you are all the readers and I want to hear your ideas and thoughts. This is for you, so don't be hesitant to ask or comment. :) Thank you.