Chapter 26: Hate

Ryan sat in a slump on his bedroom floor. He couldn't face school. He couldn't bring himself near Troy, the divine being, the god. I've ruined him. I can't see him ever again. Tears pricked his eyes as countless memories overwhelmed him. His arms wrapped tightly about his body and even as he scolded himself for his selfishness, he wishes the arms were Troy's. Subconsciously, the slender blond rocked himself back and forth, desiring, even unknowingly, some form of comfort in the face of destruction. He had no control over his life. He was nothing. He was insignificant. Completely worthless.

His cat, Hollybell, nudged his leg in an attempt to draw him out of his misery.

Ryan once again would not allow himself to be comforted. Ignoring the cat's inquisitive "mrrow?", he forced himself up on wobbly legs and removed his journal from where it was kept safeguarded by lock and key in his nightstand. His white hand shaking uncontrollably, he picked up a pen and put it to the paper. This is my final entry, he vowed.

9-18

Dear Diary: I have committed the unforgivable act… I-I've hurt Troy. No, no, hurt isn't the right word. More or less I've completely destroyed him!

Tears poured down his face, blurring his vision as they plinked onto the paper, staining it with his unrelenting grief.

The most beautiful being on earth, in the universe and I have destroyed him. I don't deserve to live! Evan now as m guilt consumes me; I realize that I am EVIL. I should have known, I should have known all along that I could only break him. My world, my everything, I've RUINED him! And the only thing that I can do to redeem myself is to rid the world of me permanently. If I die, it will make everyone happy; Shar, Troy, Mom, Dad. Everyone. The world will be a better place when I am no longer part of it. Oh, Troy. I'm so sorry. Eternally sorry. You will never know just how much I love you and how I can't STAND myself for what I've done. You were everything to me and I…

Shar, I know you will never know, you'll never see, you'll never understand… I wish you the best…

Pulling away from the parchment, his last proclamation, the blond looked on with a mixture of fascination and awe as his teardrops smudged the ink. Deeming it fruitless to write any further, he set the book and the pen down. His bedroom door slammed open, but he knew better than to hope for salvation from damnation. He no longer hoped to find Troy standing there, his beautiful ocean colored eyes full of love. Love for him and him alone. A love so immense, it stole away all of his sanity.

"That box hurt Gabriella." Sharpay's voice was taut with anger as she launched right in without prelude. "My drama partner," She added testily when her brother gave no response. It was as if he was completely brain-dead. Unfeeling, unresponsive, a doll, his porcelain face twisted in misery.

Yes, that's right. He could vaguely recall the dark-haired girl lying among the carnage, another victim of his foolishness. Why won't you say anything? The insidious voice asked him. Why can't you say anything? Coward! You ruin everything, don't you? He trembled under the weight of the voice as it reverberated relentlessly throughout his skull. You little bitch! Say something!

"I'm not going to be able to perform now." Sharpay's brown eyes were scathing, as she looked him over. Despite her beauty, the female Evans twin never had any tact. She could be very blunt and even callous with her words. And every one she uttered now felt like a dagger piercing Ryan's smooth ivory flesh. "Taking David from me wasn't enough for you, was it? You selfish little bitch!"

Ryan flinched as if she had struck him. He wished she had. He wanted to feel pain, to be tortured. He wanted to die. Any shred of self-righteousness was gone, effaced completely as a wave of hatred took its place inside of him. I've ruined Troy and my sister hates me. I'm nothing but a fuck-up. I should die.

Say something! The malicious voice taunted. Coward! Spineless faggot!

"Say something!" Sharpay's voice joined in, a shriek pealing out. Her words were vicious bullets intent on ripping through him. "Talk, god damn it! You're so weak Ryan! When people talk down to you and push you around, you just stand there quietly and take it!"

Ryan's heart sank into his stomach, causing the abdominal organ began to churn violently. Another thing to make me suffer, he told wryly.

"You've ruined me, you know that?" His sister fixed him in her brown eyes, glowering at him as if he was one of the vilest creatures on the face of the earth. "Absolutely ruined me and you've got nothing to say for yourself?"

The tidal wave of her ire crashed over him, drowning him. Suppressing his reflex to live, ignoring the desire to preserve the life fluttering within his chest, he submerged himself. Looking back at his sister, the petite male's sky colored eyes were dulled by his grief, his gaze hollow lifeless.

"AAGH!" Sharpay let out a snarl. "I've always hated that about you! Can't you fucking do anything right?" Her fists clenched. Ryan imagined his sister's hands wrapping about his slender throat, crushing his windpipe as she pushed down on his Adam's apple. Lightly tanned flesh standing out against creamy ivory. "You just sit around here moping all day whenever Troy isn't around." Her voice took on a mocking note as she dug her heels into the carpeted floor.

The male twin felt his body shudder when she spoke Troy's name as if he too was vile, foul. Troy, his life. His treasure. The most beautiful being alive. The one that I have obliterated.

You're so dependent on other people." His sister's voice continued its rampant assault on his throbbing eardrums. "I've always hated that about you!"

Hate. As soon as that word, it one syllable emphasized to enable its full power cleaved at him from his sister's pink lips, his decision was finalized. But no measure he took to numb his body could dull the magnitude of the pain in his chest. His heart hurt. Unbearably. Unfathomably.

"Why can't you just-?"

His legs unsteady, Ryan rose, and staring into his sister's brown eyes, he exposed everything to her; the torment that he had endured at her hands. His starvation. His isolation. His utter loathing of himself and his desire to end it all the only way he knew how. "Die?" The simple word in all of it finality crippled his twin as it sent shockwaves throughout the bedroom. The walls revived memories of him lying there, empty, wasting away, awaiting his fate. The bed, although he had spent a great part of his summer vacation in it, desiring to sink into its sheets and disappear, bore no imprint of his previously skeletal form. It was overwhelming for both of them. The siblings regarded one another with tears in their eyes knowing that once upon a time, they would have had their arms about each other, offering a shoulder to cry on and soothing words. The rift between them had become too great for that. Ryan's inflection was cold, detached as he addressed his sister. It lacked any familial warmth. He couldn't pretend that any existed between them anymore. "If I do that, will that finally make you happy?"

He could see his closest companion since his emergence from their mother's womb struggle to conceal what she felt from him. Her eyes glistened with raw emotion as the ugly truth began to sink in. Her eyebrows knitted together as she tried to summon anger, spite, anything toward her twin. She failed miserably. Her hand reached toward him for the first time following her striking him.

He wouldn't allow her to touch him. I won't soil you, too. I've done enough already. His sadness strangling him, Ryan brushed past once again. The moment he crossed the threshold and exited his sleeping quarters, his speed increased. And then he was running again. Away from his sister's insistent pleas. Away from the people he had harmed irreparably by merely existing. He fled from Life itself.

Her chest shuddering with restrained sobs, Sharpay turned and found the book lying open on her brother's bed. The prose inside of it was written in his handwriting. Without a second though, she picked it up, her eyes stretching wide as she took in the hate-filled words formed by her twin's delicate hand: I am EVIL… I've RUINED him!... If I die, it will make everyone happy; Shar, Troy Mom, Dad… Everyone…I can't STAND myself for what I've done…Shar, I know you will never know, you'll never see, you'll never understand.

She clapped a hand over her mouth in horror. She did understand and she knew all-too-well that this was all her fault. The world spun around her and her knees succumbed, buckling under the weight of the world and sending her to the ground. Tears ran down her face, staining it in blotted mascara. She had been wrong. So very, very wrong. Ryan's not the weaker twin. I am! Almost single-handedly, Sharpay Evans had destroyed her precious brother. Because of her Ryan, beautiful Ryan with his dazzling smile hated himself. How could she do anything but loather herself in return?

A/N: Sharpay has at last realized the grievous wrong she has committed, but a little too late in the ballgame. The race against time begins.