Mistakes

Hey guys, thank you to all of you who reviewed Chapter 3, your reviews are much appreciated, and they keep me going, anyway, here's chapter 4, hope you enjoy it, and please read and review!

Chapter 4

Gabriella's P.O.V.

There was something unsettlingly familiar about the new girl in my English class, I had spent the whole of my lunch hour tuning out Taylor's babblings about how Chad wasn't paying any attention to her at all, and how all he now seemed to be bothered about was that the junior, Matt Baker led the Wildcats' to the championships, for the first time since Chad had begun coaching them, almost five years ago now, when Coach Bolton had retired, much to the shock of those around him.

I remembered to agree and disagree with her in all of the right places, but other than that, I kept my mouth closed and my eyes trained on the girl in front of me, watching as she frowned in concentration, her brow furrowing every so often in that oh so familiar way, that I just couldn't place anywhere, and continuously chewing on her lower lip, another trait that seemed distantly familiar to me as I chewed on my own bottom lip. A few times, she looked up, and our eyes locked on each other's, each seemingly studying the others' eyes before one of us would smile and break the eye contact, returning to whatever we were doing.

So now, here I was, sat in front of my A.P. English class, watching my students as they started on their group projects, most of them still huffing and moaning about which group I had set them in, with only one group actually seeming to work well, probably the least expected of all of the groups that I had put together, or at least, I should say that part of the group was working well, and thankfully, that just happened to be the group that my eyes were drawn to, as I desperately tried to figure out where I had seen Lilly-Ella before, and why she seemed like a distant memory to me.

Lilly-Ella and Matt Baker seemed to be getting along famously, the two of them were laughing and joking around with each other, as they got to work on what I assumed was going to be a poster, so that they could share out the work between their group of three, Sassy Mitchell, however, was sat filing her nails, and I'm pretty sure that she had her phone rested on her lap underneath the table.

I rolled my eyes as I realised why this group was drawing my attention so much. They reminded me of a group that I just so happened to be put in when we were working on our group projects for history, during the first semester of our very own junior year. Troy and I were already dating, and had been for a year in the coming January, ignoring the little break that we had taken in the summer, which just so happened to be due to the third member of our group. So while Troy and I had been laughing and starting pen wars, among other things, Sharpay would just sit there, occasionally throwing the pair of us glares, or rolling her eyes at us, all the while texting the other 'sharpettes' under the table, right under the teacher's nose. Thankfully, by the end of the project, the three of us had become great friends, and at least in mine and Sharpay's case, that friendship still existed today. As for Troy, I still don't know where he is, regardless of however many times that I've tried to track him down…Troy, he was still the love of my life, even after his sixteen-year absence from it.

I looked down and started to fiddle with my pen as I thought back to the last time that I had seen him, the eighth of August, two thousand and eight, I would never forget that day as long as I lived, but I would always regret it.

I didn't know it until weeks later, but at the time, I had severe post natal depression, bad enough so that I felt as though my baby girl wasn't even mine, I felt so detached from her that I did the unthinkable, I told Troy to leave my life and take her with him, and now, I'm left with a broken heart, which I know will only ever be healed if I can find the two people that I need to apologise to most in the world, Troy and my baby girl.

My baby girl… I don't really suppose that I can call her that now, she'd have just turned sixteen about six weeks earlier, but I have no idea what Troy called her, so my little girl will have to do, at least until I find her and try to explain.

I think about her and Troy all day, every day, they're never far from my mind, especially as the gang have a horrible habit of bringing Troy up every so often, so that they can sneer and make jibes about him some more, I can't help but cringe every time that I hear them, knowing that I'm the real reason that Troy picked up and left, and that it was because I threatened him and the life that our little girl would live. I will always be eternally grateful to Troy for taking her and leaving, although I'm not too sure he'd feel the same way about me making him leave, because in all honesty, for the first six and a half months after the baby was born, I really did hate her, and I really would have put her up for adoption, due to how wretched I felt, I wasn't myself at all in that time, and even the gang will tell me that, I was continuously crying, and I had raging mood swings, it even got to the point where I wanted to harm myself and others around me, and the gang all still blame Troy for all of that, I'm the only one that knows that truthfully, it was post natal depression, none of them even know that I've ever had a baby, so they blame Troy for leaving, which still leaves me feeling unbelievably guilty, but I'm too terrified of losing all of them as well to tell them the truth behind why he left, so they assume that I do too, even though Ryan never says anything bad against Troy, at least not since roughly the third year after Troy left, for some reason, and he always watches me, almost as though he knows something and he's disappointed in me for not speaking up for Troy when the others' all go off on their hateful rants about him, but that's just my paranoia kicking in once more.

Troy's still the love of my life, and I don't think that that will ever change, I've been on a few dates in the past sixteen years, well really about fourteen and a half years, as my depression took so long to get over, but they were all ones that I had begrudgingly went on, after being set up by someone in the gang, and I had had a miserable time on all of them. I knew for a fact that until I could find Troy and our little girl, his little girl I suppose she really is, considering that I've had nothing to do with her since the day of her birth, bar the countless birthday and Christmas presents and cards that are stored in my loft at home, and beg them for their forgiveness, literally get down on my hands and knees and grovel as they so rightfully deserved, I would never be truly happy again.

"Umm, Miss Montez?" A small voice disturbed me from my thoughts, and I looked up to see Lilly-Ella and Matt standing beside my desk, the rest of my classroom empty, "We just wanted to tell you that the lesson's ended, so the class has left, you seemed pretty deep in thought," She smiled slightly at me.

I smiled weakly back at the pair, "Thank you guys', but you better go now, I don't want you to be late for your next lesson."

"I've got a free," they both muttered simultaneously, before glancing at each other, each of their eyes the size of saucers, each of them bursting into laughter and heading for the open door.

I heard Matt tell Lilly-Ella something along the lines of because it was her first day at East High, she couldn't have much homework yet, so he had to show her a special place during their free period instead.

I watched with a smile as Matt held out his hand to Lilly-Ella and she eyed it up hesitantly, before he murmured something to low for me to hear, with his eyes twinkling, and fingers wriggling, that made Lilly-Ella immediately start to giggle hysterically and take his hand, as he grinned softly at her and dragged her from the room.

I couldn't help but let my grin widen as I figured out where Matt would be taking her, the roof top garden, where Troy and I spent most of our free periods in school, not that we ever actually did much of our homework up there.

A few times over my ten years of working at East High I had wandered up there, but the place held to many memories for me, and I always ended up crying by the time I had made it down the stairs again, the hole in my heart aching for Troy and our little girl, but a few times recently, I had caught Matt up there, often just staring of into space, or running through some of the basketball plays that Chad wanted the team to work on, scaring me slightly at just how much he reminded me of Troy doing the same thing when he had been captain of the Wildcats'. The one thing that I could not bare to look at up there anymore though was the wooden bench where Troy had carved our initials, stating that we'd be together forever, and a naïve, seventeen year old version of myself had just happened to add on the words that still haunted me now if I thought about that bench…forever and ever and ever, in love.

Wearily, I stretched slightly, and noticing that my coffee mug was empty, I decided to head on down to the teachers' lounge, and spend my free period marking papers there, rather than have them to do tonight.

Rounding the corner, I stood still silently, as I watched Ryan chatter animatedly on his phone, an amused grin spreading across his face.

"Yes, Troy, I promise you that she's doing fine, she's hitting it off with the captain of the basketball team…No, he's not going to lead her into trouble, he's a good kid, just like you were…Of course I'll keep an eye on them," Ryan turned his head fully in my direction, and he immediately froze, the laughter dropping from his features as his face paled considerably, "Listen man, I gotta go, but I'll come around and see you later tonight…Yeah, sure, I'll keep an eye on her…okay bye."

Hanging up the phone, Ryan smiled nervously at me, "Hey Gabster, listen, I gotta go, class to take care of and everything," He laughed nervously and walked speedily away, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste to get away as he did so, leaving me to stare after him in confusion, wondering who the Troy was that he was talking to and who the she was that they were evidently talking about…

Well, that was Chapter 4, I hope that you guys' liked it, please review and tell me what you thought, because I'm not too sure about chapters I write from characters P.O.V., so feedback would be much appreciated…