Mistakes
Hey guys, I know that I promised regular updates a while back and I am truly sorry for not giving them to you, there are only a few glitches with the final couple of chapters for me to work out though and then I will get them poster asap. Anyway, I hope that you enjoy this one and please review!
Chapter 18
"Oh you stupid, stupid girl, you believed him again didn't you," feeling Gabriella nod her head, Maria's smirk grew, "Well it's ok darling, Mommy's here now, and I won't let anything happen to you ever, especially not at the hands of that boy."
Sat just outside the room on the stairs, Lilly-Ella could feel her own tears streaming down her face, dripping onto the picture of Troy and Gabriella on the pier from their teenage years. Hearing how sickly sweet Maria was being to Gabriella, she started to silently retch, knowing that any hopes that she had for a family reconciliation would never happen. With the interference of this woman, she, Troy and Gabriella would never get their happily ever after…
"Realistically Gabriella, you must do what is best for yourself, and for them," Maria muttered soothingly, stroking Gabriella's hair gently. "Darling, you were never Mother material really were you?" Maria smirked when Gabriella shook her head, "It's unfair to say then that you should take responsibility of your daughter so that Troy can go off and do whatever he likes. The girl needs stability, and she hardly knows you Gabriella, the best thing for her is to stay with her Dad, don't you think?" Once more, Gabriella nodded and Maria's sneer grew. "What do you say that me and you go far away somewhere then? Hmm, we'll take a flight out of this G-d forsaken little town and actually end up somewhere that's worthwhile." Maria scrunched her face in disgust as she once more glanced around Gabriella's modest living room.
"Please don't say that about Albuquerque," Gabriella whispered softly, "It's the one place that has ever felt like home to me, and I would never leave unless I believed that it was the best option for everyone else."
"Of course, my darling, but we are in agreement that the best thing all round is for us to leave this place?" Feeling Gabriella nod once more, Maria pretended once more to embrace her daughter in a loving hug, squirming on the inside. "Don't you believe that it is about time that we get the child home then?"
"Yes, Mother," Gabriella answered robotically, no emotion being conveyed in her voice, her eyes holding a vacant expression.
Lilly-Ella sighed in resentment as she heard the conversation between her mother and her grandmother. The young Latina was figuring out exactly why everyone seemed to hate her grandmother. The older woman seemed to have a certain edge to her that allowed her to manipulate whomever she chose to. Gently pushing open the living room door, Lilly-Ella's eyes widened to see her crying mother being cradled by a smirking Maria. Maria glanced up at the teenager and the look painted on her face told Lilly-Ella that her grandmother believed that she had won once more. However, the young girl had lived the first sixteen years of her life without a mother, and now that she finally had hers, there was no way in hell that she was going to give Gabriella up without a fight.
"Mom," She called out slightly hoarsely, her own voice still tight from her own tears, which had dried tracks onto her face. "I got your bag ready, we can go back to Dad's now."
Gabriella gently pushed Maria away, her gaze trailing up Lilly-Ella as she slowly nodded. "Yes, umm, I really should get you home, Hollywood," Gabriella's eyes flickered all over the room, not once meeting Lilly-Ella's. "But, I think that it's probably best if I spend some time with my Mom and try to catch up with her," Smiling wanly, Gabriella continued to avert her stare from Lilly-Ella, "So we'll drop you off at home, and I'll come and join you later on."
Climbing into the back of her Mom's car, Lilly-Ella ignored the sneering look directed at her from the passenger seat, or the fact that her own Mother appeared to be running on auto-pilot. The young girl couldn't help but try to formulate some king of plan, any plan that would get herself, Gabriella and Troy out of the situation that they were now finding themselves in. The only problem was that the teenager felt herself drawing a blank, doors appeared to be slamming in her face left, right and centre, with no windows appearing anywhere.
"I love you Mom, have fun," Lilly-Ella whispered, leaning forward and pecking Gabriella's cheek as she reached to exit the car. Gabriella herself turned to watch the youngster, feeling a twinge of hopelessness in the pit of her stomach. She observed her daughter flounce up the steps to the Bolton household, for what she feared would be the last time ever. Seeing Lilly-Ella turn to wave one last time, Gabriella through a glance at Maria and pressed on the gas pedal reluctantly.
"Dad, Dad!" Lilly-Ella shrieked as she slammed open the door to the house, quickly dropping her bag in the doorway. Racing to the front room, she crashed through that door too, only to find the entire gang watching Troy and Chad battle out a game on the Xbox.
Slamming into Troy's side, Lilly-Ella grabbed the remote and flung it at Ryan, who only just managed to catch it before it reached his face. "Dad, please, you've got to help, please," Lilly-Ella whimpered hysterically, everyone now taking notice of the panicking young woman.
"Lila, sweetheart, what's going on?" Troy questioned, his hands on the side of her face, his cerulean eyes scanning her own petrified ones. "Are you heart? Where's your Mom?"
"This isn't about me!" Lilly-Ella cried, pushing Troy off as she started to pace back and forth across the room. "She's leaving again, Daddy, I'm sure that she's leaving." Collapsing onto the sofa, Matt gently manoeuvred her into his arms, running a soothing hand up and down her back.
"What, what do you mean she's leaving?" Troy murmured, confusion etched into his face, "We just got her back, she promised that we would try to work out our problems. Lila, you've got to have gotten it wrong somehow, there's just no way-"
Lilly-Ella quickly cut Troy off with a shake of her head, "Does the name Maria Montez mean anything to any of you?" She asked quietly, her tears now silent, apart from the occasional hiccup. The gang gasped as memories flooded each of their senses of what that dreadful woman had been like to Gabriella over the years on which they had known her. What plagued all of their minds was the fact that Maria Montez had been missing for sixteen years, so why would she pick now to come back? Why now when Gabriella was finally happy?
"No, it can't be," Sharpay whispered, her hand covering her mouth as she leaned backwards into Zeke. "Gabriella hasn't see or heard from that woman in sixteen years, there is no chance that this was just some fluke."
Lilly-Ella shook her head once more, "No, Mom seemed as stunned to see her as I was. Plus she was whinging on about how some toy boy boyfriend of hers had dumped her after receiving his visa." Lilly-Ella's nose scrunched up and the gang couldn't help but laugh at the information she had just relayed, feeling that in some ways, a messed up version of karma had at least been served. "I think, that it was just some freaky chance coincidence that she turned up now, when Mom is finally getting to know me and Dad again. But I want to save her this time, I'm not prepared to let her got yet," The steely determined look that crossed the young girls face had the whole gang nodding, as all of them relayed the information that they had figured out about Maria Montez whilst knowing Gabriella.
"Oh, oh, oh!" Taylor hollered ten minutes later, causing everyone to look at her as she sat bolt upright at Chad's feet. "I remember Gabriella telling me once that her Mom had a thing for properties, she owns seven worldwide, but couldn't buy anymore after the death of Gabby's Dad, for some reason or another." Taylor's charcoal eyes narrowed deep in thought as everyone watched her expectantly.
"Tay, I hate to be the one to rush you, but we may be running out of time, especially if Maria already booked these plane tickets," Joe mumbled loudly, everyone's eyes swivelling quickly back to Taylor as they realised what appeared to be inevitable by this stage.
"New York, London, Paris, Sydney, Florence, Torremolinos and Barcelona," Taylor listed within a few seconds. "That would be the US, the UK, France, Australia, Italy, Spain and Spain again," Taylor smiled as the blank expressions filling the room were lifted, before everyone's faces darkened once more.
"That doesn't really give us much to got on," Zeke sighed.
"Yeah, they could be anywhere and I don't think that we really have the time to search the whole globe," Chad quipped, his hair bobbing as he nodded.
Sassy was ignoring the bickering going on between the adults, and was instead watching her best friend. Lilly-Ella was shuffling nervously, chewing the inside of her lip as if struggling with an internal debate between right and wrong. "Lilly-Ella, what's going on?" Sassy questioned curiously, capturing everyone's attention as the Latina looked up, her eyes scanning the people surrounding her.
"Is the wrong thing done for the right reason still the wrong thing?" She asked cautiously, baffling all but Troy, who was used to his daughters odd way of questioning things.
Sitting in the floor in front of the young girl, Troy lifted her chin so that she was looking directly into his eyes, "That wholly depends on what you did and whether or not it will help someone, little girl."
Chewing her inside lip, Lilly-Ella resolved her internal battle within that minute. "I swiped Maria's credit card when we were in the car and copied down her details before replacing it, and I know for a fine fact that the security on her companies site is rubbish and I can have all of the details of her recent purchases within a few minutes, and I can also access any government websites that might also be able to slow down any planes that we need to, because quite frankly I managed to break the security with NASA, the FBI and the CIA three and a half months ago," Lilly-Ella let out all in one breath, panting as everyone looked at her with stunned expressions. Matt reached down the side of the sofa and picked up her laptop, handing it to her without a word.
"You do this now Lila, but I swear to G-d when this is all over, you and me are going to have a long talk. Oh, and you are so grounded for at least a month and a half, more than likely longer," Troy muttered, shaking his head in disbelief at his far beyond average daughter.
Within a matter of moments, Lilly-Ella had accessed the database and found to one way tickets heading for Paris had been charged to Maria's credit card less than an hour ago. Looking up the plane times, she had then found that they had only an hour and a half to reach Gabriella before she was headed for a whole new continent.
Digesting this information in minutes, Troy ran from the house, pausing only briefly to slip his shoes on and grab his car keys, Lilly-Ella hot on his heels.
"Well, what do we do now?" Jason questioned, glancing at the group of people who surrounded them, all of which rolled their eyes as his wife reached over to smack the back of his head.
"You are kidding right?" Sassy yelled, "We're going to follow them, so lets get in the car and see how this all plays out!" Noticing that everyone was simply staring at her, the blonde rolled her eyes once more, "Move it people!"
Sharpay smirked, watching as everyone took orders from the young blonde girl, instantly rushing out of the house and sorting themselves into cars for the race to the airport.
Sitting with Maria on the cold, plastic airport chairs, Gabriella couldn't help but wonder of she was making the second worst mistake of her life to date. Glancing sideways at her mother, watching the older woman thumb through the pages of her magazine without a care in the world. Slowly, the younger of the two women pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them, still in a fairly catatonic state.
Looking at her daughter, Maria rolled her eyes and used the rolled up magazine to hit Gabriella over the head, instantly catching her attention. "Stop moping will you! You look like you've been sentenced to death when you should be thanking you for saving you from whatever form of life you might've lived if you were staying in this awful place." Sniffing obnoxiously, Maria unrolled her magazine and began to read once more, ignoring the sorrow and anger in her daughters' eyes.
"Flight A45879 to Paris, is now boarding, repeat, flight A45879 to Paris is now boarding."
"Ahh, well that appears to be us anyway, let's go Gabriella, I'm rather board of this place now, Paris is much more exciting," Maria smirked, standing and heading for the gate, all but dragging Gabriella with her.
"Gabriella!" Troy yelled, chasing the mother and daughter right up to where security stopped him at the doors that would lead his love out of his life forever. "Please, baby, please don't leave me again," Troy whimpered softly, the tears gathering behind his eyes.
Gabriella sobbed softly, her tears flowing freely as she watched the man that she still loved break for a second time. "I can't, Troy, I'm no good for you, or Lilly-Ella, you're both better off without me." Maria rolled her eyes as she watched Gabriella's eyes roam beyond troy to the crowd gathered behind him, specifically to the couple's daughter. Lilly-Ella was shaking, the tears streaming down her face, wrapped up in Ryan and Matt's arms, her head shaking from side to side softly as she mouthed "no" over and over again. "Live your life, and take care of hers," Gabriella whispered, reaching up and capturing Troy's lips tenderly. Turning slowly, she went to follow the sneering Maria towards the plane that would ultimately remove her from the lives of her one true love and her daughter once more.
"Gabriella!" Troy called out again, and once more she heeded to her loves request to see her once more, her eyes tripling in size at the sight of him on one knee, a ring box clutched securely in hand. "Marry me?"
That was chapter 18, I hope that you liked it and please review and tell me your reactions to Troy popping the 'big question'. Hopefully the next chapter and then the last one will be up either later this week or next week.