Rain fell in a white sheet that day. The thunder rumbled loudly showing no hope of ceasing or quieting down. Lightning flashed brilliantly for a brief moment before disappearing and leaving the world in an endless black night. Rain drops swirled lazily yet quickly from their billowing, dark clouds and dropped into puddles before leaping out like scared crickets and bouncing back down, sending lazy ripples across the black depths of the puddle.
The scene looked like a desperate cry for trouble, like the weather and its murky clouds wished for bad to happen; the sky swirled in anger and a raging flash of lightning brightened it before letting it pommel into infinite darkness. But nonetheless, Troy Bolton wished the storm would never end.
It showed a power that enthralled Troy. It controlled how people could come and go or how many lives it could ruin with one bolt of lightning or one unforeseen flashflood. Troy felt powerless against the storm but he knew it couldn't stop.
But he could hardly stop what was haunting him then, either.
He started a fire in the fireplace and let its illuminate the room, casting and orange glow to cover a surface. The light licked his features and sent a warm wave of light on his battered body and his handsome face. The light flickered and fell onto the wooden coffee table, reflecting off a sheet of dust-covered glass that preserved a photo, a memory, one Tory no longer cherished but instead cursed and tossed into the flames.
The scene reflected into his dazzling blue eyes, ones that were darkened by interminable pain and fear. An angry monster clawed at his stomach, growling and fighting to escape. Troy let the feelings of hopelessness and pain overtake his body until he felt he would surely pass out from his grievance.
A strong emotion of hurt twisted through him until his cruel curiosity pushed him to look upon himself in the mirror. He gently peeled his shirt off of his back and let the firelight, the only source of light in the room, show his pain. Troy's eyes flashed with horror as bruises blotched his very body. They spotted his torso much like a stain did a blanket: bleeding out, spreading far, and randomly grouped covering his chest and back.
Troy let out a shuddering cry and turned away from the mirror. He shook his head, letting loose a few tears. Quickly, he wiped them away, ashamed for being so weak. Weakness was what had gotten him into this mess; he wasn't going to let it control him.
Troy turned to leave his confinement, trapped in walls of his own house. Still, tear tears rolled down his cheeks. Ashamed of his very being, he let out a sob of rage and looked in the doorway to find it occupied by a dark, looming figure that slouched against the frame of the door. Troy stumbled backwards, searching desperately for something to help him. The figure chuckled cruelly.
"Troy," It cooed. "Why so jumpy?"
It stepped from its spot in the shadows and let its face get illuminated by the soft, orange firelight. It looked weary, as if all will to live had been sucked out of it. Its face was deeply lined, its eyes sunken and dark. Its hair was knotted and unkempt; its mere appearance disheveled.
It… was Troy's father.
"I'm not," Troy said. He felt his back hit the wall, its coldness radiating through him, chilling him to the bone and numbing his hardly responsive limbs. Troy's fingers fumbled as he tired, shaking, to pull his tee- shirt over his head.
"Don't put it on," Jack said, stepping further into the light. "Turn around and look… Go ahead, Troy. Look at yourself."
It took all of Troy's might to force himself to look back in the mirror. He moved painfully slow, delaying his reflected fate. It looked worse with his father watching his every move. Jack walked over and clamped his hand on Troy's injured shoulder. He forced Troy to look him in the eyes and said hoarsely, "That isn't my fault, Troy… it's yours."
Troy nodded in horror and winced as his father tightened his metallic grip. Jack leaned in and whispered menacingly, "Toughen up, pansy… or it's just going to get worse."
He let go of Troy's shoulder with a force that cause Troy to falter backwards. Jack stumbled out of the room and disappeared up the creaking stairs. Troy didn't even bother putting a shirt on before he collapsed onto the couch, shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs.
It was well past midnight and Troy laid wide awake in the heart of night watching the gleaming embers of the fire fizz down to sparks of red flames. The logs crackled and snapped as it broke and rotted, hitting the grate with a clang. He sat silently on the hearth and waited for sleep to enter his restless mind. Troy put a hand up to wipe a lone tear off of his cheek but stopped, letting it glide down his flawless face like hot wax. He looked into the depths of the fading embers gravely before crying himself to sleep.
----
Sun streamed through the window and poked Troy hard in the eyes. He rolled over to escaped the blinding rays but only succeeded in hitting his head on the coffee table. He moaned and brought his hand to his throbbing head, not opening his eyes. Suddenly, Troy received a sharp kick to the side and accidentally let a moan escape his lips. He felt another hard jab at his rib cage but bit his bottom lip, trying ineffectively not to scream. Troy rolled over and saw his dad looming over him, his body shrouded in early morning shadows.
"Wake up, you worthless piece of trash!" Jack shouted. "Wake up!"
Troy scrambled to stand next to his father but all the while, never letting their eyes connect. Troy glanced at the mahogany clock on the mantle that read three o' clock in the morning which, even for someone who was constantly training in the morning, very early… even for someone who wasn't constantly training in the morning, it was early.
"Go get dressed," Mr. Bolton demanded. "Meet me outside in five minutes. Hurry up!"
Troy ran to his room and searched for clothes to wear. Finally, he found a pair of red shorts and a white tee shirt and pulled them on. He galloped down the stairs with difficulty, trying to stuff his feet into a pair of shoes on the way. He skidded to a halt in front of his dad who was standing in the middle of the lit driveway, and said, "I'm ready."
"You look disgusting, Troy," Mr. Bolton sneered. "You didn't brush your teeth or your hair and I'll bet you didn't put on clean clothes."
Troy didn't argue for he knew it was true. He watched as his father paced with his hands behind his back. Troy didn't dare try to look his father in the eyes for he knew that he would find some unwanted gaze cast upon their blue depths. They were cold now, icy, and misted over, whitening the sparkling sea they used to hold. Whenever Jack was feeling particularly evil, they got a manic gleam that was enough to make anybody shiver.
Troy was snapped out of his reverie by the cutting bark of his father's voice, instructing, "I want you to run suicides for the next hour and a half. The first stop is the flowerbed, the second is the window, and the third is the end of the driveway. I'll call you when your times up and I better not see you slack off of stop. Ready? Go."
But Troy didn't move. Instead, he stared dumfounded at his father, his feet like roots in the concrete of the driveway. He shivered for even though he lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the winter had just began and it nipped at his bare arms, legs, and face mercilessly, stinging his eyes and slapping his face like a wave of icy water. Jack watched as Troy just stared at him stupidly and finally said, "Are you stupid or something? I said go!"
"Why?" Troy asked absolutely flummoxed.
"Because I said so!" Mr. Bolton shouted. "You want me to make it two hours?"
Troy shook his head but still didn't start his running. Jack looked flabbergasted and opened his mouth to yell but Troy cut him. He scratched the back of his head and said uncomfortably, "Dad, the season just started and it's three in the morning on a school day. Can't this wait until later?"
"Excuse me?" Mr. Bolton asked. He stepped so their faces were only a few inches apart. He only had about an inch of height on Troy but he had years of muscle and a whole lot of authority to even that out. "Are you talking back to me?"
"N-no!" Troy stuttered, backing away from his dad. "I was just-…"
"Get inside," Jack demanded through clenched teeth. "Now."
Troy didn't need any further encouragement. He dashed into the house and up the stairs, tripping over himself in his haste. He heard the door in the kitchen click open and slam close so he ran into the bathroom, shutting it tightly behind him. Troy heard his father's cutting yell, screaming at him to come downstairs but he paid little to no attention to it and busied himself with the shower.
He swung the glass door open with a swish and leaned far into the tile shower, letting his dirty shoes murk the bottom, and turned on the water, not caring how hot or cold the stream would be. An icy blast of water jetted out of the showerhead and slapped Troy's tattered back. He let out a yelp and jumped back out of the shower just in time to hear his father's voice outside the bathroom door, his fists pounding on the wood of the door ruthlessly.
"Troy, open the door!" He growled loudly over the water.
Troy pushed himself as far back as he could in the bathroom and shouted, "I'm showering! I'll be out in a minute!"
Jack's yells were only part way muffled by the on-going stream of water slapping the tiles. Troy watched in terror as the door slowly creaked open, the sliver of a crack revealing the tall, strong man that was his father.
He had forgotten to lock the door.
Troy dove forward in attempt to stop the swinging door but with no prevail. He cam face-to-face with his dad, his father's eyes boring deep into his own. Before Troy could let out a breath, his father had grabbed a fistful of sandy brown hair and thrown him carelessly into the hallway.
Troy hit the opposite wall with a clang as the picture frames bounced precariously on their nails. A picture fell to the ground but didn't break until Jack had made sure of it by slowly crushing it under his foot. Troy faced his father bravely and slowly and discreetly started backing his way down the hall. Jack stared at Troy and took deliberate steps toward his terrified son. Troy stuck out his hands, showing his dad his full, scratched up palms.
Before he knew it, the floor fell from behind him and folded into a set of wooden stairs with a long strip of carpet down the middle, the jutting corners unprotected from Troy's skull. He tumbled over backwards and down the wooden steps. Troy hit the landing with a crash and toppled down the last five steps. He blinked as lights blared into his eyes but suddenly dimmed as he began to slowly blackout. The last thing Troy saw was his father's darkened figure looming over him before it went black.
----
Troy awoke with a splitting headache and a gash on the side of his head that was sluggishly oozing crimson rivers of blood down the side of his face. He flipped over and found himself still on the floor by the stairs. He felt very raw and assumed he had gotten his punishment while he pummeled into the black depths of his sleep. Troy groaned and carried himself into the kitchen where his dad was reading the paper and having a breakfast of coffee and toast.
"You better get ready for school," Jack said, not looking up from his paper and taking a chomp on the darkened square of bread. "You have five minutes before I drive away from this house."
"I just won't change then," Troy decided out loud.
"You aren't wearing that," Mr. Bolton said, folding his paper shut. "Go change."
"What's wrong with this?" Troy asked, stopping in the middle of pouring himself a cup of coffee.
"Your shirt is covered in blood," Jack said absentmindedly. "And don't even think about pouring yourself a cup of coffee."
Troy stared in disbelief at his dad as Jack carried his empty plate over to the sink and let it clatter in. As Jack started to drain his own cup of coffee, Troy said, "Dad, without the caffeine boost, the doctor said I'll get migraines. You know…"
"I know what the doctor said, Troy," Jack snapped. "But your actions this morning give you no plaudits for a reward. Now go get dressed."
Troy shot Mr. Bolton a dirty look before trudging upstairs. He walked into his room and reached instinctively to the door before realizing that the only thing left of the door was the hinges. Troy called downstairs, confused, "Dad? Where's my door?"
"Where'd you put it?"
"I- on its hinges!" Troy said, tweaked. "Dad, where'd you put my door?"
When he got no answer he scoffed and searched for some clothes. It was a futile attempt for Troy's mother was out of town and the clothes wouldn't be cleaned until she got back; God forbid Jack would do them. Troy's main trick was to find clean articles. He finally decided on a green tee shirt and some jeans but as he turned to leave his room he got a rather upsetting glimpse of himself in the mirror. Bruises were crawling down his arms, blotching his skin purple and blue. They creeped up the nape of his neck that he hardly dared worry about; his shaggy head of brown hair would surely cover it.
Troy sighed and pulled the shirt over his head. He finally found a rare treasure for himself: a clean shirt. Troy found it extremely painful to pull the shirt over his straining limbs so did it excruciatingly slow as not to upset his beat-up torso.
A dull throb had begun to pulse in Troy's temple as he made his way to the car, hitching his backpack over his injured shoulder. He winced in pain as the beating slowly grew larger and stronger, stretching until his entire skull was twisting with pain.
"Dad?" Troy asked as he and Jack made their way into the crowded parking lot of East High. "What am I going to do about practice? I can't wear the jersey; it's sleeveless."
There was a silence, stretched with tension before Mr. Bolton glanced uneasily at Troy and asked, "Are you sure?"
"Yeah," Troy said, irritated. "Well, unless you want everyone to know that you-…"
"All right!" Jack shouted, the noise sending ripples of pain through Troy's head. "Just say you lost your jersey."
Troy sighed. "Fine."
"And I'll expect seventy suicides by the end of practice."
"What?" Troy asked. "Wha- why?"
"You know the rules, Troy," Jack scolded, an evil smile curling at his lips. "If you come unprepared to practice, you run seventy suicides."
----
"Bye, Dad!" Troy shouted with false happiness. "Thanks!"
He slammed the door shut and his dad turned into a parking spot some twenty feet over. Troy put a hand on his throbbing temple and made his way to school. Troy made his way into school, navigating with ease through the oncoming teachers and students. He searched for a brown-haired, brown-eyed maiden who was anxiously awaiting his arrival. Troy found her in front of his locker, pacing quickly. He snuck up behind her and masked her eyes with his warm hands.
"Guess who."
"Get away, you stalker!" Gabriella teased playfully. She turned around and faced Troy happily. "You know, you're going to back in gym today?"
"Why's that?" Troy asked, throwing books in and out of his locker. He knew perfectly why but decided to play up his acting skills… They had to come in handy sometime.
"Well, we haven't gotten the new shipment for the Junior gym shirts. You'll have to wear that long sleeved shirt!"
Troy was about to retort smartly when he saw his father approaching down the hall. He tossed his geometry book into his backpack before turning to Gabriella and saying, "I'm going to hit the library before homeroom to see if that got that book I was waiting for."
"Wait," Gabriella said. "You read?"
"Heh heh heh," Troy said sarcastically, fake laughing in her face and slamming his locker door shut. She giggled and said, "I'll come with you. I've got to return a book anyway."
She swung her backpack over her shoulder and plopped it onto the ground heavily. Gabriella fished through her large textbooks and filled-up notebooks until she clutched onto her latest reading find. She took it out and announced, "Got it!" Her brown curls slapped her face as she looked back and forth down the hall.
"Where'd he go?"
----
Troy breezed into homeroom four minutes early and took a seat at his desk, lazily tossing his backpack onto the floor. He sighed and cradled his throbbing head into his hands. In an attempt muffle a sob, his shoulders shook and jerked. He stopped and cursed himself for being so weak.
Troy sighed once again and latched his hands behind his head in a mock hammock, leaning his head back to let it rest. His mind flicked to his cell phone that lay in the pocket of his backpack and he was so tempted to call his mom and beg her to come home from her "Ladies' Spa Week" out in California but couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't want to be the one to ruin her relaxing week and possibly her marriage.
Troy let out a cry of pain and clutched his head tightly, clenching his teeth. His dependency on coffee was embarrassing to him. His friends and parents were the only ones that knew of it. He had developed it around age fifteen when his father had begun treating him like a punching bag.
"Troy?"
Troy whipped around, upsetting the delicate balance of his aching head. Gabriella was in the doorway leaning heavily against the frame. She cautiously stepped out of her spot and into the room, slowly making her way towards Troy. She placed her hand on the small of his back and rubbed it assuringly. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Troy said, letting his head fall into his hands again. "We ran out of coffee this morning."
"Oh. Do you need anything?" Gabriella asked softly.
Troy shook his head, letting a fresh wave of pain erupt and bleed through the fragile state of his mind. "Nothing you can get."
And he meant it.
Author's Note: There you go; the first chapter. I hoped you liked it although it was really long. Please review but no flames. I've had enough flames, thank you very much! Haha.