Chapter Seven: He's My Dad

Troy walked around in an absolute daze that day. Nothing that anyone said or did snapped him out of his sleep-like state. Chad hardly spoke to him but looked at him with gloomy eyes, afraid that anything he said or did would upset Troy even more.

At lunchtime, Troy sat at the table and slowly unfolded the top of his paper bag. He looked around at the lunch table (everyone minus Gabriella) who were staring at him with the same distressing eyes that Chad was giving him earlier. Troy sighed and shut his lunch, asking, "Okay, who knows?"

Slowly, every hand at the table raised a tad bit and they all looked guiltily at Troy. Troy groaned and put his head into his folded arms at the table. Kelsi pat Troy lightly on the back and Troy winced. Kelsi withdrew her hand quickly and shook her head.

"Is it that bad?" She asked. Troy shook his head but didn't remove it from his arms. His muffled voice radiated through his temporary headrest, "No."

"Troy, you need to tell someone," Ryan said, shaking his head disapprovingly.

Troy picked his head up, his face lined with anger. "So, you guys have been in this position?" They all remained silent. "Oh, because you're acting like you have been."

"Troy, we're trying to help," Zeke said, offended. "We don't want to see you get hurt!"

"Don't give advice if you don't know what you're talking about, guys!" Troy snapped. "This is harder than it seems, okay?"

"Troy, this is simple," Sharpay said softly. "Your father is-…"

"Shar!" Troy cut her off. "I know what my father is doing! I don't want to talk about it!"

"Troy, we're worried about you!" Jason defended.

"But when you didn't know, you guys didn't care!" Troy said. "I'm fine like I was then. I don't need help."

"You don't. Your dad does," Taylor said. "He can't just do that to you, Troy!"

"Oh, yeah?" Troy snapped. "Watch him."

"I did."

Everyone turned to Chad who spoke to his lap and then brought his head up slowly, his eyes brimmed with sadistic wisdom. He shook his head at Troy and said, "I watched it, Troy. It's bad. Why didn't you tell us?"

"Because you guys would do this!" Troy sighed angrily. "I don't need sympathy, guys. The way I look at it, without my dad, I have no family. He's my dad. I need him."

"What do you need him for Troy?" Ryan barked. "Your nightly beatings?"

"Look at it this way, " Troy said sadly. "I hurt Gabi, I get hurt back. I deserve it."

He got up from the table and walked away limping, leaving his friends alone at the table, staring around stunned to silence. The confusion of the cafeteria overwhelmed them until it finally got to the point that the whole table turned back to their lunches and ate in complete silence, Troy's words ringing in their ears:

"He's my dad. He's my dad."

And that's what was so unfair about it.

----

The metal stung his back with the intensity of a million volts of electricity. Each time the buckle hit him, Troy cried out in pain. Before, the paper-thin layer of his shirt that covered his back was a slight protector from the pain but now he was standing in his living room, barebacked, a belt being whipped to him.

What seemed like hours to Troy, turned to only be minutes and finally he fell forward onto his knees, his back hunched over, defeated. But Jack didn't take this as a time to stop, no. Jack took the belt buckle and hit Troy hard across the spine with it. Troy cried out in pain and his dad only smiled. Those yells were his victory; he knew that he won. One more belt buckle to Troy's rib cage and Jack walked out, leaving his son in middle of their living room floor, bleeding, beaten, and bruised.

And he didn't care one bit.

The thing about Jack Bolton was that he had stopped caring after a while. He didn't care about his wife, his job, his home, his family, his son, or his life. The only thing that Jack clung onto was winning and the thrill that he got when he knew his son was in line.

Another thing about Jack Bolton was that he was certifiably insane. He would get set off over small things like an unclean dish or cold coffee in his coffee cup. Most of the time, his anger was shown through the only thing he knew anymore: his strength.

His strength was what made him who he was, what made him the man that he had become to be. Constantly, he showed his strength, whether it be by lifting heavy things around his office, or beating Troy over the back with a belt.

Jack was as unfeeling as a rock and his muscles were the same. He was indifferent, cruel, manipulative, and evil. The way his mind worked was a simple one-tracked thing: You make him mad he beats his son. And he didn't want anyone to mess with his methods.

….

Troy knelt on his living room floor, forcing himself not to cry. He felt numb and cold. He felt unwanted and ashamed. Troy Bolton felt worthless and unneeded and Troy Bolton wanted his life to end.

The only thing he clung to (quite to the contrary of his father) was his friends. Without them, Troy would've let go a long time ago and God only knew how awful things would get after that. Every time he got a fist to the face, or a belt to the back, his friends' faces popped up in his mind and he hung on until his father left him to sit by himself.

Quite contrary to your belief, Troy hated this part, when his father left him. It only gave him time to hate his dad and time to brood in his own self-pity. He didn't want to hate his father and he tried with every fiber of his being not to. He didn't want to brood in self-pity because he felt he didn't need it. People were dying everyday and sometimes, Troy felt it was the thing that kept him going: his pain.

The odd thing about today though was, Troy asked his father to beat him. He purposefully made his father angry as to get a punishment. Odd, I know. Troy couldn't live with himself for what he had done to Gabriella and he felt so awful that he sat there; shirt off his back while his father whipped him again and again.

It sounds brutal to you, or any other normal person, but to Troy, this was his life. You do something wrong, you get beaten. Troy had just broken someone's heart and what was worse was that that was the girl that he loved. To go through this pain for her was small. To go through the pain of knowing he was the one who had down, was inimitable.

Troy Bolton felt that he no longer deserved to live.

He hung his head and whispered to his bruised chest, "I'm sorry, Gabriella."

----

Taylor sat on her bed, typing away on her laptop. She smiled, having finished an extra credit essay; exactly 1697 words long. Taylor wiggled in her bed, her mind flying to subjects she did not want to face and she flipped on the light next to her bed.

Her phone began to ring and Taylor let it. She didn't want to talk on the phone right then. Then her cell phone rang and Gabriella's face popped up on the screen. Taylor sighed and hit Talk knowing that she'd have to listen to her someday.

"Hello?"

"Taylor, it's Gabriella," Gabriella said. She sounded as if she had been crying. "Did you hear about what happened?"

Of course Taylor heard what happened. It was between her best friend and the boy she loved. Can you say "obvious much?" "No. What happened?"

"Well, I told Troy we should go to a movie sometime," Gabriella sniffled hysterically. "And right after he said 'No'! He said 'Not now' or some other load of crap that I don't believe. How could he? After he kissed me?"

"Well, did he have a reason?" Taylor asked, spinning her shirt in circle around her finger. If only Gabriella knew, she wouldn't be so irrational. Wait. Did Gabriella even know?

"He just said 'Believe me, I want to but I can't' or something," Gabriella sniffled. "Why would he do that to me?"

"You might want to go ask him, Gabriella," Taylor said. She knew it wasn't her business to tell; Gabriella would have to find out for herself. "Go down to his house and talk to him. I'm sure he wants to explain!" Considering he thinks that it's okay for him to be beaten over what he did to you.

"I don't want to talk to that arrogant jerk!" Gabriella cried. "He'll just try to kiss and leave! Just like last time! Gosh, it made me so mad!"

"Well, I'm sure you handled it nice enough that he'll talk to you like a person," Taylor soothed.

"No!" Gabriella said. "I handled it like a stinkin' cheerleader; that's how mad I was!"

Taylor almost dropped her phone. "What do you mean?"

"Taylor, I slapped him!" Gabriella cried, once again in hysterics. "I was just so mad that I lost control and slapped him! …You should've seen his face, Tay. He looked so hurt. I didn't even hit him that hard!"

"It doesn't matter how hard you hit him," Taylor said as calmly as she could. "What you did was bad, Gabriella. Worse than you think. Go talk to Troy… but-uh- don't knock. Just walk in, okay?"

"Um… okay?" Gabriella said confused. "Thanks, Tay."

"Yeah."

They hung up. Gabriella stared amazed at the phone. What had she done? She ran around searching for car keys and a coat, not even bothering to get her license. She ran to the car and hopped in, starting it and driving madly off to Troy's house.

---

Gabriella parked in front of the Bolton house, noticing that Mr. Bolton's car was missing from the driveway. She shrugged and made her way to the door. As soon as she stepped up to it, she raised her hand to knock. But then, remembering Taylor's command, she just turned the knob and swung open the door, wishing immediately that she had never opened it in the first place.

Troy was collapsed on the ground; his shirt lay in a heap beside him. A belt lay feet away, thrown carelessly onto the wooden floor. Troy's back was adorned with bruises and they didn't seem to stop there. The purple, black, and blue ran around his entire torso and onto his arms and neck. Gabriella felt tears spring into her eyes and she cried, "Troy!"

She ran over and fell onto her knees beside him. Gently, she turned him over so that his battered back hit the floor. Troy moaned loudly, his eyes clamped tight. Gabriella looked mortified. She gently led his head so that it lay in her lap and she brushed stray locks of brown hair out of his face. "No, don't!" Troy begged. "Please!"

"No, Troy, it's me," Gabriella cooed. "It's me. It's Gabriella."

"Gabriella?" Troy's eyes snapped open. He looked at Gabriella's face, his own lined with guilt and pain. He let out a mortified whisper. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry about what?" Gabriella asked, her concerns that held her earlier were now specks in the past compared to this. "Never mind. Troy… I need to get you to the hospital. Come on."

"No!" Troy cried. With Gabriella's help, he pulled his torso off the ground and used his hand to prop himself up. "No! We can't go to the hospital and what-what are you doing here? What if he comes home?"

"What if… your dad comes home?" Gabriella asked. "He'd want to get help, too!"

"You don't know, do you?" Troy asked softly.

Gabriella shook her head, letting loose a few tears. Troy sighed and propped himself against the couch behind him. He winced and then said, "This was my dad."

"You mean… he… what?" Gabriella babbled.

"I know," Troy said. "It's hard to believe, but Gabriella, you have to get yourself out of here."

"I'm not leaving you alone, Troy!" Gabriella cried. "Who knows what would happen?"

"I do."

Jack Bolton smiled down on his son and his friend from the doorway.

Author's Note: He always seems to come at a bad time, huh? Now, this chapter, as you can probably tell, was sheer desperation for something to write so it was not my best. So sorry! Tell me your likes, dislikes, angers, hatreds, etc. Just click the Go button and type away! Thanks!