Dirty Little Lies
Disclaimer : What do you think i own? :P
Summary - Gabriella Montez finds herself lieing to get her man, but those lies have to catch up to her some how right? Who knew something as simple as age could tear people apart?
WARNING: T rated may be M later. Swearing and light drug/alcohol references.
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Trailer - On Youtube. URL/xsarahx111
A/N: Yes, the HSM crew may be slightly out of their original characters but thats how the story goes.
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SORRY FOR SPELLING
I don't really remember much about the drive to the hospital, but everytime i managed to drift off, Troy would put his hand on my knee, shaking me out of sleep and he kept talking all the time, asking me stupid questions and prodding me when i didn't answer. Then i was on my own in the car and it was like this battle between the tiredness and the pain and then finally i was on a trolley, the strip lights on the ceiling whizzing past as I was wheeled down a corridor. Someone jostled my arm and I cried out thinly, shutting my eyes because the brightness stung. When i opened them again it was because there was a light shining in my eyes with a doctor attached to it.
"Ah your back with us, that's good. Now, I need to know exactly what you've been up to?"
I might be a congenital liar but the doctor nearly had me beat. He wouldn't buy any of my bullshit. Not the falling off my bike story I conjured up on the spur of the moment and he certainly didn't believe me when i told him i was nineteen. He just held up a syringe full of this yummy painkilling liquid and refused to stick it in me until he got parental consent.
"What part of 'i'm old enough' do you not understand?" I demanded, and he and the nurse exchanged exasperated looks.
"I'm not giving you any of this until you start telling me the truth"
I bit my lip and was about to try a different approach when none other then Troy pulled back the cubicle curtain. "I'm her brother" He lied, tonelessly. "Our parents are overseas, do you want me to ruin their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary cruise and call them?"
I didn't even care i'd brought Troy over to the dark side, because what was in that needle, made everything stop hurting - Except my heart. Yeah, my heart ached and broke into millions of pieces all the way down to the x-ray departement and then all the way to the treatment room where two doctors popped my elbow back, emphasis on the pop. They wrapped my arm in gause and started plastering - and Troy hadn't left my side, but he looked like he wished he was at the bottom of the ocean. Like the distance between us was too great to overcome.
All that was left was to apply butterfly plasters to the cut on my head and the hand Troy a prescription and a leaflet about plaster care. "If i told you that i wanted you to stay in overnight for observation, would that register with you?" The doctor asked me. I shook my head decisively.
"She doesn't listen to anyone" Troy said quietly from the chair he was slumped in "You get use to it after awhile"
"I just want to go home" I said, wriggling down off the trolley. "Thankyou for looking after me" I added politely.
"Oh don't mention it" the doctor said dryly "I hope your parents enjoy that cruise" He had the nerve to do airquotes, but i didn't call him on it because Troy was standing up and wrapping his arm around me because i needed him.
I knew it was 2:27am because the clock on the wall of the hospital canteen said so, but it felt much later. It was that kind of wired that you get when you're dog weary but feel like you'll never be able to sleep again.
There was a mirror on the wall opposite me, taunting me with it's shiny surface so all i could do was rubberneck my own reflection. I looked exactly like i'd been in a car crash. My hair looked dead, with blood in it and all around dirt. My skin was looking strange and my eyes were sunken. Then there were little cuts all over my face, the angry gash mark across my forehead.
I forced myself to look away, and watched Troy walk towards me with a tray which had 2 coffees on it. He sat down, shunting a cup towards me.
"Thanks" I said, taking the cup and sipping the coffee.
"Does your arm hurt?" He was soo good at that note of concern that I could almost believe that he meant it.
I shook my head "Not really"
Silence
"So is this how it's going to be?" Troy asked me suddenly, his expression resolute.
"I don't get what you mean?" I wondered
"Don't worry then" He muttered rolling his eyes.
"Why did you lie for me...Back there with the doctors"
"Because you were in pain and you needed a shot and he wasn't going to give you one"
So he still cared about me? Or else he knew that the sooner they shot me up, the sooner he'd have me out of his life.
"Well, thanks. Sorry you got dragged into all of this, but i didn't know who else to call"
"Don't mention it" Troy said shortly.
I knew i was putting off the inevitable, He was going to leave me again. Maybe he'd give me a ride first but he didn't want to be with me.
"Excuse me darling?" I looked up from my coffee to see a vaguely familiar face...suddenly, i recognized her.
"Oh, hi" I muttered unwillingly
"You've broken your arm? That's a pity. And how's your dad and that little sister of yours?"
"They're fine, y'know. Everyone's good" I could tell that Troy was watching this exchange with great interest, like it was another piece in the puzzle. And God, she was pulling out the chair next to me.
"I've got five minutes before my breaks over" she said. "You and I can have a nice little chat. Is this your boyfriend?"
"No!" Troy and I snapped in union, and he didn't have to sound quite so emphatic about it. "He's just a friend who happens to be a boy. Allegedly"
Troy raised his cup in a mocking salute and the nurse, what was her name (Mary? Margie? Maggie?) shot me a conspiratorial look, like we were just having a lovers' tiff.
"I'm Marie" She said to Troy "I looked after this young ladies mom when she was in the hospital. Yes I remember you Gabriella"
"I'm Troy" They solemnly shook hands.
"Surprisingly, i have thought about you quite alot these past few years" she said "You got yourself in such a state. Never seen anything like it...i guess thats why i remember you."
"Yeah" I said, moving away slightly.
"I didn't mean to upset you" She said "But we all felt sorry for you - Losing your mom like that. Oh and your sister, poor little girl, we just couldn't get her to stop crying"
"She cried for, like, weeks" I said.
"But you, you didn't cry at all. We were all worried about that."
It was time for this horrific scenic trip down memory lane to end. "Yeah, well, aren't you going to be late?" I asked her, rather rudely.
She didn't look that pissed off because she was so big with understanding. Just gave me another one of those 'I get you' looks, which were starting to make me want to gag, and got up. "You take care of youself - Keep that arm elevated"
"Well, it's nice to meet you" Troy piped up when i made it plain that i wasn't going to say anything.
I waited until she waddled to the door, then shoved away my half empty cup and stood up. "I hate this place, i've got to get out of here" I spat "I can hardly breathe"
Troy caught up with me easily at the hospital exit. "Brie, Just hold on!" he pleaded, seizing my good wrist and hauling me to some spare chairs nearby. I literally hit Troy with my plaster cast.
"I mean it!" I shouted, struggling in his arms and making no effort to lower my voice. "I can't bear it! This place...the smell. The walls are closing in on me!" I paniced.
"Stop it!" Troy said, giving me the tiniest of shakes. "Just stop it and come here"
He pulled me down onto the seat, and held me tight so i couldn't wriggle free. I stilled instantly; it had been soo long since he had touched me like that. But his words weren't as soft as his hands, which gently turned my head so I had no option but to stare deeply into his pretty blue eyes.
"You tell me everything. Right now. Or i'm going to leave you here and I'm never going to see you again" His voice crackled with ice, ready to break under the slightest pressure.
So i started to talk. It was hard at first - the truth. I was rusty. But i found that it got easier and easier. I started on the family stuff - About my arguements with my dad and him finding out about Troy along with him taking my locket and kicking me out of the house. Which led on nicely as to why i had been at Taylors and why i had gone out that night. Then i began to talk about my lying to him - Why i had did it etc... But that was old ground, there wasn't much more to say.
It was as if Troy had sneakily arranged for that doctor to jab me with a truth serum, so i even told him about Jake and the things i had gotten up to with him, and his hand tightened painfully on my shoulder but he didn't say anything; just let me carry on the whole digging-my-own-grave soliloquy.
"...and then i made her call you" I finished miserably, my throat aching from it all.
"It's not everything" he reminded me, shifting me in his arms again so he could get another look at my face; So i couldn't hide. "You haven't told me about your mom, have you?"
"Please, don't..." I begged, shutting my eyes so I wouldn't have to look at him.
"Tell me"
So i did.
My mom had been in a car accident - Hit down by a drunk driver while sheilding me as we crossed the road. It had come straight for us as we began to cross, carrying the groceries home from our weekly shop. It had been just me and my mom - It was a tradition. She saw it first, the swerving car, the blinding headlights. It was heading straight for us. She pushed me forward, making me fall to the ground as the car hit her.. As i screamed and ran forward to see her, laying on the floor - The car drove away - Like it was that simple.
What i remembered more then anything that day though, was the beep of the monitors and the blinking numbers that measured her heart rate and her blood pressure. The plastic drips arranged next to the bed. One for drugs, one for fluid and one containing this sickly-looking brown liquid feed that was connected by a tube to her stomach.
She couldn't feed herself because she wouldn't wake up. But she wasn't asleep. Sleep was peaceful and she wasn't. Her mouth was stretched wide open for the tubes, her eyes open and unseeing although we told Elisa that she was looking at her.
We told Elisa alot of stuff. That she could hear her whe she said she loved her. And we told her that when she had periodic fits for some unknown reason, she was squeezing her hand tight because she knew she was there.
I don't think she knew anything. I think my mom had already gone and all that was left was her body that had become a battle field, that was fighting itself for each minute, each second that she stayed.
And Elisa and dad...They believed she was going to get better. Even though she had brain damage and liver had packed up so her pretty face became a gruesome shade of yellow that clashed with the purple bruises on her skin from the impact.
They wanted my dad to sign a DNR - Do Not Resuscitate. Do not recover. Do not return. He said, very calmly, that they wanted him to sign her life away and he wouldn't. Not even when those numbers on the monitors kept dropping, and the fits became more frequent, and she didn't open her eyes anymore.
I couldn't even sit in the intensive care ward. Couldn't watch her try to die. So i hung out in the relatives' room. Marie gave me a piles of magazines and I waded through them. At one point i looked around the room and noticed a lame picture of a sunset on the wall, with a verse from the Bible scrolling over it in a cursive script: 'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven'
My dad sat there, with his head in his hands after another showdown with the doctors about the DNR and I read it out to him. "It's pointless and cruel what your doing" I said "She doesn't want to be here any more even though her getting hit by the car wasn't her fault. You have to let her go"
I was right but it didn't give me any satisfaction. Not even when he borrowed this leaky pen off Marie and signed the forms with an angry flourish and a bleak look.
But still my mother lingered on and my whole world narrowed down to feeling helpless and guilty because she had saved me - Protected me in order to for me to live.
When the numbers on her machine began to fall they made me go sit with her and hold her hand because they were still pretending she could hear my voice. Elisa was clinging to my arm, hiding her face in my shoulder and crying when my dad stumbled through the door - Coming back from the hospital cafeteria. "Is she...?"
"No, she's still here" I said and he darted off to grab another chair.
We sat there, the three of us, with the curtains drawn around us, the monitor beeping and occasionally stuttering, which didn't mean anything because the nurse came and reset it. The numbers kept dropping and the doctor came in and told us that her kidneys were 'no longer viable' for some reason - Which at 13 i couldn't quite understand - and that her heart simply couldn't take the strain. She didn't even look like her anymore - She looked almost dead.
I could hear two people talking outside our cubicle, laughing about their plans for the weekend. I turned my head away from the monitor, started to rise so I could tell them to shutup when the beeping from the monitor became this one long, continuous punctuation of noise.
It was a terrible sound. Not the worst, though, because dad moaned, this gut-wrenching exhalation, and gathered up her broken, no longer viable body and started to cry. "My darling, my love, my love, don't leave me!"
I think Elisa was huddled under the bed because i could hear her sobbing and then there were doctors, nurses swooping down, but it was too late and i couldn't stand it for another second.
The big swinging doors made this satisfying bang as I sent them crashing back into the wall. All the way down that long, cruel hallway were more and more doors and they all banged as I pushed through them. It wasn't good enough. There was a neat row of chairs lined up outside the realtives' room but they scattered like birds when i kicked them - picked one up and sent it hurtling into the air.
All i could feel was this suffocating, blinding rage which made me want to lash out and scream because it was too big to be contained.
But when I got out of the ICU there was no where to go. I crawled into this little corner and that's where Marie found me an hour later, banging my fists into the wall.
My mom had saved my life...and now she was gone.
"And then she took me back to the relatives' room and Dad and Elisa were there because they were tidying her up and I just sat in this chair, next to him and I couldn't speak. 'Cause I knew that if I opened my mouth, I'd start screaming and I wouldn't ever be able to stop." I paused to take a few breaths before looking at Troy. "He was sitting next to me, hunched over and I remember thinking that he hadn't shaved in days and then he turned and he said in the really quiet voice so Elisa couldn't hear. 'I will never forgive you for this' I didn't really understand what that meant back then. But recently, its become clear."
Troy had been quiet up until then, holding my hand and squeezing my fingers, but now he let go and i was adrift "Why wouldn't he forgive you? For making him sign the DNR form?"
"Yeah, I think so and because she pushed me out of the way and took the blow from the car. Y'know?" I sat up straight in my chair because i didn't have Troy to lean on. I shook my head, pushing back the tears and deciding that crying would only make him pity me more. "So is it your turn yet?"
"My turn?"
"Yes! Its your turn to be honest with me!"
"I have been honest with you!" He protested indignantly but I wasn't going to let him get away with that.
"Has there ever been anything between you and Sharpay? Will you ever forgive me for what i did? Or are you just going to move on with your life?"
"First of all, there has never been anything between me and Sharpay. We are just friends. Secondly, I'm not sure if i can forgive you, you lied to me Gabriella after everything. Thirdly, im not sure Gabriella. My head so fucked up right now..." He said truthfully "I care about you Gabriella, despite what i said by the swings that day..."
"I don't want anyone but you, why can't you see that? You hate me Troy" I asked him
"No, i don't hate you.."
"No Troy, you do. I just hope you will stop hating me one day for those lies i told you.. I regret them more then anything"
"You may regret them Gabriella, but i don't think you understand the impact of them - Your lies...I could get in serious trouble if anyone else found out and reported it. Im twenty-one Gabriella, your sixteen and I slept with you. Its illegal in Alberqueqe"
"I know, ok its illegal to have sex at my age...But is it really illegal to love Troy? Is it illegal for you to love me just because im sixteen..." I asked him, looking at him deeply in the eyes.
"No..." He said "Its not. But its hard to forgive Gabriella..Especially when someone has hurt you soo bad"
I realised then, the severity of my lies. It had finally sunk in and I hated myself for it. I had hurt Troy - The one person i loved and i wouldn't be surprised if he never forgave me again...I was a horrible person.
I have become a complete stranger...
What you think? I hope this cleared up some stuff about her mom...This is why that chapter before was important. This story is rapidly nearing its end...:(
Now, please, please REVIEW!! I put alot of effort into this chapter and well... Its up to you.
THIS IS MY 3RD POST TODAY! I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAVE DONE THREE SO DON'T YOU THINK I DESERVE SOME PAY BACK. - Im sorry but for the next chapter, i need at least 20 reviews? xxx
LoveYou.../x
- Sarah